International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
March 29, 2019
RCMP’s Social Media Surveillance Symptom of Broad Threat to Privacy, Says BCCLA
The Tyee 26/03/2019 - It’s not surprising the RCMP is using sophisticated software to monitor the social media activities of Canadians, said Micheal Vonn, policy director of the BC Civil Liberties Association. But it is worrying, she said.
On Monday The Tyee revealed the existence of the RCMP’s “Project Wide Awake,” which monitors the social media activities of Canadians on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms. The program’s expansion last year with sophisticated monitoring software appears to undermine the RCMP’s 2017 claim to the federal Privacy Commissioner that the project’s surveillance was “reactive” — done to gather information after a crime was committed. he operation is now monitoring people’s online activities to see if they might commit a crime. “I’m not surprised, but only because I spend a lot of time in this world,” said Vonn. “For most people, to hear that the police may be collecting their social media offerings for analysis, for future crime, is pretty shocking.” But we’ve been heading in this direction for decades, Vonn said. Intelligence-based policing — the notion that if we have more information on citizens, we’ll have more effective policing — is in many ways uncontroversial, she noted. A segment of the population wants police to gather more information about others. “Oh good, watch those guys, we don’t like them,” said Vonn. But when people realize how much it could impact their own lives, they quickly become concerned, she said. Vonn said citizens are affected when police monitor ordinary, lawful dissent and then create risk profiles for various crimes. The results might be invisible, until we face increased scrutiny at borders or are denied the right to board flights. People won’t know why police decided they were a crime risk, she noted. The RCMP has refused to release its policies on social media monitoring, how the information is stored, whom it is shared with or how it is used. Vonn said that’s not acceptable. People should have a right to access policies about the state’s use of their data, she said. And privacy oversight should not depend on citizens making complaints — especially when they might not even know of programs like the RCMP’s Project Wide Awake. Read more - Lire plus

Finally getting it right on Omar Khadr
The Toronto Star 28/03/2019 - Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr has completed his sentence, an Alberta judge ruled on Monday. Justice Mary Moreau counted the nearly four years Khadr spent on conditional release toward his eight-year sentence. Omar Khadr is finally a free man. To a significant segment of the Canadian public, repatriation was enough of a compensation for Khadr and the financial settlement and apology given to him in 2017 by the government was an utter affront. In reality, this thought process comes either from a lack of knowledge or (for those who know what really happened) from a gaping void of empathy and justice. To all the people loudly clamouring against Khadr’s settlement, they probably couldn’t withstand a fraction of the horror that young man has undergone. Imagine being 15 years old and being thrown into Guantanamo. For one month. For 10 months. How about for 10 years? The best years of your life gone. The pain and suffering, indescribable. The scars, forever. A childhood snatched — twice. By those who took advantage of you from the land of your ancestry, and brainwashed you into becoming a child soldier at age 14, and by those from your adopted home – your birthplace, Canada – who decided to throw out the Charter of Rights in colluding to incarcerate and torture you while you were a ninth grader. News of this week’s ruling should be met with relief by Canadians, but human sympathy and common sense have taken a backseat to misplaced anger in this case. Largely driven by misinformation and political actors drumming up the “us vs. them” trope, the backlash against the government’s treatment of Khadr should really be about the denial of his basic human rights, unlawful imprisonment and inhumane torture, all while being a minor. Instead, when the Canadian government, in 2017, settled a lawsuit filed by Khadr with $10.5 million and a formal public apology, the reaction was anger and outrage. But the government’s settlement with Khadr was the right thing to do. The first thing done right, actually, in this whole tragic saga. And this week’s ruling granting Khadr’s freedom was the next step in serving justice in a case that had seen little of it. [...] On Canada’s treatment of Khadr and its utter violation of his rights and the injustice against him, the Supreme Court ruled that “Canada actively participated in a process contrary to its international human rights obligations and contributed to Khadr’s ongoing detention so as to deprive him of his right to liberty and security of the person.” In summarizing the wrongs committed against Khadr, the Supreme Court said “the interrogation of a youth detained without access to counsel, to elicit statements about serious criminal charges while knowing that the youth had been subjected to sleep deprivation... offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.” All these facts should be brought to light for the public again, and the “polls” that some conservative pundits have so giddily referred to should be conducted with the public knowing what really happened to Khadr. Armed with the right information, I think the majority of Canadians would agree that we as a country have finally gotten it right with Omar Khadr – even when many would speak loudly against it. Read more - Lire plus


Airstrike by Saudi-led coalition said to hit near Yemeni hospital, killing 8, including 5 children
The Washington Post 27/03/2019 - An airstrike, most likely by the Saudi-led coalition, hit near a rural hospital in northern Yemen, killing eight people including five children, according to the charity Save the Children, which supports the facility. Tuesday’s attack was the latest of many on nonmilitary targets that have killed thousands of civilians in the Middle East’s poorest nation. It came on the fourth anniversary of the Saudi-led coalition’s entry into Yemen’s civil war to support the internationally recognized government against northern rebels known as Houthis. The Saudi-led coalition, which is backed by the United States, is the only party in the conflict using warplanes, mostly American- and British-made fighter jets. “We are shocked and appalled by this outrageous attack,” Carolyn Miles, head of Save the Children, said in a  statement . “Innocent children and health workers have lost their lives in what appears to been an indiscriminate attack on a hospital in a densely populated civilian area.” Read more - Lire plus


Amira Elghawaby - New Zealand’s response to mosque massacre offers lessons for Canada
Global News 26/03/2019 - Like many people around the world, I am in awe of New Zealand’s prime minister. My admiration isn’t solely based on Jacinda Ardern’s graceful compassion — though that has provided a balm for so many of us who were deeply shaken by the horrific violation of human life and dignity in our most sacred of spaces. The deep sense of appreciation is also due to the fact that her actions — and those of her government — have stood in stark contrast to those that followed a terrorist attack here at home in which a terrorist similarly massacred six worshippers and injured many more in a Quebec City mosque in 2017. It’s instructive to look at how these two massacres played out in both these nations to better understand how our various levels of governments in Canada are failing to meet the challenge of growing far-right movements and the climate that nurtures them. It’s barely a week after the tragedy and Ardern has already called for a public inquiry into how the attacks could have even occurred. Here in Canada, there was no similar inquiry. Far from it. On the contrary, following the Quebec City attack, CSIS quietly conducted a “preliminary threat assessment” that was kept largely secret from the public regarding the threat of far-right extremists. While it reopened investigations into these movements in 2017, a 2018 public safety report on terrorism and extremism failed to identify these movements as a threat to national security, instead calling them more of a “threat to the fabric of Canadian society .” That same report also suggested that far-right groups in Canada are not openly promoting violence, when there is ample evidence of the opposite . And a public inquiry following the Quebec City attack would have offered immense value in helping better understand what led a young man to go on a shooting rampage of innocent worshippers. While we would learn that he had consumed a variety of far-right, white supremacist content online, an inquiry would most certainly have additionally shone light on media outlets that regularly trade in anti-Muslim tropes and narratives. In fact, for a brief moment following the killings, there were mea culpas from media personalities and politicians who spoke about how “words could cut like knives”. Those sentiments quickly dissipated and the status quo returned. Without any real accountability , there is little hope for change. The climate is so toxic that just a few weeks ago, some people were even celebrating the death of seven Syrian refugee children in a house fire in Halifax. Quebec’s own Premier, François Legault, has himself struggled to admit the existence of Islamophobia altogether. [...] Then there are the countless numbers of women across New Zealand who donned a headscarf, just as their prime minister did, to show support to the nation’s Muslim communities. This is perhaps the most jarring contrast of all — Quebec’s government wants to force women to either choose between wearing their headscarves or to work in the public service. The decade-long obsession around the wearing of the hijab in Quebec insinuates over and over again that religious minorities should not have the same rights and freedoms as other Quebecers. This entrenches systemic discrimination and fuels division. Read more - Lire plus









UK - Your local police force could download everything from your phone without your consent
Privacy International 27/03/2019 - Mobile phone extraction tools are devices that allow the police to download data from mobile phones, including: contacts; call data (who we call, when, and for how long); text messages; stored files (photos, videos, audio files, documents, etc.); app data (what apps we use and the data stored on them); location information; wi-fi network connections (which can reveal the locations of any place where we’ve connected to wi-fi, such as our workplace and properties we’ve visited). Some mobile phone extraction tools may also access data stored in the cloud instead of directly on our phones, or data we do not know exists or cannot access. For instance, mobile phones may contain data we believe was deleted. Mobile phone extraction tools are designed to access locked phones, although their ability to do this will depend on the phone and its operating system. Mobile phone extraction tools may access locked phones by exploiting security vulnerabilities in the phone. For that reason, the use of these tools may constitute a form of “hacking”. When police use these tools, they are making a choice to leave our phones insecure, which make them an easier target for attacks by other people. So if the phone is later returned to the owner, it may be unsafe for use. Read more - Lire plus
Toronto police tight-lipped on details around acquisition of controversial surveillance tool
The Toronto Star 26/03/2019 - Toronto police recently acquired controversial surveillance technology that sweeps up data on bystanders’ cellphones as well as that of criminal targets, but won’t say how many devices the service owns, when they were purchased, or how much they cost. A Toronto Police Service spokesperson says a nondisclosure agreement with the provider of the technology, known as IMSI catchers or “Stingrays,” prevents the force from releasing those details. Toronto police also did not provide answers to the Star’s questions on how the force will collect, store, access, or retain third-party data — the hundreds or thousands of citizens’ unique cellphone data that is swept up in addition to that of a criminal target — saying only that policies are still being developed, and will be in place before the device is used. Read more - Lire plus
Green Scare: How a Movement That Never Killed Anyone Became the FBI’s No. 1 Domestic Terrorism Threat
The Intercept 23/03/2019 - Behind the scenes, corporate lobbying laid the groundwork for the Justice Department’s aggressive pursuit of so-called eco-terrorists. [...] The fur and biomedical industries had spent years lobbying the Justice Department and lawmakers to go after eco-activists, who had damaged their property, held audacious demonstrations decrying their business activities, and cost them millions of dollars. When the planes hit the twin towers, industry groups seized on the opportunity to push legislation, and federal law enforcement ramped up pursuit of radical activists in the name of counterterrorism. So-called eco-terrorism became the Justice Department’s No. 1 domestic terror concern — “over the likes of white supremacists, militias, and anti-abortion groups,” as one senator pointed out at the time. Operation Backfire, which sent Dibee running, was the climax of the crackdown. “There was money, there was administrative support, there was management support,” said Jane Quimby, a retired FBI agent who worked on Backfire. The results were “an affirmation that given the resources that you need, and the support that you need, you can really make these things work.”In 2009, when a Department of Homeland Security intelligence report raised alarms about the rising threat of right-wing extremist violence, it provoked a very different response. After outcry from conservative groups, DHS backtracked on the report and later disbanded the domestic terrorism unit that produced it. Daryl Johnson, a former domestic terrorism analyst at DHS, says there’s a reason law enforcement took a less aggressive approach to right-wing white supremacists and anti-government attackers. In the case of the eco-extremists, the government had a powerful ally: industry. “You don’t have a bunch of companies coming forward saying I wish you’d do something about these right-wing extremists,” said Johnson, who left his position in 2010, after his warnings about right-wing violence were dismissed. “If enough people lobbied congresspeople about white nationalists and how it’s affecting their business activity, then I’m sure you’ll get legislation.” Now, in the wake of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the murder of counterprotester Heather Heyer by white supremacist James Alex Fields, past and current Justice Department officials have argued that a new domestic terrorism statute is necessary to better respond to far-right violence. But law enforcement and federal prosecutors already have powerful counterterrorism authorities at their disposal, and their history of using them to go after radical activists who committed property crimes suggests that any new crackdown is likely to sweep up far more than domestic extremists who pose a lethal threat. No new law was required to treat eco-saboteurs as terrorists in the wake of 9/11. Of 70 federal prosecutions of radical environmentalists and animal rights activists identified by The Intercept, 52 did not result in charges under anti-terrorism laws. Yet the defendants were repeatedly called terrorists by the Justice Department in public statements and internal communications. The designation opened up additional resources and gave the government powerful leverage in the form of terrorism sentencing enhancements, which prosecutors sought in more than 20 cases. Meanwhile, in the remaining 18 cases, prosecutors applied an anti-terrorism law written with the help of industry that was designed exclusively to target animal rights activists. Six cases involved activists releasing mink and vandalizing fur facilities, and six involved individuals accused of encouraging radical acts like sabotage but not participating in any themselves. Four of the cases involved activists protesting outside researchers’ homes and were dismissed because the allegations were too vague. Read more - Lire plus
Fear of Black Homeland: The Strange Tale of the FBI’s Fictional “Black Identity Extremism” Movement
The Intercept 23/03/2019 - The only connection between the men referenced in the FBI’s “black identity extremism” report, besides their race, is a thread of anger at police violence. The “black identity extremism” report was prepared by the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Analysis Unit, part of the bureau’s Counterterrorism Division, and was distributed to scores of local and federal law enforcement partners across the country. Although Davis and Baldwin were not charged under anti-terrorism laws, they do appear to be the first individuals retroactively labeled by the FBI as “black identity extremists.” The FBI report was written six months into the Trump administration — as white supremacist groups felt emboldened by support for their ideology seemingly coming from the very top of the government — and was released only a week before the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a white nationalist ran down and killed Heather Heyer. When the report was leaked to Foreign Policy later in 2017, it prompted fierce and widespread criticism from activists , civil rights advocates , and lawmakers , many of whom accused the FBI of reverting to the surveillance and sabotage of black activists that had defined its activities in the civil rights era. Critics called the report’s contents “ fiction ,” “ fantasy ,” “weak” and “irresponsible.” Several noted that it seemed designed to distract attention from the reality of police abuse against minorities. “The feds have invented a title — BIE — and linked it to a handful of episodes of violence,” wrote Andrew Cohen , a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. “To deflect legitimate criticism of police tactics, to undermine a legitimate protest movement that has emerged in the past three years to protest police brutality, the FBI has tarred the dissenters as domestic terrorists, an organized group with a criminal ideology that are a threat to police officers.” Yet even more worrisome than the report’s political implications is the immediate threat to life that labeling someone a “terrorist” can pose, especially as the FBI has no way to monitor what law enforcement departments do with the reports it distributes. For many black people, already accustomed to being uniquely vulnerable to police violence, the fear is that being viewed as potential terrorists for expressing legitimate political grievances might give police license to target them even more intensely than they already do. “Not only can they go after these people with surveillance, but they can then justify using the most aggressive, violent tactics,” said Justin Hansford, a St. Louis activist and law professor who heads the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University. “Whenever you create an assumption that somebody poses a physical threat to law enforcement, that provides incentive for law enforcement to shoot first and ask questions later.” Read more - Lire plus
Terrorism's Double Standard: Violent Far-Right Extremists Are Rarely Prosecuted as Terrorists
The Intercept 23/03/2019 - James Alex Fields Jr. [who killed Heather Meyer by driving into a crowd of anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Carolina in August 2017], a 20-year-old from Ohio who had been open about his racist views since high school, had marched in Virginia with the white supremacist group Vanguard America. He was charged in Virginia state court with murder and in federal court with hate crimes. He was not charged as a terrorist, despite then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions having initially described the Charlottesville attack as meeting “the definition of domestic terrorism.” In announcing Fields’s federal indictment 10 months later, however, Sessions avoided using the word “terrorism” altogether, saying instead that the Justice Department remains “resolute that hateful ideologies will not have the last word and that their adherents will not get away with violent crimes against those they target.” An Intercept analysis of federal prosecutions since 9/11 found that the Justice Department has routinely declined to bring terrorism charges against right-wing extremists even when their alleged crimes meet the legal definition of domestic terrorism : ideologically motivated acts that are harmful to human life and intended to intimidate civilians, influence policy, or change government conduct. If Fields had been a Muslim aligned with an international terrorist group, the Justice Department almost certainly would have handled his case differently. According to The Intercept’s review , 268 right-wing extremists prosecuted in federal court since 9/11 were allegedly involved in crimes that appear to meet the legal definition of domestic terrorism. Yet the Justice Department applied anti-terrorism laws against only 34 of them, compared to more than 500 alleged international terrorists. Read more - Lire plus


Sending in the Troops
Jacobin 28/03/2019 - Emmanuel Macron’s decision to mobilize troops on Saturday 23, in a bid to hold back the Paris gilets jaunes demonstrations, was a move unseen in France since the great strikes of 1947–48. In fact, across recent years, we have seen a gradual criminalization of social movements and the rolling-back of civil liberties. And as a man without either limits or historical memory, president Macron has just taken things to a new level.It’s worth acknowledging just how grave his move was. The announcement of the decision to reinforce the “Sentinel Mechanism” — deploying between seven thousand and ten thousand soldiers in Paris to hold back possible gilets jaunes protests — marks a historic rupture in the French republican order. Such a reading is only confirmed when we see the theater surrounding the decision, as the government sought to ram home what it was doing. This was a measure taken by Macron personally — he emphasized — which was then announced to the cabinet. Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux explained “We cannot let a tiny violent minority wreck our country and damage France’s image abroad.” The decision came at the end of several days of public statements by both the head of state and his interior minister. They promised to cast lightning bolts against future protesters, in the wake of the serious clashes on the Champs-Élysées the previous Saturday. The executive thus opted for a direct standoff between the army and the people. One MP from Macron’s own party, quoted in Le Monde , warned “You want public order? That implies going onto the offensive. We may fear people being wounded or even killed.” It’s hard to tell if we are still in France, here. Imagine if far-right Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini said such things or took such measures, or if Hungary’s nationalist prime minister or Vladimir Putin in Russia did the same. There would be an immediate outcry. In fact, the package of measures used, Operation Sentinel, is an anti-terrorism mechanism. It is supposed to protect the population against various kinds of attacks. But its responsibilities are very specific and the framework for an intervention is carefully delimited. Yet today this anti-terrorism measure is instead used against a social movement and against demonstrators — without this sparking any vast wave of indignation. In the meantime, the executive has been striving to win the battle over words: the demonstrators have been called “seditious,” a “hateful mob,” “brutes,” and now “rioters” who want to “overthrow the Republic.” Never lacking for arrogance, Ségolène Royal [a leading member of the Socialist Party] gave a fine summary of what ruling circles are thinking, or indeed saying to each other: “I wondered why it hadn’t been done earlier … Sure, the black bloc are not terrorists, but they do sow terror. So it’s the same thing.” Jean Jaurès — a Socialist leader in a quite different era — described this same battle over words back in 1912: “One of the bourgeoisie’s classic moves when a word has stopped frightening people is to bring up another… For a generation the bourgeoisie believed that it was enough to denounce the risk of ‘socialism’ in order to make the country afraid. But when it got used to socialism, it was time to use the word ‘sabotage’ instead.” The result of all this is that the black bloc have won: they’ve shown what they wanted to. Their strategy, in organizing a systematic confrontation with the forces of order, is and has always been to show that the deeper nature of any capitalist state is authoritarian and dictatorial. And here we are, with the state mobilizing troops to restrain (and the better to repress) a social movement now considered an “enemy within” — which, as several bills remind us, is the only reason the army can be deployed on French soil. Read more - Lire plus




Ground-Breaking Federal Court Hearing over Canadian Mining Diplomacy and Assassination of Mexican Community Leader
MiningWatch Canada 26/03/2019 - On Monday, family members of Mariano Abarca – a Mexican community leader who was murdered for speaking out about the negative impacts of Blackfire Exploration’s barite mine in Chicomuselo, Chiapas, almost ten years ago – attended a hearing in the Federal Court of Canada. The Abarca family seeks a full and impartial investigation into the acts and omissions of the Canadian Embassy in Mexico while it lobbied in favour of Blackfire in the lead-up to Abarca’s assassination, which the family believes heightened the danger he faced.Mariano Abarca’s brother and one of his sons were present for the hearing and are signatories to the request for judicial review. Over 20 members of the Ottawa community rallied outside the Court in solidarity with them prior to the hearing. “We have no doubt that Mariano was killed for speaking out about the environmental and social impacts of Blackfire’s mine. We also believe that the Canadian Embassy in Mexico bears responsibility for pressuring Mexican authorities to back the company and quash community protests, even when they knew that Mariano’s life was at grave risk. Contrary to the weak attempts by the Canadian government’s lawyer to argue that our complaint is speculative, there is abundant evidence and we hope that the court will demand a serious investigation into the case,” remarked Uriel Abarca, Mariano’s brother. The complaint is based on extensive documentation obtained from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (now Global Affairs Canada) through Access to Information requests that reveal the essential role the Canadian Embassy played in facilitating the operations of Blackfire Exploration in Chiapas from start-up and even after the mine was suspended for environmental violations, days after Mariano Abarca’s murder on November 27, 2009. The family filed for judicial review in May 2018, after the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner (PSIC) refused to investigate their complaint. The PSIC denied the investigation stating that embassy officials could not have erred, since he concluded that government policies regarding corporate social responsibility and the embassy’s role in mining conflicts that were posted online or cited in testimonies to parliament were not “official”. Read more - Lire plus
Justin Brake’s case a win for journalistic freedom
APTN 28/03/2019 - Today’s decision by the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal is a victory not only for Justin Brake, but for all journalists covering demonstrations, particularly those led by Indigenous peoples. The 29-page decision sided with news media and dealt a blow to parties using injunctions to keep journalists away. “This is ground breaking because the law wasn’t clear on it before,” said St. John’s lawyer Erin Best, who represented the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), which had intervenor status in the case. “This will have an impact right across the board for journalists who are covering any kind of situation where there’s been an injunction issued.” The case turned on a last-minute decision by Brake to stay with protesters at Muskrat Falls, a controversial Labrador-based hydroelectric project, for the online news agency The Independent in October 2016. The protesters – or land protectors – were mostly Indigenous people worried about the impact on their health and land. Brake was charged criminally with mischief and disobeying a court order after he followed the group, who broke a lock on a gate and entered Nalcor Energy property on Oct. 22. Brake embedded with the group to report on their actions until Oct. 25 when Nalcor —Newfoundland and Labrador’s Crown energy corporation— named him on a court injunction, but failed to identify him as a working journalist. Brake also faced civil contempt proceedings in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court, based on the same set of facts. [...] Judge Derek Green, writing for a three-member appeal court panel, said Brake was simply doing his job and not breaking the law. Read more - Lire plus
Turkish photojournalist Cagdas Erdogan to stand trial on terrorism charges
The Art Newspaper 25/03/2019 - Cagdas Erdogan is due to stand before a judge in Caglayan, Turkey’s highest court on 26 March. The 27-year-old photographer is accused by the Turkish government of terrorism. If the prosecution gets its way, Erdogan will not be granted his freedom until close to his 50th birthday. On a video call from his home in Istanbul, Erdogan said: “I am trying to be rather cold-blooded about the trial. But I’m tense. It’s difficult to concentrate on anything else.” [H]e is accused by the Turkish government of “creating continuous propaganda” for and “being a member of” and “working as an administrator for” the PKK. Erdogan’s imagery of the conflict has been published by media organisations including the Guardian, the New York Times, the Telegraph, Associated Press and Getty. According to Turkish government prosecutors, the publication of this imagery amounts to propaganda for the separatist group. They’re seeking a prison sentence of more than 22 years. But Erdogan’s crimes, he says, extend no further than trying to tell the truth. “If the legal process were lawful and rational, I would be acquitted on the first day,” he says. “I’m in a Kafkaesque loop. The whole process is irrational.” An early image from Cold Summer was distributed by Getty on 26 February 2016, before being picked up by the Guardian. Shot in Nusaybin, a town that straddles both Turkey and Syria, the image shows a Kurdish militant in a domestic living room. His head is wrapped in a kufiya and he holds a rocket-propelled grenade. White doves fly above his head. “I see the image as a symbol of peace, and as a sign of the futility of war,” Erdogan says. “But a pro-government media outlet targeted me in a prime-time news show and accused me of terrorism. That incident provoked the whole judicial process.” Erol Onderoglu, the Turkish representative for Reporters Without Borders, is also facing a potential 14-year prison sentence for apparent support of terrorism in the Kurdish territories. He tells The Art Newspaper: “The case of Cagdas Erdogan perfectly reflects the ongoing judicial abuses against photojournalists in Turkey. Turkish correspondents are routinely accused of terrorism as a result of new and entirely disproportionate anti-terror legislation. The publication of any pictures of PKK fighters—particularly when they’re defined as militants, rather than explicitly as terrorists—means the photographers themselves are accused of direct affiliation.” Robert Mahoney, the deputy executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, says: “Erdogan is being punished for being a journalist whose work the authorities don’t want published.” Read more - Lire plus
Two of the Snowden Refugees arrive in Canada
For the Refugees 25/03/2019 - Dear friends, Something amazing is happening, and we wanted you to be the first to know. After over seven years in limbo in Hong Kong, Vanessa Rodel and her daughter Keana are on their way to Canada to start a new life. Their plane touches down in Toronto this evening and from there they’ll fly to Montreal tomorrow, where they will settle. It isn’t all happy news. The other five Snowden refugees, including two other young children, are still stuck in Hong Kong waiting for the Canadian government to process their applications. So we need to keep the pressure on and demand the Trudeau government expedite their applications. Read more - Lire plus

UK 'Schedule 7' stops in violation of human rights, European court rules
Middle East Eye 28/02/2019 - British counter-terrorism laws allowing police and immigration officials to detain and question people at ports and airports violated human rights and lacked sufficient legal safeguards, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. In a judgment published on Thursday, the court ruled unanimously that the use of Schedule 7 powers to question Sylvie Beghal, a British resident who was returning to the country after visiting her husband in prison in France in 2011, had violated her right of respect for her private and family life and had not been "in accordance with the law". The court also said that use of the stop, search and question powers had “not been sufficient subscribed and nor were there adequate legal safeguards against abuse”. “In particular, people could be subjected to examination for up to nine hours and compelled to answer questions, without being formally detained or having access to a lawyer,” the court said in a statement. It said that the broad scope of the powers, which did not require border officials to demonstrate that stops were based on a “reasonable suspicion” that someone might be involved in terrorism, had made it hard to review the exercise of the powers. Read more - Lire plus
'The Case Is Finally Over': Charges Dropped Against All Remaining J20 Defendants
Common Dreams 15/03/2019 - Charges against the remaining J20 protesters with no plea deals who were awaiting trial were dropped Friday with prejudice—meaning proscecutors can't try them again for the 2017 protest. Hundreds of anti-Trump protesters were arrested on Jan. 20, 2017, for protesting the inauguration of President Donald Trump. The prosecution of the group—using felony charges against protesters and journalists—has been criticized by rights groups and failed miserably in court. Friday's ruling by D.C. Superior Court Chief Judge Robert Morin, which ordered the charges dropped with prejudice, shuts the door completely on the case. In a brief interview with Common Dreams, former J20 defendant Dylan Petrohilos said that the dismissal affected every defendant save those whose cases had already gone to trial and those who took plea deals. "If you did not take a plea, your charges cannot come back," said Petrohilos. "Which shows the strength of collective defense." In an interview with Common Dreams, Sam Menefee-Libey, member of the DC Legal Posse, said that the group welcomed the decision but there's still work to be done."We're glad the court came to their senses," said Menefee-Libey. "We will keep pushing for accountability for both the Metropolitan Police Department and the US Attorney's office." 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 .
All-in-one action page: Stop Mohamed Harkat's Deportation to Torture
Call PM Trudeau, write a letter to Public Safety Minister Goodale & your MP, and sign Sophie Harkat's petition to stop the deportation of Moe Harkat. If sent back to Algeria, Moe faces detention, torture and death. No one should be deported to torture. Ever.
OPP must be held accountable for violent repression of land defenders
The terrifying incident happened in April 2008 during a land occupation and road blockades by members of Tyendinaga Mohawk Nation, near Belleville, Ontario. Although the road blockades involved only a small number of community members – none of whom were armed -- the Ontario Provincial Police sent more than 200 officers, including the Tactics and Rescue Unit (TRU), tasked with responding to “the most serious threats to peace and order”. 

There has never been any formal, independent review of how and why the police response went so badly wrong. In December, the UN Committee against Torture called on Canada to address this glaring gap in police accountability by ensuring that a thorough and impartial review is finally carried out.
Respectez les droits des migrant.es!
Migrer ou mourir. Des milliers de personnes d'Amérique centrale, y compris des familles, ont été forcées de quitter ce qu'elles connaissent et aiment pour trouver la sécurité et une vie meilleure pour leurs enfants. Elles ont marché pendant des semaines vers les États-Unis pour échapper aux menaces, à la violence et à une pauvreté extrême - non par choix, mais par obligation.

Mais Donald Trump et son administration travaillent dur pour s’assurer qu’ils ne pourront pas rechercher la sécurité aux États-Unis.
Les droits humains ne dépendent pas du document que vous possédez ou de votre nationalité. Ils appartiennent à tout le monde.

Signez cette pétition pour soutenir les personnes et les familles en quête de protection.
Tell China to close its secret ‘re-education’ camps for ethnic minorities
It is estimated that up to one million people - predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities - are being arbitrarily detained in “de-extremification" camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Among them are Uighurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minority groups whose religious and cultural practices are key to their identity.
The detentions appear to be part of an effort by the Chinese government to wipe out religious beliefs and aspects of cultural identity in order to enforce political loyalty for the State and the Communist Party of China.
Make January 29 a National Day
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. 

 W e, 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 or a National Day of Action against Hate and Intolerance .
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.
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: Free 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
Les opinions exprimées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de la CSILC - The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of ICLMG.
THANK YOU
to our amazing supporters!
We would like to thank all our member organizations, and our patrons who are supporting ICLMG on Patreon ! As a reward, we are listing our patrons who give $10 or more per month (and wanted to be listed) directly in the News Digest. Without you, our work wouldn't be possible!

Kathryn Dingle
Mary Ann Higgs
Kevin Malseed
Brian Murphy
Bob Stevenson
Chantal Vallerand

Nous tenons à remercier nos organisations membres et toutes les personnes qui soutiennent la CSILC sur Patreon ! En récompense, nous nommons ci-dessus nos mécènes qui donnent 10$ ou plus par mois directement dans le News Digest. Sans vous, notre travail ne serait pas possible!
 
Merci!