International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
April 5, 2019
Tim McSorley's comments on Globe article: " Canada, U.S. move to redraft border treaty to cut flow of asylum seekers"
Twitter 01/04/2019 - Over the past few months, many pundits have said, "Don't worry, the US will not want to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement, so it doesn't matter what Canadian politicians say." Now it's happening though, and those trying to seek safety and justice will be forced to return to the US, which is set on accepting as few asylum seekers as possible - if the Liberal government, pushed by the Conservatives, have their way. This change to the Safe Third Country Agreement would be a win for those who stoke the unfounded fear that migrants are a "security threat", an "economic burden" or "queue jumpers". Read more - Lire plus

Why is my child on a terrorist watchlist?
The Globe and Mail 01/04/2019 - “Am I a terrorist, Mommy?” I’ve managed to dodge this question for a few years now. My son, who has a Muslim name and has been falsely flagged on Canada’s no-fly list since he was a baby, just turned four years old. The day he starts asking these questions is approaching. [...] Bill C-59, a proposed national security package that includes a redress system for Canadians whose names falsely match people on the no-fly list, may control for false positives. But it will do nothing to undo the damage, or prevent further damage, caused by more than a decade of dehumanizing Muslim Canadians, which has systemically reinforced and normalized Islamophobia. There are children who have been flagged since they were in strollers and are now entering adulthood. The damage resulting from profiling, stigmatizing and limiting the mobility of these affected youth for the duration of their childhood is irreversible. [...] Part 6 of Bill C-59, which provides the redress system, is the absolute least the government should be doing. Frustratingly, getting this bare minimum has been an uphill battle. It took years of lobbying to get a redress system prioritized in the federal budget. But the legislation required to carry out the project was created not as a standalone bill (which would have been a no-brainer given the cross-party support) but as part of an omnibus national-security bill. It lives inside a large piece of contentious legislation that civil-liberty groups like ICLMG criticize for its increased threats to Canadians’ rights [...] If the bill receives royal assent, we still have no reassurances that a redress system will remain funded and prioritized, or be implemented effectively, particularly given the uncertainties of the upcoming federal election. The lack of prioritization of this issue in general means that as many as 100,000 innocent Canadians will continue to be treated like second-class citizens. The threat that one of our children will become the next Maher Arar – the Canadian who was wrongly detained in a New York airport in 2002 and later tortured in Syria – is always looming. Because Muslim Canadians are disproportionately affected, ignoring this issue sends the dangerous message that their community is not a priority and that their livelihood and rights are not valued. The fact that we must plead for a redress, with no guarantees, for those who are helplessly entangled in a national-security program criticized for its systemic racism and lack of evidence of its effectiveness is infuriating. Canada envisions itself as a cultural mosaic, boasting of its diversity and respect for multiculturalism, but these are meaningless claims when our children remain targeted on terrorist watchlists. Read more - Lire plus


RCMP Has Yet to Complete Privacy Assessment on Social Media Surveillance Tech
The Tyee 29/03/2019 - More than a year after the RCMP started using new technology to monitor Canadians’ social media use — and nearly two years after it purchased the surveillance software — it still hasn’t completed the required privacy impact assessments. An RCMP spokesperson said the “Project Wide Awake” program is still in the design stage — which is short of “official” implementation that requires a report on effects to personal privacy. Micheal Vonn of the BC Civil Liberties Association isn’t surprised. She said a claim that a project is in the design stage is typical of the steps that police use to dodge public accountability checks for new technologies. Project Wide Awake, first reported by The Tyee, is an RCMP initiative to monitor Canadians’ social media use. The initial claimed use was to respond to existing criminal investigations, but the RCMP expanded the program to use monitoring to prevent potential crimes. The RCMP has been using social media monitoring software since at least February 2018. But the force has classified the project as in a “design phase” while it is taking steps towards officially implementing it, it stated. Canada’s Privacy Commissioner guidelines state that departments “must submit final PIA [privacy impact assessments] before they implement programs or services.” The measure is a safeguard to ensure privacy impacts are assessed before programs are in place. The institution must also prepare a publicly available summary of its findings on the assessments. The RCMP told The Tyee this month that Project Wide Awake was in the design stage. But it also confirmed the software had been available to the RCMP for criminal investigative and intelligence purposes for more than a year. And in July 2017, when the Privacy Commissioner asked the RCMP to list surveillance technologies it used, the force identified the Project Wide Awake monitoring program. Read more - Lire plus

Digital device privacy at the Canadian border
rabble.ca 02/04/2019 - Our digital devices -- like cell phones, laptops, and hard drives -- contain some of our most personal, private information. Photos, emails, browser history, call records, social media posts, text messages, as well as apps for banking, personal health, and so much more -- they can all reveal extraordinarily private information about a person. It's no wonder that most people would think twice before handing their phones over to anyone. But that's not how Canada's border laws see it. In fact, the law currently classifies digital devices as "mere goods" -- the same classification given to ordinary luggage like a bag of T-shirts. The courts interpret our legislation to mean that customs agents can search your devices without even any suspicion. And worryingly, many of the guidelines that agents use come from operational bulletins, instead of laws from the Customs Act. This means that in much the same way as a border guard can go through the clothes in your luggage, they can thumb through the personal contents of your phone. It's an offence to refuse to co-operate, including the possibility of arrest for refusing to disclose passwords. To you and I, it may seem clear that there's a huge difference between the things we put in our suitcases, and the contents of our phones and laptops. But simply put, the laws that govern these kinds of searches were created long before it was common to carry tiny devices that are capable of storing thousands of images, messages and files, and they have not been updated to reflect the rapid evolution of our modern electronic devices. That's not to say that our government hasn't been pressured to change these laws. Canada's own ethics committee, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, produced a report with a series of recommendations on privacy at the border in December 2017. Chief among them were: That the guidelines to searching devices which customs agents work from be made transparent and written into the Customs Act; to replace the threshold for searching devices to reasonable grounds to suspect, and that the Government of Canada begin tracking how many devices are searched and provide this information to the Privacy Commissioner. And yet even of these modest recommendations, only one has been accepted: the recommendation to track and report on device searches at borders and airports. Our government's inaction on this serious issue needs to change, and it needs to change fast. Read more - Lire plus

Ontario court refuses to order accused to unlock his smartphone
The Canadian Privacy Law Blog 01/04/2019 - Not sure how I missed this one when it came out in January... The Ontario Court of Justice has refused to order an accused to unlock his smartphone or to provide the crown with the password for the device. In R v Shergill, 2019 ONCJ 54 , the Crown made an application for a search warrant for a phone seized from the accused. The interesting part is that the Crown also sought an assistance order under s. 487.02 of the Criminal Code . Notably, the application was not made ex parte so the accused was able to make submissions. The Crown argued that the accused's Charter rights were not engaged. [...] The Court decided in favour of the accused, finding that this order would engage the accused's right to silence and the protection against self-incrimination. The Court wrote: [21] In my view, the more significant principle of fundamental justice at stake is the right to silence. This right emerged as a component of the protection against self-incrimination in R. v. Hebert in which McLachlin J. (as she then was), held: If the Charter guarantees against self-incrimination at trial are to be given their full effect, an effective right of choice as to whether to make a statement must exist at the pre-trial stage… the right to silence of a detained person under s. 7 of the Charter must be broad enough to accord to the detained person a free choice on the matter of whether to speak to the authorities or to remain silent. [...] The Court then discussed some of the challenges that law enforcement are facing in light of new technology and encryption in particular. Though there is always a compelling public interest in the investigation and prosecution of crimes, the final balancing came down on the side of the accused's liberty interests under s. 7 of the Charter . Read more - Lire plus
Whistleblower Edward Snowden calls on Canada to help the refugee families who helped him
CBC 03/04/2019 - The paperwork requesting asylum from Canada was filed in early 2017 and Snowden says their situation is dire. He says the families will be deported to Sri Lanka where they where they claim to face torture and death threats. He is enormously grateful that Rodel and Keana are here, but says there is clearly something preventing the other five from being immediately brought to Canada, too. "If this process is independent, If it's truly independent, they already would have been admitted. I believe and everyone else believes the only reason this process for admission has taken so long is simply because the Canadian government is bending over backwards not to create an appearance that might irritate the United States government." That's because the United States still considers Snowden a traitor and he still faces charges in the U.S. related to his exposure of what was considered state secrets. [...] "These children are stateless and they will never live a free life unless they are welcomed into and protected by a state. And the only one who is in a position to do so right now, who has the legal framework to do so right now is Canada." Read more - Lire plus


France - Le gouvernement mobilise la lutte anti-terroriste contre les activistes du climat
Reporterre 27/03/2019 - C’est un petit tweet qui en dit long. Vendredi 22 mars, l’ancien eurodéputé du Front national Jean-Yves Le Gallou a posté sur la toile une déclaration rageuse estampillée du hashtag #DictatureMacron : « Le retour du crime de lèse-majesté ! Le service antiterroriste et le Service central de renseignement criminel de la gendarmerie mobilisés prioritairement pour punir ceux qui décrochent le portrait de Macron dans les mairies. » Attachée à son tweet, une photo d’un écran d’ordinateur sur lequel on lit distinctement un curieux courriel. Les destinataires sont des gendarmes de Lorient, qui nous ont confirmé par téléphone la véracité de cette image. L’objet indique « directives concernant les vols de portraits présidentiels dans les mairies » . Le tout est signé du colonel Marc de Tarlé, sous-directeur adjoint de la police judiciaire, sur ordre du directeur général de la gendarmerie nationale. Que dit ce message en provenance des hautes sphères de l’appareil étatique, envoyé dans tous les départements ? Il s’agit de « contrer le phénomène », à savoir l’opération « Sortons Macron » lancée par ANV-COP21 le 21 février dernier. Ces actions non violentes consistent à aller décrocher des photos officielles d’Emmanuel Macron afin « d’interpeller le gouvernement et l’opinion publique sur l’urgence climatique et sociale, et sur l’insuffisance des réponses apportées par le gouvernement », comme l’expliquait Léa Vavasseur, une des porte-paroles du mouvement, la semaine dernière. La quasi-totalité des 27 « réquisitions » menées jusqu’à aujourd’hui se sont déroulées dans le calme, parfois avec le soutien des maires ou du personnel présent. Malgré tout, les autorités ont pris l’affaire très au sérieux. [...] Les actions non violentes de « réquisitions » des portraits du président de la République ont donné lieu à des « directives » policières particulières : poursuites pour vol aggravé en réunion, contacts avec le Bureau de la lutte antiterroriste, mobilisation du Service central de renseignement criminel… Lire plus - Read more

Coalition of WWII Japanese American internment camp survivors stage peaceful protest at immigrant detention facility on Texas border
ABC News 30/03/2019 - About 45 miles from Crystal City, Texas, where Hiroshi Shimizu was held as a child in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, there is the South Texas Residential Family Center in Dilley — a euphemism, some would say, for a family detention center. As the country’s largest detention center, with capacity up to 2,400, it’s been a focus of the ongoing immigration debate across the nation. Now 76 years old, Shimizu is returning to Crystal City on Saturday afternoon along with a group of Japanese American individuals and organizations to stage a peaceful protest at the border against family separations under the Trump administration's “Zero Tolerance” policy. More than 60 people of Japanese ancestry, many of whom are either former detainees or descendants of those who were incarcerated during World War II, first made a pilgrimage to the site of the former Japanese detention center in Crystal City, where a memorial service took place in honor of their families and those who lost their lives. A statement from Satsuki Ina, one of the organizers, said that these former World War II detainees, now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, along with their friends, families and descendants, would travel east from Crystal City to Dilley, where they will join the rest of the protesters calling attention “to all immigrants being subjected to mass incarceration today.” As a psychotherapist, Ina, 75, not only studied community trauma but knows firsthand how damaging traumatic events can be as she and her family were held at Tule Lake Segregation Center in California — one of 10 Japanese internment camps ran by the U.S. government during World War II — after the Pearl Harbor attack. It’s a pain that really resonates with families like Shimizu's, especially within the Japanese American community. Shimizu was born behind barbed wire at the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah in 1943, and in the same year, his family was transferred to the Tule Lake center. Even after Shimizu's parents renounced their United States citizenships in 1945, they were denied release. When the government's efforts to deport them failed, they were incarcerated again at the internment camp in Crystal City six months after the war was over. Shimizu's family did not get released until almost two years after the war. [...] Those who couldn’t make it to the protest contributed by making paper cranes, known as “ori- tsuru,” to hang along the fence of the facility. “We were hoping for 10,000,” Ina told ABC News. Instead, they received more than double that from supporters in a diversity of communities. Those colorful origami cranes, a symbol of peace and hope, were part of a rallying cry across the country to protest against what people like Ina fear is a “repetition of their own historical mass incarceration,” with innocent families unjustly detained and separated again. Read more - Lire plus
MI6 face another criminal investigation into allegations its officers were party to Guantanamo torture
Channel 4 31/03/2019 - MI6 is to face another criminal investigation into allegations its officers were party to the torture of Guantanamo detainees. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has agreed to launch an inquiry into the conduct of British intelligence officers when putting questions to a prisoner waterboarded 83 times by the CIA. Our Senior Home Affairs Correspondent Simon Israel has this exclusive report. Watch - Visionner


Pakistan: Misusing Anti-Terrorism Courts
The Nation 04/04/2019 - The Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Asif Saeed Khan Khosa identified a pervasive legal issue that exists in our judicial system today- that of the relevance of special courts, particularly the Anti-Terror Courts (ATC). The CJP observed that many offences of serious nature, which were referred to military or anti-terrorism courts, did not come under the purview of terrorism and were only relegated to these special courts because of public outcry. An overview of the many cases tried in the ATC would demonstrate that the assertion by the CJP is true. Many ordinary cases of theft or murder, while heinous, are not related to the national security aspect that comes with terrorism, but are tried under the ATC anyway. The CJP has noted that this problem occurs due to a vague definition of terrorism in the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. In legal terms, the “actus reus”- element, which constitutes the specific action that would constitute terrorism, is too straight-forward in comparison to the “mens rea” aspect, the intention of spreading terror that should accompany the act. For example, Section 6 (2) of the ATA provides a long list of actions which could be defined as acts of terror, including kidnapping or ransom, but Section 6 (1) which outlines the intent with which these actions should be committed is quite vague, containing provisions like, “create fear or insecurity in society”. Reading along these lines, ordinary criminal acts can easily be lumped with special cases of terror. The way it is, the ATC are often misused to impose harsher conditions on convicts of non-terrorism related crimes. The special procedure ascribed in the ATC, such as denial of bail, extended remand of suspects, preventive detention, enhanced police powers and harsher sentences, was intended only to be applied to terrorists groups and action which posed a threat to the country, not to civilian crimes. With the expiry of the military courts, this is a good time that the CJP has chosen to take on the issue of specialised courts and restriction of the ATC’s jurisdiction. While amendments in the ATA by the parliament would be ideal, the Supreme Court can contribute a lot to reforming the ATC. In the past, the judiciary has oscillated in its interpretation of the definition of terrorism, which led to a definition without any substantive threshold requirements, expanding the ambit of the terrorism law to numerous ordinary crimes. Now is the time for the Court to rectify that and provide a decisive and restrictive definition. Read more - Lire plus
Who facilitated the Christchurch terrorist’s journey through hate?
Institute of Race Relations 29/03/2019 - The context of war and the influence of the New Right intelligentsia cannot be left out of the reckoning when it comes to understanding the making of the New Zealand terrorist. The massacre of fifty Muslim worshipers, and wounding of fifty more people, at the Al Noor mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, streamed live on Facebook via the gunman’s body camera, has left Muslims scared and angry. Angry because they could see it coming, yet their fears were talked down. Scared because in today’s climate it seems virtually impossible to trust those in power to stop creating the conditions for even more Islamophobia. Islamophobia is the breeding ground for racism and fascism in Europe today, and anti-Muslim racism has more than one face. It is institutional (enshrined, since September 11 and the war on terror, in a punitive criminal justice system that singles Muslims out for greater punishment and enhanced surveillance); it is electoral (witness the Conservative Party campaign against Sadiq Khan in the 2016 London mayoral election or more recently, in Italy, with the League electioneering on the slogan ‘Stop Invasion’ and the promise to close down mosques). Islamophobia is legally sanctioned by the state (many European countries have deprivation of citizenship laws targeting Muslims, also restricting the wearing of the burqa and the hijab); it is popular (note the British media’s obsessional referencing of ‘on-street grooming’ as a specific Muslim crime and the fashionable Muslim-bashing in mainstream debates). And all this inevitably leads to attacks on Muslim places of worship and racist violence on the streets. Muslims, then, are feeling vulnerable because though the massacre may have happened nearly 12,000 miles away, it felt very close. Exactly how close was made manifest in the UK in the immediate aftermath, in the number of attacks on Muslims, including the abuse of a taxi driver in Rochdale, attacks on Muslim worshippers in Whitechapel and Finsbury Park, and what police are describing as a Christchurch-inspired ‘terrorism-related’ incident in Stanwell, Surrey, where a teenager was stabbed by a man dressed all in green (ie, camouflage gear) and wearing a balaclava, shouting, according to one witness, ‘kill all Muslims’ and ‘white supremacy rules’. Read more - Lire plus






‘I felt like a slave:’ Inside China’s complex system of incarceration and control of minorities
The Globe and Mail 31/03/2019 - Before she was shocked with a stun gun to the head for spending more than the allotted two minutes in the toilet, and before she was handcuffed for 24 hours because guards accused her of letting another woman participate in religious washing, and before she was forced to make winter gloves for two pennies a piece − before all of that, Gulzira Auelhan remembers a Chinese police officer telling her she needed to be educated. The classes would only last 15 days, the officer told her in mid-October, 2017. “You will be released very soon,” Ms. Auelhan, 38, remembers hearing. An ethnic Kazakh who was born in China but had been living in Kazakhstan, she had returned to China’s far western Xinjiang region to visit her father, who was ill. Instead, over the course of 437 days, she was detained in five different facilities, including a factory and a middle school converted into a centre for political indoctrination and technical instruction, with several interludes of a form of house arrest with relatives. The Chinese government has said it offers free vocational education and skills training to people such as Ms. Auelhan. But over more than 14 months, “that training lasted one week,” she said, not including the time she spent forced to work in a factory. The remainder of the time, she spent inside a complex system of incarceration and control that has been built in a region where Chinese authorities say they are combatting extremism through education. Early this year, she was released back to Kazakhstan, where she recounted her experience in a lengthy interview with The Globe and Mail. What she experienced, she said, “is really cruel.” Chinese authorities have kept Xinjiang’s detention centres shrouded in secrecy, refusing to provide statistics on the number of people they contain or to open them to visitors, save on choreographed official tours (on one earlier this year, detainees sang If You’re Happy and You Know It, in English.) Last year, police threatened a Globe reporter with arrest for approaching one such facility, and forcibly deleted photographs of its exterior. Yet through satellite imagery, government procurement documents, accounts from previous detainees and testimony from overseas relatives of people living in Xinjiang, the international community has gained an increasingly comprehensive understanding of what is taking place in Xinjiang. Read more - Lire plus

Crimea: At least 20 people detained in a new crackdown against Crimean Tatar minority
Amnesty International 27/03/2019 - Responding to news that Russian security forces in occupied Crimea have conducted extensive searches and detained ethnic community Crimean Tatars, Oksana Pokalchuk, Amnesty International Ukraine’s Executive Director, said: “The crackdown on the Crimean Tatar community, whose members are regarded as disloyal to the de facto Russian authorities, has continued unabated for five years. “The Russian authorities will use any means to suppress any dissent, real or perceived, casting their net wide to target the Crimean Tatar community and silence dissenting voices. The latest crackdown is one of the biggest acts of brazen intimidation of the whole community in recent months.” According to the de facto Crimean Directorate of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the law enforcement agents conducted searches and detentions to investigate the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a religious group banned in Russia as “terrorist” but operating lawfully in Ukraine. Russian security forces in occupied Crimea have conducted at least 25 searches in the homes of ethnic community Crimean Tatars and detained at least 20 people. The searches were held in the Crimean capital Simferopol, the nearby village of Strohonivka and the village of Volodymyrivka in the Bilohirsk district of Crimea. In Simferopol’s district of Kamyanka, officers of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs cordoned off the neighborhood and called on residents who assembled during the operation to disperse. According to media reports, the searches were conducted with multiple procedural violations. Residents were not allowed to enter their homes and their lawyers were not permitted to be present during searches. Read more - Lire plus


Bosnians deported from Croatia for 'refusing to spy on Muslims'
Al Jazeera 28/03/2019 - Dozens of Bosnian citizens have claimed that Croatia has revoked their working permits, deported them and labelled them as national security threats after they refused to work as spies and provide information on Muslims in Bosnia. Their testimonies were published this month in Zurnal, an independent Bosnian news website. Zurnal claimed that Croatian intelligence officials have been trying to recruit Bosnian collaborators, specifically members of the Muslim Salafi group, to plant weapons and explosives in mosques, according to documents provided by Bosnia's security agency. In one case, it is claimed that Croatian intelligence requested a Bosnian Salafi known as HC to transfer a bag full of weapons to a mosque in central Bosnia in April 2018. Prior to that, a Croatian official had reportedly ordered him to create a fake Facebook profile praising Daesh, and use it to spy on Muslims in Bosnia. Because he worked in Slovenia, he often travelled through Croatia, making him a target for blackmail and recruitment, HC told Zurnal. Read more - Lire plus
Australia’s plans for internet regulation: aimed at terrorism, but harming human rights
AccessNow 26/03/2019 - Since the tragic attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand earlier this month, Australian leaders have raised concerns that social media platforms have become facilitators, if not full-on enablers, of the spread of terrorist ideas and content. There is criticism that the removal of videos, accounts, and forum discussions by giants such as Facebook and YouTube was too slow and clunky, and smaller platforms were proactively blocked by internet providers in lieu of their own action. The government appears to be considering far-reaching criminal sanctions if social media executives do not comply with newly planned measures to address the problem. Unfortunately, the assertions made by members of Australia’s government to the media conflate a number of distinct issues, none of which could easily be resolved with a unified regulatory approach. The central issue for Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the moment appears to be the use of live streaming and the rapid continued spread of video content – as well as potentially text – through social media. However, in the same statement, Prime Minister Morrison raised the issues of fake news, online bullying, and the deficient mechanisms for enforcement of the Privacy Act. This kind of mission creep presages dangerously broad or imprecise regulation of the internet and social media. None of this is to deny the horror of what took place. However, if careless regulation is rushed through, it will almost certainly have a long-term, negative impact on freedom of expression, a concern we recently highlighted in our submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Writing sound policy to address challenges linked to online speech (even “terrorist” content) requires a carefully considered, measured, and proportionate approach. In this post, we take a step back to look at the issues the Australian government is raising, one by one. The government should do the same. Read more - Lire plus
Centre de prévention de la radicalisation: Montréal caviarde l'essentiel du rapport
La Presse 03/04/2019 - Les Montréalais ne pourront pas savoir pourquoi le Centre de prévention de la radicalisation a été placé sous «administration provisoire» à la mi-mars. Montréal a lourdement caviardé le rapport du contrôleur général qui a enquêté sur l'utilisation des fonds publics. À la mi-mars, la Ville de Montréal mettait fin au mandat du directeur général Herman Deparice-Okomba au Centre. La majorité des membres du conseil d'administration ont également démissionné à la suite du dépôt d'un rapport du contrôleur général. La Presse a demandé copie du document en vertu de la Loi sur l'accès à l'information, mais plus des deux tiers ont été caviardés. En effet, sur 47 pages, 33 sont entièrement couvertes de ratures noires. [...] Le contrôleur général s'est également penché sur des prises de position publiques de membres. Il s'inquiétait de certaines opinions émises en août 2017 par Herman Deparice-Okomba sur la Meute. Les nombreuses apparitions publiques d'un employé, Maxime Fiset, qui a produit un documentaire, ont aussi attiré l'attention du contrôleur. Le rapport cite une conférence donnée à Alma où il a émis plusieurs opinions, notamment en affirmant que la tuerie à la mosquée de Québec était du terrorisme. Une entrevue mouvementée avec l'animatrice Sophie Durocher est aussi évoquée, le rapport indiquant que l'homme avait insulté l'animatrice. Le contrôleur général précise que le code de conduite du Centre de prévention prévoit que ses employés fassent preuve de professionnalisme et ne nuisent pas à l'image de l'organisation. Read more - Lire plus
Death from Above: Every Saudi coalition air raid on Yemen
Al Jazeera 25/03/2019 - Armed with US-made bombs and British-made fighter jets, Saudi Arabia and its allies have been waging a ruinous war on Yemen for the last four years. Since they intervened in the country's civil war on March 26, 2015, more than 19,000 raids have been carried out in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country. When the aerial campaign commenced, expectations were high that the coalition assembled by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would crush the alliance of Houthi rebels and army forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh within a matter of weeks. But after nearly four years of fighting, and an estimated 60,000 deaths, the coalition has failed to pave the way for the recapture of the capital, Sanaa, and most urban centres. Despite assurances by the coalition that all precautionary measures would be taken to avoid civilian casualties, a sizable number of coalition attacks have targeted civilian areas. According to data collected by the Yemen Data Project, nearly two-thirds of the coalition’s air raids have struck non-military and unknown targets. Airports, ports, bridges and roads have all been repeatedly attacked. So, too, have farms, schools, oil and gas facilities, factories and private businesses. According to rights groups, the coalition has not accidentally attacked civilian infrastructure – it has been doing it deliberately. Between June and September, when the coalition launched a new offensive on the port city of Hodeidah, fatalities increased by a staggering 164 percent. Because of these incessant attacks, Yemen's civilian, economic and medical infrastructures have been pushed to the brink of collapse. Today, Yemen is the site of a horrific civil war, and the world's worst humanitarian crises. According to the United Nations, up to 20 million Yemenis, roughly two-thirds of the country's population, are food insecure. Thousands of people are starving to death and dying from preventable diseases, while an average of eight civilians die from bombs and bullets every day. In this interactive, based on data collected by the Yemen Data Project, an air raid refers to a single incident which could comprise multiple attacks. Because it was not possible to generate an average number as these vary greatly, from one attack up to several dozen, so-called "double taps" have been counted as one air raid, not two. Read more - Lire plus
Podcast: American Dystopia: The State, Surveillance and Illusion of Choice
The Intercepted 03/04/2019 - This week on Intercepted: The Intercept’s Alice Speri discusses her investigation into the FBI’s creation of the term “black identity extremist” and explains why this label is so dangerous. Science fiction author Cory Doctorow walks us through the dystopian, yet highly plausible, futures in his new book “Radicalized.” Doctorow also breaks down the newly passed European Copyright Directive and its implications for the internet as we know it. Plus, Katie Alice Greer of the band Priests describes how history and mythology influenced their new record, “The Seduction of Kansas.” Read more - Lire plus
ACTIONS & EVENTS
NEW April Anti-Torture Tuesdays: Call/Email to Stop Moe's Torture
Every Tuesday in April, we encourage you to join the growing campaign to end a 17-year nightmare: the constant threat of deportation to torture that has hung over the head of Ottawa refugee Mohamed (Moe) Harkat since 2002. Every Tuesday, please call and email Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, who has the power to stop this deportation and to grant Moe a long-delayed path to citizenship.

Please take two minutes to make a call and send a letter to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale to end the illegal and immoral deportation to torture proceedings against Ottawa refugee Mohamed Harkat. Also urge Mr. Goodale to accept Moe's long-standing application to live in peace in Canada because it “it is not contrary to the national interest” to allow him to do so: 613-947-1153 (Ottawa office), (800) 830-3118 (Ministerial office), 306-585-2202 (Constituency).
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.
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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.
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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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