International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
November 23, 2018
No Fly List Kids and ICLMG on the Hill to push for a redress system
ICLMG & No Fly list Kids 19/11/2018 - O n Monday, our National Coordinator Tim McSorley was on the Hill accompanying the No Fly List Kids group for a whole day of meetings with MPs and Senators, such as Matthew Dubé and Jagmeet Singh, to push for a redress system for people who are mistakenly flagged by the No Fly List because someone with the same name is on the list. People like 5-year-old Alia Mohammed as well as dozens of other kids, toddlers and even babies. Alia is featured in the photo with their mom, Amber Cammish, and Greg Glenn, advisor to the group. The ICLMG is also calling for the complete removal of the No Fly List as it violates due process and mobility rights, is discriminatory and has not proven to be necessary. Send a message to your MP to support an immediate redress system as well as the removal of the No Fly List. Thanks! Source



Podcast featuring Tim McSorley: C onfronting the Canadian 'security' state
LegalEase CKUT August 2018 - In this edition we break down immigration detention and civil liberties as we discuss the case of Ebrahim Toure, Canada's longest-serving immigration detainee, and Bill C-59 (a follow-up to Bill C-51), "An Act respecting national security matters," as it is being debated in the Senate. Gwen speaks with Mac Scott, a member of No One Is Illegal Toronto and the Caranza LLP Law firm, about his work on Toure's case and the immigration detention regime in Canada. Then we hear from Tim McSorley, National Coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, who spoke with Amelia about Bill C-59, how it grants over-broad surveillance powers to CSIS, and other concerning powers it gives to the Canadian state. Listen - Écouter
Video: Thank you to our Patrons!
ICLMG 19/11/2018 - A little bit over a year ago, we launched our account on Patreon so individuals could support our work of protecting civil liberties in the context of the war on terror with monthly contributions. Monday was #ThankYouPatrons  day and we wanted to do a little something special for our patrons to thank them for their generous continuous support for ICLMG. Thank you! Watch & share - Visionner & partager
Muslim Students Speak Out About Being Targeted By Canadian Spy Agency
Vice News 19/11/2018 - A member of the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) at the University of Regina said a friend told him to avoid the club, as it was common for members to be contacted by the national spy agency. The student, who wishes to remain anonymous, dismissed his friend as paranoid—until the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) called him over the summer, asking to meet up at a coffee shop to chat.
The agent wouldn't tell him why, he said, and when he declined, the agent became frustrated and hung up. “I was like, what if I say something, or rub him the wrong way? Would that have a detrimental effect on me for the future?” the student wondered. He said he spent the next week going over “everything I've ever done”—any reason the national spy agency would call his cell phone. He eventually decided he probably wasn't in trouble, but the experience left him shaken. “Getting a call from Canada's spy agency, that's not something you take lightly,” he said. The coffee shop invitation is a common tactic used by CSIS, according to Leila Nasr, the communications coordinator for the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), to get information out of young Muslims on their friends or other MSA members they suspect might be radicalized. Muslim students are targeted by national law enforcement “all the time,” Nasr said. In the last four years the NCCM has dealt with cases at the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, York University, Dalhousie University and Carleton University. Read more - Lire plus 
Federal appeals court upholds ruling blocking CSIS from conducting certain forms of spying on foreign states
The Globe and Mail 19/11/2018 - In this case, the spy agency failed to provide the courts with “clear and explicit evidence as to the nature and location of the activities for which a warrant was sought,” according to Justice Laskin. The finding leaves in place a lower-court decision from July. In that decision, Justice Simon Noël granted CSIS a warrant to spy on a foreign power, but refused a request to lift traditional territorial restrictions on CSIS’s surveillance operations. No details about the specific targets or techniques were revealed in either ruling. The spy agency’s foundational laws state that its investigations shall take place only “within Canada.” These limits were meant to help “mitigate the political, diplomatic and moral risk of conducting foreign intelligence collection abroad,” Justice Noël had ruled. Government lawyers representing CSIS appealed that finding, saying it was a misinterpretation of the data-spying case they had presented. Earlier they had argued that a literalistic reading of the law had created “a foreign intelligence gap” and rendered the laws around important probes “obsolete or inoperable.” These arguments did not persuade the Federal Court of Appeal. In his heavily redacted ruling, Justice Laskin said the onus will always be on CSIS to communicate as clearly as it can to its judges. A court needs to “understand precisely what activities it is being asked to authorize, where those activities will take place, and what the impact of those activities might be,” he wrote. Read more - Lire plus
Trudeau plays cynical waiting game while children die in Yemen
Ceasefire 16/11/2018 - In February 2018 Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland addressed the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Minister Freeland singled out Syria as an egregious example of atrocities against civilians by the Assad regime. She raised cases of human rights abuses and lack of accountability in Venezuela, Egypt, Sri Lanka, and North Korea. But not a word about Yemen. Not a word about a conflict where civilians including children are repeatedly targeted by the Saudi-led coalition and where their illegal economic blockade has put 14 million Yemenis at imminent risk of starvation. The latest atrocities include Saudi troops firing on civilians demonstrating against the presence of foreign forces in their land and buses of fleeing citizens being targeted by air strikes. Yemen is not a theoretical case for Canada. Canadian-build armoured vehicles (called “light” but in fact heavily armoured) have been used by Saudi Arabia throughout its war in Yemen. The Toronto Star on Friday, 16 November carried this plea by the heads of three Canadian non-governmental organizations working in Yemen, Bill Chambers, President of Save the Children Canada; Julie Delahanty, Executive Director of Oxfam Canada; and Gillian Barth, President of CARE Canada: The time has long come for Canada to join countries like Germany, Belgium, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, and suspend its military assistance to parties to the conflict in Yemen. Yet, all we continue to hear from the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister are excuses for why Canada cannot end this unconscionable military assistance to Saudi Arabia. Jobs could be affected, penalties might be incurred, our reputation as a good supplier might be sullied. We say we are a global champion of human rights. But apparently that is only the case when there is no price to be paid by Canada, when we have no commercial interests in play, Peggy Mason says. Read more - Lire plus


The Intercept 21/11/2018 - Donald Trump on Tuesday  issued  a statement proclaiming that, notwithstanding the anger toward the Saudi Crown Prince over the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, “the United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region.” To justify his decision, Trump cited the fact that “Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world” and claimed that “of the $450 billion [the Saudis plan to spend with U.S. companies], $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors.” This statement instantly and predictably produced  pompous denunciations pretending that Trump’s posture was a deviation from, a grievous violation of, long-standing U.S. values and foreign policy rather than what it actually and obviously is: a perfect example – perhaps stated a little more bluntly and candidly than usual – of how the U.S. has conducted itself in the world since at least the end of World War II. The reaction was so intense because the fairy tale about the U.S. standing up for freedom and human rights in the world is one of the most pervasive and powerful prongs of western propaganda, the one relied upon by U.S. political and media elites to convince not just the U.S. population but also themselves of their own righteousness, even as they spend decades lavishing the world’s worst tyrants and despots with weapons, money, intelligence and diplomatic protection to carry out atrocities of historic proportions. After all, if you have worked in high-level foreign policy positions in Washington, or at the think thanks and academic institutions that support those policies, or in the corporate media outlets that venerate those who rise to the top of those precincts (and which  increasingly hire those security state officials  as news analysts), how do you justify to yourself that you’re still a good person even though you arm, prop up, empower and enable the world’s worst monsters, genocides, and tyrannies? Read more - Lire plus




Jailed Saudi women’s rights activists said to face electric shocks, beatings and other abuse
The Washington Post 20/11/2018 - Several women’s rights activists who have been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for more than six months have been subjected to psychological or physical abuse while in custody, including sleep deprivation and beatings, according to four people familiar with the conditions of the activists’ detention. Some of the abuse occurred during interrogations in which several of the women were administered electric shocks or flogged, two of the people said, citing a witness account. Other women displayed what witnesses said were apparent signs of abuse, including uncontrollable shaking or difficulty standing, the people said. The allegations of abuse and torture were impossible to independently confirm. Families are reluctant to repeat what they hear from the detainees during prison visits, fearing retaliation by the authorities. The four people who spoke about the abuse, all Saudi citizens, have contacts in the prison or had been briefed on conditions there. They spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern that revealing their names could identify the detainees. Asked to comment on the allegations, a Saudi official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in an emailed statement: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s judiciary system does not condone, promote, or allow the use of torture. Anyone, whether male or female, being investigated is going through the standard judiciary process led by the public prosecution while being held for questioning, which does not in any way rely on torture either physical, sexual, or psychological.” Amnesty International released a report Tuesday also saying that several of the Saudi activists detained since May have reportedly faced sexual harassment, torture and other forms of mistreatment while being interrogated. The report was released subsequent to The Washington Post’s independent interviews with the four people familiar with detention conditions. Read more - Lire plus

Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s “Asylum Ban,” Saying President Can’t Rewrite Immigration Laws
Democracy Now! 20/11/2018 - In the latest pushback against President Trump’s attack on immigrants rights, a federal judge in California has temporarily halted Trump’s asylum ban, which attempted to deny asylum to anyone entering the country from outside of a legal port of entry. Trump announced the move earlier this month, but Monday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar put a temporary halt on the order. Tigar wrote, “Asylum seekers will be put at increased risk of violence and other harms at the border, and many will be deprived of meritorious asylum claims. The government offers nothing in support of the new rule that outweighs the need to avoid these harms.” We speak with one of the lawyers who sued the Trump administration over the ban, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights Baher Azmy. Read more - Lire plus
At Gitmo 9/11 trial, prosecutor gives lurid details of CIA prisons. Defense says: Not enough
McClatchy DC Bureau 19/11/2018 - A Sept. 11 trial prosecutor on Thursday read aloud ghastly descriptions of what the CIA did to its prisoners: An alleged plot mastermind was taken nude from interrogation to a medical officer, who put fluids up his rectum then returned him nude to interrogation. Some captives were kept like “cowering dogs,” subjected to standing sleep deprivation, abdominal and facial slaps, in what one CIA agent called a “nightmare.” Prosecutor Jeffrey Groharing read the descriptions from various material his team had provided defense attorneys in a bid to get a new 9/11 trial judge, Marine Col. Keith Parrella, to restore the FBI interrogations of the alleged plotters that Parrella’s predecessor had  excluded from the trial. In August, the original trial judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, suppressed the information about the interrogations by FBI agents because prosecutors had blocked defense lawyers from speaking to CIA witnesses. Defense lawyers wanted a graphic description of black-site abuse to argue that the 2007 FBI interrogations at Guantánamo were tainted by the earlier torture. Without independent defense-team investigation, Pohl found, the defense lawyers would not have enough evidence to argue exclusion of the interrogations of alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other defendants at Guantanamo in 2007. So he suppressed them. Then Pohl handed off the case to Parrella and retired from 38 years in the military. [...] Defense lawyers for the men who went missing in CIA detention from 2002 and 2003 to 2006 want even more exacting eyewitness testimony. They want to argue that the United States has lost the moral authority to execute the alleged 9/11 conspirators, if convicted. Read more - Lire plus 

CIA explored using potential truth serum drug for post 9/11 interrogations
CNN 13/11/2018 - The CIA explored using a drug it believed could act like a truth serum to interrogate prisoners about possible terror attacks in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, according to a once-classified report made public Tuesday. A newly  released 90-page account  details the existence of a drug research program called "Project Medication" and discloses how the CIA's Office of Medical Services maintained an influential role in the development of detention and interrogation practices. Specifically, the documents reveal the CIA researched the possibility of using a psychoactive drug called Versed to interrogate high-level prisoners. "The history reveals that CIA doctors were hunting for a 'truth serum' to use on prisoners as part of a previously secret effort called Project Medication," American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Dror Ladin said in a statement, also noting records show that CIA doctors were "indispensable" to the effort of "legitimizing the program." The CIA determined that the drug was "considered possibly worth a trial if unequivocal legal sanction first were obtained" but ultimately opted not to ask government lawyers to approve the use of the drug. "The CIA studied records of old Soviet drug experiments as well as the CIA's notorious and discredited MK-Ultra program, which involved human experimentation with LSD and other drugs on unwitting subjects," Ladin said. Versed is a sedative typically prescribed to reduce anxiety but medical personnel at the CIA believed that it could also be administered to prisoners to influence their state of mind during questioning. [...] According to the ACLU, the newly released records support the idea that "CIA torture left a legacy of broken bodies and traumatized minds." And that lesson remains relevant today given President Donald Trump's  comments on the issue of torture  and CIA Director Gina Haspel's controversial record. Read more - Lire plus 
Justin Trudeau Conflating BDS With Anti-Semitism Is Dangerous
The Huffington Post 15/11/2018 - BDS is a  non-violent international movement  that calls on individuals and governments to put economic pressure on Israel to comply with international law regarding the autonomy, rights and welfare of Palestinians living under occupation. This movement fights Israel's policies, not the identity of its inhabitants, and no state's actions are beyond criticism. By conflating peaceful protest with hate crimes, Trudeau sends a dangerous message, and threatens to weaken Canadian campuses as democratic spaces for dialogue as well as dissent. Many university and college faculty members across the country were deeply disturbed by this part of Trudeau's speech. We quickly circulated an open letter expressing our dismay, which has collected 236 signatures in just four days. These include signatories in Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, as well as some Canadian scholars currently living abroad. As Canadian scholars, we urge Trudeau to retract his wrong-spirited comments that demonize the work students, community members and activists have done to bring about a just peace in Israel-Palestine. The letter appears below. [...] By equating the BDS movement with anti-Semitism, you help to perpetuate a chilling, anti-democratic climate on campuses, one in which dissenting voices and peaceful protest are not welcome. We also echo the sentiment of  Independent Jewish Voices Canada  (IJV), who note that "[t]his apology comes within a week of an announcement by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) of plans to substantially increase deportations of migrants by 25-35%." Read more - Lire plus 


Court rejects neo-Nazi’s free speech defense in SPLC case
SPLC 15/11/2018 - A federal judge has rejected neo-Nazi leader Andrew Anglin’s attempt to dismiss an SPLC lawsuit seeking to hold him accountable for orchestrating a campaign of terror against a Jewish woman and her family in Montana. Anglin claimed in court filings that he was simply exercising his free speech rights when he incited a virtual army of online followers to harass Tanya Gersh, a real estate agent living in Whitefish. The Gersh family, including Tanya’s 12-year-old son, received hundreds of intimidating and threatening messages, including emails, phone calls and postcards, over a period of months. Chief Judge Dana L. Christensen of the U.S. District Court in Montana accepted a magistrate’s earlier recommendation and ruled against Anglin on Nov. 14. The ruling means the case will proceed to trial. “This important ruling underscores what both we and our client have said from the beginning of this case – that online campaigns of hate, threats and intimidation have no place in a civil society and enjoy no protection under our Constitution,” said David Dinielli, the SPLC attorney leading the case. The suit accuses Anglin of invading Gersh’s privacy and intentionally inflicting emotional distress. It also outlines how his campaign violated the Montana Anti-Intimidation Act. Anglin operates a website called the Daily Stormer, which takes its name from the Nazi propaganda sheet Der Stürmer and is the leading white supremacist web forum in the country. Read more - Lire plus 
ACTIONS & EVENTS
Tell the Senate to Fix Bill C-59 before it's too late!
From mass surveillance to the No Fly List, the new National Security Act fails to undo past problems and brings in new powers that threaten our rights & freedoms. Send a message to the Senate that they need to fix Bill C-59.

Share on Facebook & Twitter .
Partagez sur Facebook & Twitter .
NEW Stop Mohamed Harkat's Deportation to Torture
Your letter will now also go to your Member of Parliament. If you've sent a letter already, please send a new one so more MPs act to protect Moe's life and end deportation to torture. If sent back to Algeria, Mohamed Harkat faces detention, torture and even death. No one should be deported to torture. Ever.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: Don't send the Rohingya back to genocide
Dear Prime Minister,

I am calling on you to immediately pressure the UNHCR in Bangladesh to stop facilitating the refoulement of refugees from Bangladesh.

Please do everything you can to stop this scandalous process of pushing Rohingya refugees back toward the ongoing genocide.
EVENT Who is using our data identities?
Sat, Nov 24, 2018 1:00-5:00 PM
Somerset West Community Health Centre, 55 Eccles St, Ottawa
Free

Who controls data, how it is used or ignored, can have significant short and long-term consequences on the participation and inclusion of various communities.
Join a community conversation and workshop with members of a wide variety of diverse communities to unpack the issues involved when it comes to data collection and usage.
Call on Justin Trudeau to ensure justice for Abousfian Abdelrazik
In September 2003, Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik was arrested in Sudan, while he was back in the country visiting his ailing mother. Over the next three years he was imprisoned for nearly 20 months and was held under house arrest for 12 months. He was denied a lawyer, and was never charged or brought before a judge. There were lengthy periods when he had no family or consular visits. During that time he was badly tortured in three different prisons. Not only did Canada fail to take steps to protect him, CSIS officials frequently obstructed efforts to secure his release. Those actions prolonged his detention, with no concern for the obvious risk of mistreatment he was facing.
Don’t invest my CPP contributions in Trump’s racist agenda
An investigation by the Guardian just revealed that the  Canada Pension Plan (CPP), is pouring millions of your pension dollars into the US private prison corporations that are executing Trump’s cruel and inhumane anti-immigration agenda. That’s your money.  If you’ve ever worked in Canada, you’ve paid contributions to the CPP fund. We can’t let our CPP contributions flow to corporations that are profiting from Trump’s cruel immigration policies.

Tell the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB): Stop investing our savings in private US prison corporations that are executing Trump’s cruel and inhumane anti-immigration agenda.
Parliamentary Petition: Release Edwin Espinal!
We call upon MPs to: 

- Urgently intervene in the case of Edwin Espinal, spouse of Karen Spring of Elmvale, arrested January 19, 2018, on trumped-up charges in the wake of popular protests; and

- Immediately ensure that Honduras release Espinal and four other political prisoners still held in inhumane maximum-security military prisons, and drop all charges against 22 political prisoners.
Remember January 29
On Jan. 29, 2017, a lone gunman entered a mosque in Quebec City and opened fire on dozens of Muslim-Canadian worshipers. By the time the shooting had ended, six had been tragically killed, and 19 more injured.  We, citizens and residents of Canada, call on the government of Canada to henceforth designate January 29th as a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia and other forms of religious discrimination  as per the report from Parliament's Heritage Committee.
Five Eyes: Save encryption
Ministers from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the U.S. have gone public with their plans for a huge attack on our personal security.

They want to force companies to crush the encryption that protects our private data and messages. But ordinary people need and use encryption every day, in everything from online banking to personal messaging in apps like WhatsApp.
Tell ministers to stop their attacks, and commit to protecting our privacy and security.
Iran: Release Saeed Malekpour!
Saeed Malekpour, an Iranian national with permanent residency in Canada, has been imprisoned in Iran since his arrest on 4 October 2008. In late 2010, he was initially sentenced to death for “spreading corruption on earth” in relation to a web programme he created for uploading photos which the Iranian authorities said was used on pornographic websites. This was an open source programme and Saeed Malekpour has maintained that the use of this web programme on other websites was without his knowledge. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2012.
MORE NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES
Criminalization of dissent
Criminalisation de la dissidence

Les opinions exprimées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de la CSILC - The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of ICLMG.
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