|
International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles
October 25, 2024 - 25 octobre 2024
| |
ICLMG statement and action: Canada must abolish rights-violating terrorist entities list! | |
ICLMG 23/10/2024 - On Tuesday, October 15, 2024, the Canadian government placed the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network on Canada’s terrorist entities list.
While ostensibly a tool to protect the safety and security of people in Canada and internationally, the terrorist entities list is an arbitrary political tool that undermines freedom of association, freedom of expression and due process in the courts. Its effectiveness as a national security tool has never been demonstrated in a manner that justifies its use.
Due to the deep flaws in the terrorist entity listing process, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG) has consistently called for the regime to be abolished since the Canadian coalition’s founding in 2002.
Placing an organization on the list is a secret, discretionary process through which the government can consider any information – including untested intelligence. The listing allows the government to circumvent criminal charges or trial, placing the burden on the listed entity to challenge the supporting information, much of which is kept secret for “security reasons.” Nor is there a coherent process in place to challenge such a listing. The result is an effective violation of due process and the presumption of innocence.
The consequences of listing are severe. Assets are frozen, any use of property owned or controlled by the listed organization is a crime, as is providing any form of financial or in-kind support. Moreover, there is the stigmatization of being listed, tagging the organization, and anyone accused of being associated with it as being a “terrorist,” regardless of their personal actions, without ever laying criminal charges or proving guilt in court.
In the 24 hours since this announcement, there have already been calls on social media to label any individual attending an event, or associating with individuals linked to Samidoun, as terrorists or terrorism supporters.
Because it is illegal to support a listed entity in any way, including financially, it means that the organization cannot fundraise or pay a lawyer to mount a defense and challenge the terrorist listing in court. This renders it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to be removed from the list, once again violating the right to a fair trial.
The terrorist entities list is a political instrument, often used in discretionary ways to further the geopolitical interests of Canada and its allies.
Historically, the listing serves to deflect from state-enacted violence by governments on their own populations, and on people in other countries, through military action and repression by national security forces and police, as has been the recurring experience during the long “War on Terror.” The list reinforces a double standard of allowing violence and the repression of civil liberties, in the name of fighting terrorism, on the part of Canada and its allies, while criminalizing reaction to that violence, or even peaceful criticism of that violence.
If the Canadian government believes organizations and individuals pose a threat to the public, that evidence should be presented in open court, where the accused can appropriately defend themselves against the accusations.
ICLMG reiterates its call for the abolition of Canada’s terrorist entities list regime. The use of secretive listing processes needs to end. Statement link & share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram
NEW Action link & share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram
Déclaration de la CSILC: Une Coalition canadienne de défense des libertés civiles dénonce et appelle à la fin de la liste des entités terroristes & partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + Instagram
NOUVEAU Action : Le Canada doit abolir la liste des entités terroristes! & partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + Instagram
NEW Ottawa Protest: From Gaza to Beirut Sat Oct 26 at 2PM
NEW The City of Ottawa’s plan for ‘bubble zones’ is an attack on the right to protest. Take action now!
Joint Open Letter to the Prime Minister: Canada Must Act NOW to Stop Israeli War Crimes in Northern Gaza
NEW Canada is STILL Arming Genocide: Arms Embargo Now Zap
NEW Israel banning of multiple humanitarian healthcare groups from entering Gaza - Canada must help restore their access
NEW Take action and sign the petition demanding Maersk Cut Ties with Genocide!
Financial assistance for Gazans arriving in Canada
What if Charter Values Mattered?
| |
Canada’s terror list enables Israeli terror - Webinar featuring ICLMG's Tim McSorley
| |
CFPI - Last week the Trudeau government listed the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as a terror entity. The move marks a major escalation in state directed efforts to suppress opposition to Canada’s complicity in Israel’s genocide and regional belligerance.
In light of Samidoun’s listing, the webinar will consider how the terrorist list works and its anti-Palestinian, pro-US empire, character.
Tuesday October 29, 2024 07:00 PM ET
Panelists:
- Yavar Hameed, Hameed Law
- Shane Martinez, International Centre for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP)
- Tim McSorley, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG)
Register - S'inscrire
| |
Joint Brief on Bill C-20, the Public Complaints and Review Commission Act | |
ICLMG - Today, October 21st, is the last hearing on Bill C-20, An Act establishing the Public Complaints and Review Commission and amending certain Acts and statutory instruments, at the Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs.
For the Senate committee study, ICLMG, alongside eight other prominent civil society organizations, have submitted a joint brief. You can read the brief in full here.
Several of the signatories to this joint brief will be speaking to it this afternoon at the Senate. Here is what we stand for:
Our organizations, with decades of expertise in the areas of immigration and refugee law, criminal law, human rights, international law, civil liberties, and national security, are coming together to ensure that the Public Complaints and Review Commission (PCRC), to be established through Bill C-20, sets up an effective, independent, fair and accessible accountability process, from start to finish, in regard to the activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
While we were pleased to see important changes made when Bill C-20, An Act establishing the Public Complaints and Review Commission and amending certain Acts and statutory instruments, was considered by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, additional changes are needed to ensure the Bill’s effectiveness.
Such changes must:
- Ensure access and remove barriers for complainants and their advocates;
- Allow complaints about patterns of behaviour;
- Require the Commission to investigate complaints of a serious nature;
- Allow the Commission to recommend interim protective measures and ensure redress for well-founded complaints; and
- Remove limitations on judicial review.
Our organizations have proposed specific amendments to Bill C-20 to address our concerns in Annex A. Annex B shows the proposed amendments implemented into the Bill.
SIGNED BY:
Amnesty International Canada (English Section)
British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers
Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Canadian Council for Refugees
Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association
Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association
Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council
International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group Read more
Mémoire conjoint sur le projet de loi C-20 sur la Commission d’examen et de traitement des plaintes du public
| |
Policy submission to the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference | |
ICLMG 24/10/2024 - As part of the final phase of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference, the PIFI requested policy submissions regarding how the Canadian government should respond to foreign interference concerns. Below is the introduction to ICLMG’s submission, as well as the list of our recommendations. You can read the full brief here.
Since 2021, the Canadian government has initiated multiple reviews and independent inquiries, including the Public Inquiry on Foreign Interference, to address alleged threats of foreign interference in Canada. We recognize the importance of addressing this issue, particularly in instances where governments are threatening individuals or their close ones in order to suppress their ability to exercise their fundamental rights or to engage in democratic processes.
However, we are deeply concerned by the policy approach and legislative responses that the Canadian government has adopted to date to address this issue, and the direction that it signals the government will take in the future.
This includes a nearly exclusive focus on granting new powers to national security agencies and creating significant new offences that we fear will result in over-reach and over-securitization of responses to this issue. Our work on the impact of national security and anti-terrorism laws, which share similarities in terms of addressing covert activities tied to either domestic or international entities with malicious intent, has shown the necessity of clear definitions, evidence-based decision-making, and responses that are necessary and proportionate.
Failing to adhere to these principles can lead to the further marginalization of a variety of organizations and communities, including those from racialized, Indigenous or immigrant populations, as well as those involved in dissent, protest and challenging the status quo. This is caused by the undermining of fundamental rights and with it democratic involvement and participation, leading often to more tension and divisions. It is also important to ensure that responses beyond policing, intelligence and criminal charges are appropriately explored.
The most glaring example is the adoption, in haste, of Bill C-70 – the Countering Foreign Interference Act – in June 2024, which will have wide-ranging impacts on Canada’s national security, intelligence and criminal justice systems. As such, it will also have significant impacts on the lives and fundamental rights of people in Canada.
For example, the decision to provide CSIS with new forms of warrants, granting it extra-territorial reach for foreign intelligence activities, and allowing the service to disclose information to any person or entity, in order to build “resiliency,” will lead to increased surveillance, diminished privacy, and racial, religious and political profiling. Powerful new offences for actions undertaken in “association with” foreign entities, including foreign governments and state-affiliated agencies, punishable by up to life in prison, will infringe on freedom of expression and association, and raises questions of proportionality in sentencing. Likewise, vague and undefined terms raise similar worries about the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act (FITAA) and the foreign influence registry it will create. This is compounded by significant areas of FITAA being left to regulation as opposed to specified in the legislative text. The bill has also transformed how, in administrative proceedings, federal courts handle sensitive information that can be withheld, undermining due process in courts through the use of secret evidence.
A bill of such breadth required in-depth study. However, in the rush to address issues of foreign interference as quickly as possible, the bill passed through the entire legislative process in less than two months. This is faster than even the rushed 2001 study of the first Anti-terrorism Act, which studied for two months.
This astoundingly short study resulted in significant aspects of the legislation going unstudied and areas of concern going unaddressed: less time meant that experts and organizations with limited resources had to rush their analysis of the bill, and made submitting briefs and appropriate amendments nearly impossible, with many who would normally have intervened deciding not to do so for fault of resources. Even when members of parliament and senators recognized concerns, the refrain was that the bill’s study was either constrained by time limits imposed in the House of Commons or by the necessity to adopt new rules before an eventual election.
Moreover, the bill was introduced just days after this Inquiry published its first interim report, and before the public tabling of reviews from both the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians on the same topic. The tabling of significant legislation before the public has had the ability to fully consider reports on the breadth and impact of foreign interference in Canada raises significant concerns of being able to adequately assess the necessity and proportionality of government responses, let alone whether these responses will be effective in addressing foreign interference activities.
This curtailing of debate in the name of expediency on an issue as important as protecting our democratic systems remains deeply troubling. Unfortunately, it also appears indicative of a rush to make policy decisions and take action that has permeated much of the recent debate.
In the rest of our submission, we examine key areas from Bill C-70 that illustrate the concerns raised above and future policy considerations that the federal government should take into account. Read our full submission here.
Recommendations
1: That the government ensure that all proposed responses to foreign interference concerns are necessary and proportionate, and based on evidence.
2: That policy and legislation related to foreign interference be adopted in an open and transparent manner, that prioritizes consultation and promotes democratic participation.
3: Concerns around foreign interference cannot be used to justify the hasty adoption of unrelated, or minimally related, legislation or policies.
4: That the government rescind the changes made to s. 19(2)(d) to allow the Minister to authorize disclosure to any person or entity. Alternatively, any authorized disclosure should be limited to entities or persons within Canada.
5: That the government revisit s. 19(2.1) of the CSIS which allows for information, excluding personal information, to be disclosed by CSIS to any person or entity for the purpose of building resiliency against threats to the security of Canada.
- Resiliency should be defined in the CSIS Act and any further legislation
- Add transparency and accountability requirements for information sharing activities, including:
- Public sharing of documents and information disclosed, where possible;
- Internal documenting of what information was disclosed to whom and why;
- Reporting all instances of information disclosure to the NSIRA, similar to the existing requirement in s. 19(3) of the CSIS Act, regarding reporting of information disclosed with Ministerial authorization.
6: The government should consider creating a separate office, apart from CSIS, to organize and arrange briefings with non-governmental entities to avoid a bias towards securitization and to ensure a holistic approach to protecting against interference with the exercising of fundamental rights or participating in democratic processes.
7: That the government, at the earliest possible moment, engage with the public, including civil society organizations, to make further amendments to the provisions of Bill C-70, including those recommended in our brief to the Senate.
8: That all future policies on foreign interference must appropriately take into account impacts on freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the ability to engage in protest and dissent.
9: Remove provisions for a new Secure Administrative Review Proceeding and instead review the areas of legislation that already allow for similar regimes, in order to remove provisions for the non-disclosure of information to appellants and those seeking judicial review. Read more - Lire plus
| |
Dominique Peschard: Fighting Anti-terrorism Legislation + A Victory for Humanitarian Assistance | We launched our 20th anniversary publication "Defending Civil Liberties in an Age of Counter-terrorism and National Security" on Sept 11, 2024. You can read the full PDF or get a physical copy here. Over the next few months, we will be sharing two texts from the publication per News Digest to make sure they all get the attention they deserve. | |
ICLMG 2024 - I have been assigned the formidable task of presenting 20 years of ICLMG work on anti-terrorism legislation in less than 1,000 words. It is impossible in such a short text to even simply enumerate all the interventions on a multitude of legislative pieces, so I will focus on some key interventions which illustrate the principles that have guided the work of the ICLMG throughout the years.
The first major intervention, which set the tone for all subsequent ICLMG positions, was the report, entitled “In the shadow of the law”, submitted by the ICLMG in March 2003 in response to Justice Canada’s first annual report on the application of the Anti‑terrorism Act (ATA), also known as Bill C-36. The report underlined a series of major concerns with the ‘War on Terror’ initiated after 9/11:
- The introduction of the new crime of terrorism in the Criminal Code. The ICLMG rightly pointed out that terrorist acts were already crimes and that the broad and imprecise definition of what constituted “terrorism, facilitating terrorism and financing terrorism” could target a series of activities of political dissent having nothing to do with terrorism.
- The use of the national security argument to deprive people of their freedoms and of the right to know the “evidence” held against them. Other articles in this publication provide several examples of the denial of the right to due process and a fair trial.
- The association of terrorism with Islam. This led to the racial profiling of an entire community.
- The surveillance powers granted to police and security agencies and the constitution of vast data banks with no possibility to correct errors.
- The information sharing agreements with the US with no control over what the information would be used for.
- The lack of control and accountability over the use of these new extraordinary powers.
The report concluded by emphasizing that security is not achieved by limiting freedoms; on the contrary, freedoms are what guarantees our security.
Later, during the 2006 parliamentary review of the ATA, the ICLMG played a crucial role in the final position adopted by the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, and was instrumental in the drafting of two minority reports tabled in Parliament by these opposition parties. The minority reports called for the repeal of the ATA.
A protracted struggle took place between 2006 and 2011 when a minority Conservative government tried to re- introduce the two clauses (investigative hearings and preventive detention) which had expired as a result of a sunset clause in the ATA. The campaign and lobbying of the opposition parties against the reintroduction of these clauses was successful… until the Conservatives won a majority in 2011.
The Conservative government used the pretext of the murders of two Canadian servicemen by two isolated individuals in the fall of 2014 to introduce and adopt Bill C-51, the Anti‑terrorism Act, 2015; the most important piece of anti-terrorism legislation since the 2001 ATA. Among other things, C-51 enacted a broad information-sharing regime between government departments, increased the time a person could be detained before appearing before a judge, and gave CSIS the power to commit covert illegal acts. The ICLMG played a very active role in a broad coalition of organizations opposed to C-51 which succeeded in raising awareness and mobilizing a significant part of the population against the bill.
With the Liberals back in power in 2015, the ICLMG, along with several other organizations, undertook a campaign for the repeal of C-51. But the government ignored the numerous voices asking for the repeal, and chose instead to present and adopt yet another anti-terrorist piece of legislation, Bill C-59, the National Security Act, 2017. Not only did C-59 not fix the problems posed by C-51, it raised more concerns, for example, granting the Communications Security Establishment – Canada’s NSA – the power to carry out defensive and offensive cyber activities at home and abroad. Nevertheless, C-59 was a partial victory. The ICLMG had campaigned relentlessly since 2006 for the implementation of a review mechanism for all national security bodies proposed by Justice O’Connor in his second report following the Commission of Inquiry Into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar. The government finally responded to this demand by creating the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency.
Over the years, the ICLMG has systematically intervened before parliamentary committees to challenge legislative attacks on rights and freedoms and, more broadly, to inform MPs of the dangers of the measures they were asked to adopt. The ICLMG has also worked actively, alone and in coalitions, to keep the public informed on these issues. As a result, the public today is more critical and wary of new surveillance or security measures which infringe on civil liberties and human rights.
Dominique Peschard has been a co-chair of the ICLMG since 2012 and president of La Ligue des droits et libertés (LDL) from 2007 to 2015. He is currently a member of the LDL committee “Population surveillance, artificial intelligence and human rights.” Source
Version française : La lutte contre la législation antiterroriste + Une victoire pour l'aide humanitaire
| |
Azeezah Kanji: The Dangerous Seductions of the ‘Anti-Racist’ Racist State | Le 11 septembre 2024, nous avons lancé notre publication 20e anniversaire « Défendre les libertés civiles à l’ère de la sécurité nationale et de la guerre au terrorisme ». Vous pouvez lire le PDF complet ou obtenir une copie papier ici. Au cours des prochains mois, nous partagerons deux textes de la publication dans chaque Revue de l'actualité pour nous assurer qu'ils reçoivent tous l'attention qu'ils méritent. | |
ICLMG 2024 - As white supremacist ‘extremism’ becomes a subject of increasing national security concern, the contradictions of using a racist state apparatus to address racism continue to intensify. As feminist scholars have taught, there is almost nothing that can’t be turned into a weapon against us. This includes ‘anti-racism’ in the hands of the settler colonial state, which continues to reproduce the white supremacism situated at its heart – whether by the condemned violence of an ‘extremist’ hate attack, or the condoned violence of police and military killings, torture complicity, and genocidal erasure of Indigenous sovereignty.
Now, proposed online harms legislation and protest restrictions have been promulgated in the name of containing white supremacism; yet, as we know from both the long-term and recent history of speech policing in Canada, such powers are likely to be used in practice first and foremost to target Indigenous, Palestinian, Black, and Muslim justice activism. Similarly, Canadian politicians across the political spectrum have embraced the use of counter-terrorism to combat ‘right-wing extremism,’ further entrenching legal instruments wielded primarily against Muslims in the name of protecting Muslims. For example, when the Proud Boys were listed as a ‘terrorist entity’ in February 2021, nine more Muslim-identified groups were also quietly appended at the same time – exacerbating the list’s overwhelming Muslim-centrism under cover of anti- racism.
One of the newly added ‘terrorist’ groups is Kashmiri, operating in the context of the Indian state’s massive and abusive military occupation: Kashmir boasts the highest ratio of soldiers to occupied civilians in the world. Remaining on the list is charity IRFAN, penalized for making medical donations to Gaza; even as the terror of ‘medical apartheid’ and destruction of vital medical facilities inflicted against Palestinians under Israel’s occupation persists unchecked. As noted in a joint letter from anti-racism, legal, and human rights experts, co-organized with the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG): “The listing of organizations like the Proud Boys alongside Palestinian and Kashmiri groups […] conflates groups originating under or responding to long-term military occupation, with white supremacists and neo-Nazis, all under the rubric of a broad and inconsistent concept of ‘terrorism.’” Such examples highlight not merely the incompleteness but the profound ideological bias of a concept of ‘terrorism’ that fixates on the violence of those on the undersides of state power, while authorizing the far greater violence of the state itself.
Adding a couple of white supremacist groups to the list of ‘terrorist entities,’ or criminally charging a few white supremacists as ‘terrorists,’ does not rectify the counter-terrorism ‘colour line.’ Rather, it masks it. For instance, Nathaniel Veltman, who deliberately plowed his truck into a Muslim family in London, Ontario, is being prosecuted under ‘terrorism’ provisions for an act of mass killing already committed – while Muslims, in stark contrast, have been criminalized pre-emptively for acts distant from any death or injury at all. This has produced a situation in which Muslims, responsible for less than 10% of casualties from public political violence in Canada since 9/11, have been subjected to 98%19 of completed terrorism prosecutions, with many of the cases featuring extensive involvement of state informants, central to conceptualizing and advancing the prosecuted plots.
If Veltman were to have been treated in the same way as a Muslim, he and members of his entire family and community would have been harassed regularly at their schools and workplaces by security agencies, denied security clearances for playing paintball, surveilled in their places of worship, targeted for entrapment while struggling with mental illness, placed preventively under suffocating ‘peace bond’ conditions without trial, and put on no-fly lists on the basis of name coincidences and racist stereotypes. Such draconian state powers should not be extended, but dismantled.
And yet, in the very state processes purporting to study and address systemic racism in Canada, the state’s own violent operations are persistently omitted. For example, at the federal government’s National Summit on Islamophobia, convened in July 2021 in the wake of the London killings, not a single lawyer or legal expert on state Islamophobia was invited as a speaker – despite briefs co-submitted with the ICLMG emphasizing the scope and centrality of state practices in (re)producing Islamophobia as a whole. This pattern continues to be repeated in state ‘anti-Islamophobia’ initiatives. Predictably, the vast infrastructure of oppressive national security laws and practices is therefore rendered almost entirely invisible, as are the lived experiences of those who have had to bear the heaviest burden of living under them.
Meanwhile, egregiously, some of the same ‘national security experts’ responsible for legitimizing the demonizing discourse of ‘Muslim extremism’ – for example, one former CSIS analyst-turned-professor exposed for baking cakes depicting drone deaths and torture; making anti-Muslim atrocities into items of pleasurable consumption – are now, somehow, being treated as authorities on how to fight anti‑Muslim extremism. And the same Canadian political leadership that sheds tears for Muslims mowed down on a public street or shot dead while in prayer at a mosque, simultaneously maintains policies that brutalize Muslims largely out of sight – increasing military spending, selling arms to states that slaughter Muslims, attempting to deport Muslim refugees to risk of torture, and spending millions of dollars to fight the compensation claims of ‘War on Terror’ torture survivors in court.
State ‘anti-racism’ functions not only to obscure the endemic racism of state institutions, but to augment their harmful capacities. In the January 2022 final report of the Minister of National Defence Advisory Panel on Systemic Racism and Discrimination, for instance, remedying the racism and sexism experienced by those serving within the armed forces is upheld as essential for sustaining military recruitment. As for the acts of racist and sexist aggression endured by those on the receiving end of Canada’s military operations – including torture and rape – they are absent from the report, and remain hidden in the shadows and shoved under the rug. Experience shows how ‘diversification’ and ‘multiculturalization’ serve as strategic assets for violent institutions. For example, in the infamous case of John Nuttall and Amanda Korody, the RCMP used Muslim officers to pose as religious authorities, to increase the efficacy of entrapment efforts against psychologically vulnerable, impoverished and marginalized Muslim targets.
Such events elucidate not only the fallacy, but the absurdity, of appealing to the colonial state apparatus as the solution to racism when in fact it lies at the source. At best, it’s like trying to empty an ocean by catching some of the waves as they wash up on shore: an exhausting and endless exercise in futility. At worst, it’s like cutting off one head of the hydra and feeding it to the others: an illusory victory which only ends up further strengthening the beast.
For tools to combat Islamophobia, visit islamophobia-is.com and ICLMG resource page: iclmg.ca/resources-against-islamophobia
Azeezah Kanji is a legal academic and journalist, whose work focuses on anti-colonial approaches to international law, state racial violence, and the ‘War on Terror.’ Source
Version française : Azeezah Kanji : La séduction dangereuse de l’État raciste «antiraciste»
| |
'Demanding an autopsy': Mother of 6 dies in deportation centre after Canadian government refuses to repatriate her from Syria | |
|
CTV News 25/10/2024 - A Quebec mother of six, once detained in northeast Syria, has died while waiting for repatriation. The Canadian woman was known only by her initials F.J. The federal government refused to repatriate her, but brought home her two daughters and four sons to Montreal earlier this year. Global Affairs Canada's position was that F.J. posed a security risk, and that there were no means to control her behaviour once she entered Canada.
"That excuse for not repatriating her was patently false," says her Ottawa-based lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon. "We know that because we managed to bring eight Canadian women and 21 Canadian children, and some of those women are subject to very strict conditions from the moment they set foot in Canada." The forty-year-old died under mysterious circumstances in a Turkish deportation centre, according to Greenspon. He called her death an unnecessary tragedy.
Greenspon said F.J. escaped the Al-Roj camp in March, but was arrested in Turkiye three months later and was charged with membership in an armed terrorist group. She was held at the Tarsus Closed Women's Prison in Tarsus, southeast Turkiye and her trial was held on October 15. She was acquitted and transferred to a detention centre. On the morning of October 17, prison guards found her dead. Greenspon says she was a strong woman who had survived very difficult conditions for a long time, and that her only objective was to get home to Canada to her children. "We're demanding an autopsy be performed." Greenspon said. "The timing is very suspicious. It just doesn't make sense that after being acquitted on the 15th, within forty-eight hours she was found dead."
Al-Roj camp, where F.J. was detained for six years, was operated by Kurdish authorities. Her three children were born in Syria, two of which were in a war zone, while another was born in the detention camp where disease was rampant. "It makes you wonder what kind of unhumanitarian policy or basis was put forward to, on the one hand, bring back the children, and on the other say 'no' to their mother," Greenspon says. F.J. is thought to have been the last Canadian woman held in Syria. At least eight others were returned to B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. During the brutal war in Syria and Iraq, several Canadian extremists headed to the region. Some were killed in the conflict, and when Kurdish forces defeated ISIS in 2019, others were sent to makeshift prisons or detention camps. It is not clear how many had joined the ranks of ISIS.
Alex Neve is a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and he was part of delegation from civil society that visited Syrian prison camps last August and met F.J. and her children. He says Ottawa's position was unfounded in Canadian law, and that the Quebec woman had said she was prepared to answer allegations against her in the context of a fair legal process. "Having met her, that was a very tight family unit," he says. "Canadian policy had allowed her children to return to this country, and after all the trauma they have gone through, now the sorrowful news they will never see her again."
Neve and the civil society delegation wrote to Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly as well as Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc on Thursday asking for an independent investigation to be held on an urgent basis. He says it should determine the circumstances that drove F.J. to leave the camp and head to Turkiye, as well as how the case was handled. "But above all, her six children, whether it is today or in the years down the road deserve and have the right to know what happened to their mother and why," says Neve. "And the Canadian government has the responsibility to ensure that happens." In an email to CTV News, Global Affairs Canada said it was aware of reports of the death of a Canadian woman in Turkiye, but "cannot share any further information at this time due to privacy considerations." Source
ACTION Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now!
| |
Abdelrazik wipes away tears in court as he recounts time in Sudanese detention | |
|
The Canadian Press 22/10/2024 - Abousfian Abdelrazik wiped away tears as he told a court Tuesday about being imprisoned in Sudan two decades ago. He is suing the Canadian government for $27 million, claiming officials arranged for his arbitrary imprisonment, encouraged his detention by Sudanese authorities and actively obstructed his repatriation to Canada for several years. Abdelrazik came to Canada from Sudan as a refugee, settling in Montreal and later becoming a Canadian citizen.
He was arrested in September 2003 while in his native country to see his ailing mother. In October of that year, Abdelrazik was interrogated in custody by Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers about suspected extremist links. He says he was also tortured during two periods of detention by the Sudanese intelligence agency. Abdelrazik, 62, denies involvement in terrorism. He returned to Canada in 2009 after a judge ruled Ottawa breached his constitutional rights by refusing to give him an emergency travel document. Federal lawyers argue Abdelrazik was the author of his own misfortune, saying Canada did not urge Sudan to keep him in detention or mistreat him, or create a risk that these things might happen.
CSIS first took an interest in Abdelrazik in 1996 due to his association with people suspected of being national security threats, says an agreed statement of facts in the case. At the prompting of CSIS, the RCMP initiated a criminal investigation of three suspects including Abdelrazik. By November 2022, the Mounties concluded they did not have sufficient evidence to charge Abdelrazik with any crime. Even so, CSIS investigators interviewed him on four occasions between April 2001 and February 2003. He left for Khartoum on March 22, 2003, and CSIS was informed of his arrival five days later. CSIS continued investigating Abdelrazik and shared information with domestic and foreign partners.
He was arrested in Sudan on Sept. 10, 2003. Abdelrazik lost his composure several times Tuesday in Federal Court as his lawyer, Paul Champ, led him through the events of his tumultuous incarceration. CSIS sent questions to be put to Abdelrazik by Sudanese authorities. But officers from the Canadian spy service then showed up in person to interrogate him over two days in late October 2003. Abdelrazik recognized one of the officers from an earlier encounter in Montreal. They asked about his activities in Canada, his knowledge of people in Montreal and his association with individuals linked to terrorist activity. Abdelrazik told the court that at the end of the second meeting, he asked the CSIS officers to tell his family where he was. “And then they said, ‘We’re not gonna help a terrorist guy.’” He said he was told Canada didn’t need him and that he would stay in Sudan forever, much like the prisoners at a U.S. facility in Cuba.
“Sudan is going to be your Guantanamo.” Abdelrazik took a tearful pause while recalling how David Hutchings, an official from the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum, brought him a letter from his daughter during his first consular visit in December 2003. Abdelrazik told Hutchings he did not know why he was being held. That same day, according to the agreed statement, Hutchings was told that Abdelrazik was being detained because Canada had requested it. Hutchings was advised that if Canada wanted him released, it should make a request in writing. Around this time, there were escapes from the state security prison where Abdelrazik was being held. He told the court a senior intelligence official demanded information from himself and other detainees about how the prisoners escaped. Abdelrazik said they were ordered to face a wall, then kicked in the back, slapped on the head and flogged with a rubber hose “in the back, the head, everywhere.” Source
Support Abousfian Abdelrazik as Canadian Complicity in Torture Goes on Trial (Online and in Ottawa)
| |
Former special ops soldier says he faced 'retaliation' for reporting alleged killing of Afghan civilians | |
CBC News 17/10/2024 - A former special forces soldier is suing the federal government, alleging he was shunned by his unit and pushed out of the military after he denounced Canadian troops' alleged involvement in the killing of unarmed people in Afghanistan. The soldier is also naming one current and two former top Canadian generals who he says minimized or failed to adequately investigate Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) involvement in the alleged killings.
Claude Lepage, a former member of JTF2, one of Canada's most elite and secretive military units, filed a statement of claim in Quebec Superior Court last week. He is asking the court to award him nearly $3 million in damages for the treatment he says he received due to his actions as a whistleblower.
The allegations in the court documents have not been tested and neither the Canadian government nor the Armed Forces have yet filed any defence. Lepage's statement of claim alleges it was his whistleblowing that led the military to hold two inquiries, known as the Sand Trap investigations, examining Canadian soldiers' actions in Afghanistan and the actions of coalition soldiers serving alongside them. It says he experienced "discrimination, retaliatory measures, abuse of rights, serious negligence and numerous violations of his rights … after having reported to his chain of command, the execution of Afghan civilians by members of his unit and by members of a foreign government agency."
A report stemming from the inquiries concluded Canadian soldiers did nothing criminal in Afghanistan. However, it acknowledged that they may have witnessed war crimes committed by coalition troops from other countries. A heavily redacted version of the report was made public in 2018. The report decried a culture of secrecy surrounding deadly missions in Afghanistan among Canada's special forces. Lepage's allegations, now made public in the statement of claim, offer a window into acts of retaliation against unarmed Afghans by Canadian and coalition soldiers and raise questions about the actions of his commanding officers in the face of serious allegations of misconduct.
5 reports of civilian killings
Between 2005 and 2008, while Lepage was in Afghanistan serving as a sergeant in JTF2, the court documents say he reported to his chain of command five instances of Afghan civilians or unarmed people being targeted or killed by members of his unit and members of another government military working on joint missions with the unit. The lawsuit alleges the first occurred in December 2005. After a JTF2 helicopter was shot down in combat, Lepage said a member of the unit fired an anti-tank weapon at a civilian residence and then conducted a "dynamic entrance" to surprise and intimidate the people inside.
Then, in May 2006, the morning after JTF2 soldiers were attacked repeatedly during a night operation, members of the unit bombarded several civilian residences, the document says. It says Lepage visited the destroyed homes afterward and met an old man carrying a bag filled with human remains. The man said the remains were what was left of his family.
In the lawsuit, Lepage said that to his knowledge there was no internal investigation into the bombings.
That July, according to the statement of claim, an unarmed man appeared at a JTF2 detachment in Afghanistan with his hands in the air, apparently surrendering amid an operation the Canadian military had dubbed "Bad Doctor." Members of the unit yelled at him not to move, but the detachment's commander then shot the man five times, killing him on the spot.
Lack of impartiality in internal investigations: Lepage
Lepage says he verbally reported each of these events to his chain of command and kept a journal throughout his time with the unit. The shooting of the unarmed man prompted an internal investigation, but the captain put in charge of the probe, Steve Boivin, was also in charge of the very operation that had led to the man's death. Shortly after that, the lawsuit says Lepage met with Col. D. Michael Day, who was then the commander of JTF2, and reported the lack of impartiality of the Bad Doctor investigation as well as violence and aggressiveness from some of his colleagues in the unit against the Afghan civilian population.
The commander who allegedly killed the unarmed man was subsequently promoted to sergeant. Lepage also denounced this to his chain of command, according to the lawsuit. In November 2007, the document says Lepage's colleagues informed him that members of another country's military had targeted civilians during joint missions with JTF2 while he had been away for several months. The document alleges it wasn't long before Lepage witnessed it himself. In a combat mission on New Year's Day, the lawsuit says Lepage witnessed the execution of an injured Afghan civilian by the other country's soldier.
The combat mission ended with the deaths of three unarmed people, according to the lawsuit. When a JTF2 colonel was informed of the civilian deaths, Lepage alleges in the statement that the man walked out of the room and did not attend the "debriefing" that followed. It says that two weeks later, Lepage again met with Col. Day, who was then in charge of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command. Lepage said he wanted to continue participating in combat missions but said he didn't want to be a part of missions that led to the deliberate killing of civilians or people who were unarmed. Read more - Lire plus
| |
Canada ordered to make decision on residency applications by two Uyghurs after decade-long delay | |
|
National Post 11/10/2024 - A federal court judge has given Canada’s immigration minister 30 days to make up his mind on the permanent residency applications of two Chinese citizens of Uyghur ethnicity captured in Pakistan and turned over to the United States military after coalition forces invaded Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Khalil Mamut and Salahidin Abdulahad were transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and held there until 2009, when they were released to be resettled in Bermuda.
Both of their wives can live in Canada — one is now a citizen and the other has permanent residency status. “Mr. Abdulahad’s application for permanent residence has now been outstanding for almost 11 years; Mr. Mamut’s for over nine years,” Justice John Norris wrote in a recent decision. The men and their wives applied for a judicial review, arguing they’re entitled to a legal remedy because Immigration Minister Marc Miller has failed to make decisions on their outstanding applications. “There is no issue that the delay in processing the applications for permanent residence has been largely, if not entirely, due to concerns that Mr. Abdulahad and Mr. Mamut may be inadmissible to Canada for security reasons,” Norris wrote in his Oct. 8 decision.
“Specifically, after they applied for permanent residence, concerns were raised that Mr. Abdulahad and Mr. Mamut may be inadmissible to Canada due to their alleged association with the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). U.S. authorities had also relied on this alleged association to justify the men’s detention at Guantanamo Bay. The issue of inadmissibility on security grounds has still not been resolved by decision makers acting on behalf of the minister of citizenship and immigration.” “There is no issue that the delay in processing the applications for permanent residence has been largely, if not entirely, due to concerns that Mr. Abdulahad and Mr. Mamut may be inadmissible to Canada for security reasons,” Norris wrote in his Oct. 8 decision.
“Specifically, after they applied for permanent residence, concerns were raised that Mr. Abdulahad and Mr. Mamut may be inadmissible to Canada due to their alleged association with the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). U.S. authorities had also relied on this alleged association to justify the men’s detention at Guantanamo Bay. The issue of inadmissibility on security grounds has still not been resolved by decision makers acting on behalf of the minister of citizenship and immigration.” [...] But the delays they have faced are “clearly excessive,” said the judge. “The minister has fallen far short of demonstrating that the time that has been taken is justified, and the minister has not shown why any additional time to make decisions on the applications for permanent residence is warranted.”
Abdulahad was born in 1977 in Kashgar, People’s Republic of China. “In June 2001, after witnessing the ongoing persecution of Uyghurs … and the harassment of his family, Mr. Abdulahad left China for Pakistan, hoping to continue his education there,” said the decision. “When his legal status in Pakistan expired (it was valid for only one month), he feared returning to China so he decided to seek out a Uyghur community he had heard about in a village outside Jalalabad, Afghanistan. He arrived there in August 2001.”
Mamut was born in Kashgar in 1978. “Due to Chinese oppression and persecution of Uyghurs, in 1998, he left China to study in Pakistan,” said the decision. “He studied in Lahore for three years. In 2001, his Chinese passport was expiring so, being afraid to return to China, Mr. Mamut sought out a group of Uyghurs in Afghanistan he believed could help him with the renewal of his passport so that he could return to Pakistan. He ended up in the same village in Afghanistan as Mr. Abdulahad.” The pair “had to flee the village in Afghanistan at the end of October 2001, when it came under aerial bombardment by U.S. forces,” said the decision. “Together with a group of 16 other Uyghurs, they hid in nearby mountains and then made their way to Pakistan. At first, some local individuals assisted the group but they soon turned them over to the Pakistani military, reportedly in exchange for bounties. Mr. Abdulahad, Mr. Mamut, and the others were then turned over to the U.S. military. Subsequently, they were all transferred to the detention facility that had just been constructed at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”
The allegation that Abdulahad and Mamut were members of the ETIM “appears to have rested largely, if not entirely, on the characterization of the village near Jalalabad, where they had admittedly stayed for a few months, as an ETIM training camp,” said the decision. “Mr. Abdulahad and Mr. Mamut maintained that they had gone to the village solely because they believed they would be safe there and they had nowhere else to go. They denied being members of the ETIM. Indeed, they maintained that the first time they ever heard about the group was when they were questioned about it by U.S. officials. They maintained that they bore no enmity towards the United States and had never engaged in hostilities against it. U.S. authorities did not produce any evidence to contradict these latter assertions.” The U.S. designated ETIM as a terrorist organization in August of 2002, but revoked that designation in October of 2020. “However, the ETIM still appears on the United Nations Security Council sanctions list,” said the decision. “The organization has never been designated by Canada as a terrorist entity.”
According to the judge, the immigration minister “has failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for the delay in either case.” The federal government told Norris 30 days wasn’t enough time to make decisions about the pair’s permanent residency applications, and that “instead, a further six months should be granted.” The judge noted that Miller’s department “did not offer any evidence to support either of these positions.” Norris acknowledged Ottawa has the right to request more time to make the decisions. “If the extension is opposed, a motion record and supporting evidence will be required.” Read more - Lire plus
| |
The U.N. Must Do More to Protect Civil Society From the Abuses of Counterterrorism | |
|
DAWN MENA 16/10/2024 - Twenty-three years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the effects of the so-called global war on terror live on, even if the United States has ended its long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of the norms and discourse of the "war on terror" have been institutionalized into international bodies like the United Nations, which has adopted a vast corpus of extraordinary legal and administrative measures to combat terrorism and violent extremism. Counterterrorism has become so embedded at the U.N. that some NGOs have begun referring to it as the "fourth pillar" of the U.N.'s mission, alongside the three founding pillars in the U.N. Charter of peace and security, human rights and development.
But the growing centrality of counterterrorism in the work of the U.N. has raised alarm bells among human rights defenders, as states are openly using U.N. resolutions, policy guidance and technical assistance to justify their human rights violations, including frequently targeting activists, civil society groups—and even the U.N. itself.
The U.N. Security Council has adopted more than 50 resolutions since 2001, often comprised of overly broad and vague provisions while lacking enough emphasis on human rights protections. In addition to the many resolutions and guidance documents produced by the more than 40 U.N. entities involved in the U.N.'s counterterrorism architecture, the U.N. Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) has quickly grown in stature, following a significant uptick in funding. Since its establishment in 2017, UNOCT has received over $340 million in voluntary contributions—primarily from Qatar and Saudi Arabia—raising considerable concerns about political influence over the U.N. counterterrorism agenda and questions around the allocation, or misallocation, of much needed resources from other parts of the U.N., most importantly human rights and humanitarian entities and agencies.
The lack of international legal definitions and general subjectivity of concepts like terrorism and violent extremism are particularly useful for repressive and authoritarian states. In popular discourse, they are drawn on to stamp their subjects as particularly deserving of social fear, revulsion and outrage. In the expanding field of scholarship on terrorism and violent extremism, these concepts are often used to justify the application of analytical rules arbitrarily distinct from those used to analyze other manifestations of political violence. And in public policy, terrorism and violent extremism are frequently invoked to justify the formation of specialized regimes of exceptional legal and coercive measures targeting "terrorist threats" and "populations vulnerable to radicalization."
Over the past year, the Global Center on Cooperative Security, an international NGO, and Rights and Security International, a London-based human rights organization, consulted with civil society organizations around the world to understand whether, how and under what conditions civil society should engage with the U.N. to address these issues and demand accountability for state abuses of counterterrorism measures. Two underlying questions pervaded the discussions and resulting report. First, by engaging with the U.N. and its member states on counterterrorism, are civil society groups ultimately legitimizing a policy agenda that has led to the silencing of civil society activists, the punishing of dissent, the limiting of free expression and other violations of fundamental rights? And if so, what can U.N. counterterrorism entities do to protect civil society from repression that is ostensibly justified in the name of counterterrorism? Read more - Lire plus
UN Special Rapporteur report: Protection of human rights by regional organizations while countering terrorism: norms, cooperation, victims of terrorism and accountability
| |
Mohamad Bazzi: Israel’s killing of Hamas’s leader should mean an end to this war. It probably won’t
| |
|
The Guardian 24/10/2024 - [...] At this point, all the major players want the war to end – except for Netanyahu and his rightwing government, who see an opportunity to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah, and weaken Iran. “We are changing the strategic reality in the Middle East,” Netanyahu declared last month, after ordering the assassination of Hezbollah’s leader. His comment echoed the boastful rhetoric of the George W Bush administration after the US invaded Iraq in 2003, and before it got bogged down fighting a long insurgency.
While Netanyahu has lofty ambitions to reshape the Middle East, he’s had little to say about Israel’s postwar plans for Gaza. In fact, the Israeli premier has defied international and domestic pressure to outline an end game beyond seeking a “total victory” against Hamas.
This is another way that Biden’s unwavering support emboldens Netanyahu to prolong the conflict and prioritize his own political survival. The prime minister has spent most of his career helping expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and resisting a two-state solution to end the occupation of Palestinian territories. Today, extremist members of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition and his own Likud party openly call for the de facto expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, followed by the establishment of Jewish settlements in the territory.
After Israel announced it had killed Sinwar last week, Harris declared at a campaign event that “it is time for the day after to begin” in Gaza. But Netanyahu – abetted by Biden’s blank check and US complicity – has done everything possible to avoid a postwar reckoning for what Israel has wreaked in Gaza and the Middle East. Read more - Lire plus
After Israel Killed Hamas Leader, D.C. Pushes to Hand Palestine to Saudi Arabia
“Ethnic Cleansing”: Israeli Group B’Tselem Calls for World to Stop Israel’s Siege of Northern Gaza
Israel Is Routinely Shooting Children in the Head in Gaza: U.S. Surgeon & Palestinian Nurse
“The Gaza Playbook”: Israel Brings Displacement, Death and Destruction to Lebanon
Israel Attacks U.N. Peacekeeping Forces as U.S. Sends 100 Troops Anticipating Conflict with Iran
CPJ Head Condemns Israel’s Deadly War on Journalists in Gaza as IDF Threatens Al Jazeera Reporters
Shaaban Al-Dalou, Burned Alive in Gaza, Would Have Been 20 Today
UK: Police used anti-terror legislation to raid The Electronic Intifada’s journalist home
NEW Stop the use of counter-terrorism powers against UK pro-Palestine activists
Meta’s Israel Policy Chief Tried to Suppress Pro-Palestinian Instagram Posts
| |
Pakistan - Fourth Schedule: Combating terrorism or silencing dissent? | |
Over the past few months, the government's use of the Fourth Schedule has taken a troubling turn, with dozens from KP and Balochistan placed on the list. | |
|
Dawn 16/10/2024 - Muhammad Farooq Mehsud, a veteran journalist who has been covering militancy and political affairs in Pakistan’s volatile tribal areas since 2011, was not prepared for the shock when he first heard the news. Mehsud was informed on Oct 7 — the day after the ban on the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) was announced — that he and two of his colleagues had been added to the Fourth Schedule.
Placing a name on the Fourth Schedule under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) means the person concerned has become proscribed. Restrictions imposed on such persons include an embargo on their passport, freezing of bank accounts, a ban on financial support and credit, arms licence embargo, and employment clearance restrictions.
To Mehsud, the reports seemed implausible. But when he checked the National Counter Terrorism Authority’s (Nacta) website and read a notification issued by the deputy commissioner of Upper South Waziristan, there it was: his name, alongside those of two fellow journalists, was listed next to the leaders of the PTM — a rights group that the interior ministry had just banned on October 6.
“I was shocked to see my name and the names of two of my colleagues on the Fourth Schedule list. We are journalists, not terrorists,” Mehsud, who is president of Mehsud Press Club, told Dawn.com. “It’s a clear tactic to pressure journalists, to stop us from reporting on what’s happening in the region.”
The district administration later issued a corrigendum, admitting that the inclusion of the journalists’ names had been a mistake and requesting their removal. But days passed, and their names remained on the Fourth Schedule displayed on Nacta’s website. Mehsud’s bank account remains blocked [till the publication of this report] despite the corrigendum. [...]
Authorities have widened their net, placing a growing number of individuals from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan — regions simmering with unrest — on the list. This widening net has ensnared not only members of rights movements, the likes of the PTM and the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), but also journalists, academics, and members of political parties.
Following the ban on the PTM earlier this month, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said that the KP and Balochistan governments had placed 54 and 43 individuals from the provinces on the Fourth Schedule, respectively. Naqvi clarified that facilitators and abettors of the banned organisations would also face a similar fate.
The inclusion of these individuals alongside hardcore militants has sparked concerns that counterterrorism measures are being used to muzzle the media and rights activists, with critics arguing that what was once a tool for combating extremism is now being repurposed to silence dissenting voices. Read more - Lire plus
Mahrang Baloch booked in terrorism case days after being ‘barred’ from flying abroad
| |
Turkey’s Crackdown on Students and Women: Criminalising Ordinary Life | |
|
The Arrested Lawyers Initiative 22/09/2024 - Following orders from the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Istanbul police arrested 40 individuals in the early hours of May 2024. Among them were 15 minors, aged 13 to 17, detained without legal representation or the presence of their parents. In the investigation, the prosecutor used the statements of minors that were obtained with coercion to charge 37 women, predominantly young university students and the mothers of minors, with terrorism. The first hearing of the trial will take place between 23 and 27 September at the Caglayan Courthouse in Istanbul.
The core allegations? According to the exposition of the indictment, volunteering as English language tutors or religious mentors and organizing off-school social activities for students were cited as chief criminal activities by the prosecution. Simply put, living the basic contours of life was deemed unlawful.
This case highlights a disturbing but increasingly entrenched trend in Turkey, where ordinary actions are considered criminal behaviors, particularly in relation to the Gülen Movement. A closer analysis of the indictment, the legal proceedings, and the surrounding context reveals severe flaws in the charges, including unsubstantiated allegations, vague interpretations of the law, and a politicized judicial process.
Framing Digital Communication as a Crime
A significant part of the prosecution’s case revolves around the use of popular communication platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Instagram. The indictment repeatedly frames these tools as covert methods of communication. In one instance, a conversation between one of the accused and her spouse, where the accused asks her to “call on WhatsApp,” is cited as evidence of secretive, illicit activity.
This argument reflects the brazen criminalization of modern communication tools and methods. Encrypted messaging services are a standard feature of digital communication, used by millions worldwide daily. The assumption that merely using these apps is akin to criminal intent taints the entire judicial process, undermining the case’s credibility and charges. With the prosecution referencing the use of internet-based communication over 75 times as suspicious activity, the lack of specific incriminating content within these conversations weakens the case against the defendants. Simply put, no reasonable legal system should treat the mere use of these platforms as evidence of criminal behavior without further corroborating evidence in the content.
Moreover, the right to use encrypted communication is protected under international human rights law. Article 19 of the ICCPR and the UDHR affirm the rights to freedom of expression and privacy, both of which are reinforced by encryption. The UN has emphasized that States must protect encryption, and any interference with these rights must meet strict criteria of legality, necessity, and proportionality. Criminalizing encrypted communication without meeting these standards violates the fundamental rights of privacy and free expression. Read more - Lire plus
UN raises concerns over Turkey’s anti-terrorism legislation and measures imposed since 2016 state of emergency
Türkiye: 22nd hearing for RSF representative — the judicial harassment must stop
What's driving France's sudden deportation of Kurdish activists?
| |
Philippines: Authorities increasingly using Facebook to stifle young activists’ right to freedom of expression and protest | |
|
Amnesty International 14/10/2024 - Philippines authorities are increasingly using Facebook in red-tagging campaigns targeting young activists, including those who investigate alleged human rights violations by the military, police and other government agencies, Amnesty International said today in a new report.
The new report, “I turned my fear into courage”: Red-tagging and state violence against young human rights defenders in the Philippines, details how the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has increasingly weaponized digital tools, misinformation and vague anti-terror laws to harass, intimidate and repress young activists.
At the heart of this coordinated campaign is the practice of “red-tagging”, through which leading political figures and state security officials vilify human rights activists and other perceived opponents of the state as alleged “Communist rebels” and “terrorists.”
“Over the years, red-tagging has been used to instigate direct threats and attacks on those who criticize and oppose the government and Meta is playing an enabling role in this.” Young activists interviewed for this report described how they have personally suffered from being red-tagged, which has led to a climate of fear and self-censorship, or individuals giving up on their work as activists or journalists.
As recently as August 2024, young environmental rights defender Rowena Dasig went missing and is feared to have become the target of a series of enforced disappearances of human rights defenders under President Marcos Jr.
Ana*, a 26-year-old student activist said, “When you’re harassed online or when you’re posted online, that makes you a target. It’s letting people know that this person is a target, that you should not get close to this person … Of course, if you’re not yet organized, it would make you think that you wouldn’t want to be an activist because your life would be put in danger.”
Red-Tagging under successive governments
Red-tagging intensified under the administration of President Marcos Jr, with opponents targeted through Facebook posts and press statements despite his administration’s attempts to present itself as more respectful of human rights.
The attacks are particularly notable on the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) Facebook page, which has thousands of followers. At the time of publication, the Philippine government had not responded to a request for comment on the findings of Amnesty’s report. Red-tagging surged under President Rodrigo Duterte after the collapse of the peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Duterte’s Executive Order 70 established the NTF-ELCAC in 2018, which the government has used as a pretext to launch a crackdown on human rights activists and perceived dissidents.
The NTF-ELCAC shares numerous posts and press statements on its Facebook page, many of them wrongly vilifying young activists as “terrorists” or falsely accusing them of being associated with armed groups. Bolstered by the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 2020, which permits police and military personnel to detain suspects without a warrant or formal charges for up to 24 days, state security forces have filed baseless complaints against young activists and arbitrarily detained them.
Hailey Picayo, a 21-year-old Southern Tagalog activist, said, “They are framing us as deceivers of the youth.” In August 2022, the Philippine military accused Hailey of being an NPA member and a “terrorist”. At the time, she was investigating a case in which members of the security forces were accused of killing a minor. “It’s not a normal thing to be facing at our age”, she added in reference to the baseless criminal complaints filed against her by members of a local military branch in an apparent act of retribution against her investigation.
The cases were dropped in 2023, but the misuse of the criminal justice system to target and harass Hailey left her scarred. “The Philippine authorities must immediately stop their repressive red-tagging campaign, repeal the ATA and cease any form of intimidation, harassment, threats or attacks against human rights activists. They must also abolish NTF-ELCAC and promptly conduct an independent, impartial and transparent investigation into its activities,” said Damini Satija. Read more - Lire plus
| |
The FBI's weapons of mass destruction program has a new target: Animal rights activists | |
The agency urged meat industry groups to help the feds crack down on activists for potentially violating bioterrorism laws. | |
|
The Intercept 19/10/2024 - On a chilly, early morning in January 2019, a group of animal rights activists descended upon a poultry farm in central Texas. Donning plastic gloves, medical masks, hazmat suits, and T-shirts emblazoned with “Meat the Victims,” they slipped through the unlocked door of a massive, windowless barn.
Inside, they found 27,000 chicks densely packed across the floor, like “just a sea of yellow,” recalled Sarah Weldon, one of the activists. “There were a lot of chicks that were already deceased, in various stages of decomposition,” she said. “Some were so deformed you couldn’t even tell they used to be baby chicks, just fluffs of feathers.”
Activists with Meat the Victims, a decentralized, global movement to abolish animal exploitation, later uploaded gruesome photos of injured and dead chicks to social media platforms. This is how, Weldon suspects, the police identified her and issued a warrant for her arrest, along with 14 other activists. She was charged with criminal trespassing, a Class B misdemeanor, and quickly turned herself into jail.
The local police weren’t the only ones paying attention. An FBI agent in Texas had been secretly monitoring the demonstration. His focus? Weapons of mass destruction.
The FBI has been collaborating with the meat industry to gather information on animal rights activism, including Meat the Victims, under its directive to counter weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, according to agency records recently obtained by the nonprofit Animal Partisan through Freedom of Information Act litigation. The records also show that the bureau has explored charging activists who break into factory farms under federal criminal statutes that carry a possible sentence of up to life in prison — including for the “attempted use” of WMD — while urging meat producers to report encounters with activists to its WMD program.
Animal rights lawyers and advocates view this new frontier for WMD allegations as a pretense, a fictive way to legitimize the criminal prosecution of animal rights activists. The FBI declined to comment on these plans or clarify whether it is still actively considering charging activists under statutes for WMD.
“This kind of escalation in charging or threats of charges is textbook escalation by government actors against successful efforts by social movements that they disagree with or find subversive,” said Justin Marceau, a law professor who runs a legal clinic for animal activists at the University of Denver. “The very framing of civil disobedience against factory farms as terrorism is a form of government repression.”
The bureau has floated the idea of charging animal rights activists under a statute prohibiting biological weapons, a subtype of WMD, the records show. This may include toxins, viruses, and microorganisms used to deliberately spur death and disease.
Marceau described this focus on agroterrorism as an effort to pin blame on activists for the rampant disease outbreaks on factory farms. “It’s a transparent form of scapegoating and blame shifting” that avoids “talking about the disease risks that come from having animals intensively confined in these high stress conditions,” he said, referring to factory farms. “We know these are just petri dishes of disease and contamination.” Read more - Lire plus
| |
ACLU Warns that Biden-Harris Administration Rules on AI in National Security Lack Key Protections | |
|
ACLU 24/10/2024 - The Biden-Harris administration today released its National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence (AI), establishing guidelines for how the U.S. government uses AI in national security programs, such as counterterrorism, intelligence, homeland security, and defense.
The use of AI to automate and expand national security activities poses some of the greatest dangers to people’s lives and civil liberties. Agencies are increasingly exploring the use of AI in decisions about who to surveil, who to stop and search at the airport, who to add to government watchlists, and even who is a military target. While the government’s policy includes some important steps forward — such as requiring national security agencies to better track and assess their AI systems for risks and prohibiting a subset of dangerous AI uses — it falls far short in other critical areas, leaving glaring gaps with respect to independent oversight, transparency, notice, and redress.
The policy imposes few substantive safeguards on a wide range of AI-driven activities, by and large allowing agencies to decide for themselves how to mitigate the risks posed by national security systems that have immense consequences for people’s lives and rights. As we have repeatedly seen before, this is a recipe for dangerous technologies to proliferate in secret.
“Despite acknowledging the considerable risks of AI, this policy does not go nearly far enough to protect us from dangerous and unaccountable AI systems. National security agencies must not be left to police themselves as they increasingly subject people in the United States to powerful new technologies,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “If developing national security AI systems is an urgent priority for the country, then adopting critical rights and privacy safeguards is just as urgent. Without transparency, independent oversight, and built-in mechanisms for individuals to obtain accountability when AI systems err or fail, the policy’s safeguards are inadequate and place our civil rights and civil liberties at risk.”
For years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been urging far stronger safeguards and transparency about the AI tools that national security agencies are deploying, the rules constraining their use, and the dangers these systems pose to fairness, privacy, and due process. Source
The Pentagon Wants to Use AI to Create Deepfake Internet Users
DHS Focus on "Soft Targets" Risks Out-of-Control Surveillance
ACTION Canada: Remove the national security exemptions from Bill C-27!
| |
OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES | |
ICLMG ACTIONS DE LA CSILC | |
Uphold rights and liberties at protests and encampments across Canada! | |
|
Please join us in calling for the following:
- Officials must stop equating Charter-protected expression and dissent with “support for terrorism,” and refrain from calling for law enforcement to forcibly end or prevent protest activities.
- Law enforcement agencies must refrain from acting against protesters exercising their Charter-protected rights, including at encampments.
- The Ontario legislature must immediately reverse the keffiyeh ban.
- Canada must call for a permanent ceasefire and to halt all arms sales, transfers and military aid to Israel.
| |
Canada: Remove the national security exemptions from Bill C-27! | |
Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act, has been introduced by the federal government with the promise that it would enhance privacy protections, adequately regulate artificial intelligence (AI) and protect human rights. The bill, however, is not up to the task. Please join us in denouncing the dangerous national security related exemptions in the bill. | |
Canada: Do not purchase armed drones | |
The ICLMG is a member of the No Armed Drones campaign | |
In the government's proposal seeking bids for its drone program it laid out disturbing scenarios for Canadian military drone use: One scenario described drones being used to surveil activists protesting a (theoretical) G20 Summit in Quebec, helping the security team intercept and identify the occupants of a vehicle, who are “anti-capitalist radicals” intending to “hang a banner concerning global warming.” Another scenario modeled after US drone strike programs features a drone bombing “Fighting Age Males” in the Middle East after spotting one of them “holding a small radio or cell phone." The initial cost estimate is $5 billion with billions more to operate the drones over their 25-year lifespan. | |
CSIS isn't above the law! | |
|
In recent years, at least three court decisions revealed the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) engaged in potentially illegal activities and lied to the courts. This is utterly unacceptable, especially given that this is not the first time these serious problems have been raised. CSIS cannot be allowed to act as though they are above the law.
Send a message to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino demanding that he take immediate action to put an end to this abuse of power and hold those CSIS officers involved accountable, and for parliament to support Bill C-331, An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (duty of candour). Your message will also be sent to your MP and to Minister of Justice David Lametti.
| |
Canada must protect Hassan Diab! | |
Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now! | |
On January 20, 2023, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown ruled that Canada must repatriate Canadians illegally and arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria. On February 6, 2023, the Canadian government filed an appeal and asked that the Brown ruling be set aside and placed on hold while the appeal plays out. This is unacceptable.
Every day the government fails to bring these Canadians home, it places their lives at risk from disease, malnutrition, violence, and ongoing military conflicts, including bombing by Turkey’s military. United Nations officials have even found that the conditions faced by Canadians in prison are akin to torture. Please click below to urge the federal government to repatriate all Canadians illegally & arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria without delay.
| |
21 years of fighting deportation to torture: Justice for Mohamed Harkat Now! | |
Canada must protect encryption! | |
Canada’s extradition system is broken. One leading legal expert calls it “the least fair law in Canada.” It has led to grave harms and rights violations, as we’ve seen in the case of Canadian citizen Dr Hassan Diab. It needs to be reformed now.
Click below to send a message to urge Prime Minister Trudeau, the Minister of Justice and your Member of Parliament to reform the extradition system before it makes more victims. And share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram. Thank you!
Regardez la vidéo avec les sous-titres en français + Agir
| |
Protect our rights from facial recognition! | Facial recognition surveillance is invasive and inaccurate. This unregulated tech poses a threat to the fundamental rights of people across Canada. Federal intelligence agencies refuse to disclose whether they use facial recognition technology. The RCMP has admitted (after lying about it) to using facial recognition for 18 years without regulation, let alone a public debate regarding whether it should have been allowed in the first place. Send a message to Prime Minister Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair calling for a ban now. | |
December to June 2024 - Décembre à juin 2024 | |
|
Thanks to the support of our members and donors, so far in 2024 we have been able to work on the following:
- Bill C-20, Public Complaints and Review Commission Act - which would FINALLY create an independent watchdog for CBSA
- Bill C-27, Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022 - which includes the very problematic Artificial Intelligence and Data Act
- Advocating for the protection of international assistance from anti-terrorism laws after the adoption of Bill C-41
- Bill C-63: The very concerning Online Harms Act
- Bill C-70: The new and highly controversial Foreign Interference legislation
- Parliamentary study on Transparency of the Department of National Defence
- Biometrics guidance & other privacy issues with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
- Palestine and the right to dissent
- Combatting Racism & Islamophobia
- Repatriation of all Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria
- Justice for Dr Hassan Diab
- Mohamed Harkat & Security certificates
- Canada’s 4th Universal Periodic Review
- Work with the international Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism
- The UN Counter-terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) Canada assessment
- The UN Cybersecurity Treaty & the EU AI Convention
What we have planned for the rest of 2024!
- Pressuring lawmakers and officials to protect our civil liberties from the negative impact of national security as well as opposing the discourse of “countering terrorism” to repress dissent, such as protests and encampments in support of Palestinian rights and lives.
- Opposing the weaponization of concerns around foreign interference to unnecessarily increase national security powers, which will greatly affect rights and liberties of Canadians, and will most likely lead to more harassment and xenophobia
- Ensuring that the Canadian government’s proposals on “online harms” do not violate fundamental freedoms, or exacerbate the silencing of racialized and marginalized voices
-
Protecting our privacy from government surveillance, including facial recognition, and from attempts to weaken encryption, along with advocating for good privacy law reform
- Addressing the lack of regulation on the use of AI in national security, including proposed exemptions for national security agencies
-
Fighting for Justice for Mohamed Harkat, an end to security certificates, and addressing problems in security inadmissibility
-
Ensuring Justice for Hassan Diab and reforming Canada’s extradition law
-
The return of the rest of the Canadian citizens and the non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children indefinitely detained in Syrian camps
-
The end to the CRA’s prejudiced audits of Muslim-led charities
- Greater accountability and transparency for the Canada Border Services Agency
- Greater accountability and transparency for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
- Advocating for the repeal of the Canadian No Fly List, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada
- Keeping you and our member organizations informed via the News Digest
- Publishing a collection of essays written by amazing partners on the work of the ICLMG for our 20th anniversary
-
And much more! Read more - Lire plus
| |
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 the hundreds of people who have supported us over the years, including on Patreon! As a reward, we are listing below our patrons who give $10 or more per month (and wanted to be listed) directly in the News Digest. Without all of you, our work wouldn't be possible!
James Deutsch
Bill Ewanick
Kevin Malseed
Brian Murphy
Colin Stuart
Bob Thomson
James Turk
John & Rosemary Williams
Jo Wood
The late Bob Stevenson
Nous tenons à remercier nos organisations membres ainsi que les centaines de personnes qui ont soutenu notre travail à travers les années, y compris sur Patreon! En récompense, nous nommons ci-dessus nos mécènes qui donnent 10$ ou plus par mois et voulaient être mentionné.es directement dans la Revue de l'actualité. Sans vous tous et toutes, notre travail ne serait pas possible!
Merci!
| | | | |
