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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

October 23, 2021

Canada's extradition system needs major reform, legal and human rights experts say

The Canadian Press 20/10/21 - Canada's extradition laws need a thorough overhaul to ensure fairness, transparency and a balance between a desire for administrative efficiency and crucial constitutional protections, say legal and human rights experts. In a report released Thursday, the voices calling for reform say the Canadian process for sending people to face prosecution and incarceration abroad is riddled with shortcomings that make the system inherently unjust. The recommendations for change emerge from the Halifax Colloquium on Extradition Law Reform at Dalhousie University in September 2018, which brought together academics, defence counsel and human rights organizations.

"Canada fulfils most extradition requests from other countries, and individuals who are sought for extradition are almost always unsuccessful in challenging it," the report says. "But is this as it should be?" The advocates for reform highlight the case of Ottawa sociology professor Hassan Diab, a Canadian citizen who was extradited to France and imprisoned for over three years, only to be released without even being committed to trial. "It is worth recalling that, when the Extradition Act was brought in, Parliament was assured by the Department of Justice that Canadians would not moulder away in foreign states awaiting trial, nor would extradition procedures be used to facilitate foreign investigation," the report says. "Hassan Diab's case shows that neither of these promises is being taken seriously."

The report released Thursday says the committal process compromises the ability of the person sought to meaningfully challenge the foreign case against them, reducing Canadian judges to rubber stamps and permitting use of unreliable material. Diab's lawyer, Donald Bayne, said Canada's extradition process is "essentially an unjust system" unworthy of a modern, constitutional Canada. "Extradition involves the deprivation of liberty of Canadians, and others, without any sworn evidence at all," he told a news conference Thursday to launch the report.

The surrender decision made by the justice minister is a highly discretionary and explicitly political process, unfairly weighted toward extradition, the report says. The Justice Department's International Assistance Group facilitates the extradition of people to face prosecution or sentencing in the country in which they are charged or convicted. However, the group is "excessively adversarial" in the way it conducts proceedings, acting without any separation between the litigators and the decision-makers, the report says. All this takes place under a "veil of unnecessary secrecy," it adds.

The group behind the report advocates changes including:

-- A presumption of innocence in the committal process, as well as more use of first-person evidence and cross-examination to allow the person sought to challenge the reliability of the case against them;

-- Timely disclosure of exculpatory evidence possessed by either the requesting state or the Canadian government;

-- A more exacting standard of review for the minister's surrender decisions, and changes to the law to hand some legal questions to the courts;

-- Permitting surrender only if the requesting state is ready to take the case to trial;

-- Explicit consideration of Canada's obligations under international human rights law;

-- A requirement that, if diplomatic assurances are used to facilitate surrender, they be meaningful, transparent, monitored and legally enforceable;

-- Reformulation of the International Assistance Group's role so members seek a fair and just result rather than a litigation "win";

-- Adequate oversight of the assistance group's activities, including public scrutiny;

-- Barring extradition, in cases where Canadian citizens are sought, in favour of a Canadian prosecution, where possible, unless the government can prove it is actually in the interests of justice to extradite.

Dalhousie University law professor Rob Currie said the report had been sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Justice Minister David Lametti, among others. "But what is most pressing is that Parliament look seriously at what extradition actually looks like in Canada and what it should look like in the future," Currie said. "Canadians should have a say in this, and it is well past time for law reform." Lametti's office had no immediate comment on the report. Read more - Lire plus

Report: Changing Canada’s Extradition Laws: The Halifax Colloquium’s Proposals for Law Reform

Version française : Modifier les lois d’extradition du Canada : Les propositions du colloque de Halifax pour la réforme du droit

TAKE ACTION: Canada must reform its extradition laws now!

'Bring our Canadians home': Lawyer files suit on behalf of 26 Canadians stuck in Syrian camps

CTV News 12/10/2021 - A lawyer suing the federal government to force it to bring 26 Canadians with ISIS ties back home from Syrian refugee camps says time is of the essence to bring them back home to Canada. Last month, a proceeding was filed on behalf of 11 families alleging that the federal government has neglected to uphold parts of the Federal Court Act, the Citizenship Act, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, when it comes to the government’s efforts in repatriating their loved ones. “It’s basically an effort to require Global Affairs Canada to do what they should be doing, which is bring our Canadians home,” Lawrence Greenspon, a criminal defence lawyer who filed the suit, told CTV News.

“There’s absolutely no reason why these Canadians can’t be brought home to their loved ones here in Canada.” In all, the application lists 26 Canadians -- 14 children, eight women and four men -- who are being held in the Al-Hol and Al-Roj prison camps and the Hasakah, Qamishli and Derik prisons in regions across north-eastern Syria. The application also describes the conditions in the camps as “horrific” with “non-existent hygiene measures” and a “lack of clean water.” “The conditions in the camps, and certainly in the prisons, are such that everyday matters and we would hope to get this on as quickly as possible,” Greenspon said. Alexandra Bain, director of Families Against Violent Extremism (FAVE), said there are more than just the 26 Canadians in this application who are stuck in Syria. “We still have approximately 40 people, not all of them are with our organization, but this court case will benefit them,” she told CTV News. “We have over 25 children and each one of those children is a Canadian citizen.” Greenspon hopes the suit will force the Canadian government to issue passports to these detainees, officially request repatriation and appoint someone to oversee the detainees’ handover.

Greenspon filed a similar motion last year on behalf of Amira, a five-year-old orphan who was stuck at the Al-Hol camp. He said after filing the documentation, Amira was quickly brought to Canada to live with her uncle and grandparents. Since Amira’s case, another Canadian child trapped in Syria has been brought home as well, Greenspon added. In the past, Global Affairs has cited the instability of the region and a lack of consular services in Syria for the inaction on bringing these Canadians home, but Greenspon argues the cases of Amira and the other child show that it can be done. “There was no incident,” he said. “It wasn't a matter of security and the fact we don’t have consular relations was not an obstacle. We were able to do that for Amira, so the real question is why we can't do it for the other 26 Canadians that are over there and in very, very harsh conditions?” Bain reiterated that any notion of it being too difficult for government officials to enter into Syria is simply not true. “The government continues to act as if there’s absolutely nothing they can do for this people, (that) it’s impossible to get into northeast Syria, which is nonsense,” she said. Read more - Lire plus

Impact of online harms bill includes 'spectre of censorship,' library group warns in submission

Consultation on the government’s proposal wrapped up in September, but the government is refusing to release the 423 submissions it received publicly

The National Post 22/10/2021 - The Liberal government’s proposed online harms legislation will “all-but guarantee that the system will lead​ to the mass removal of content,” according to the Canadian Association of Research Libraries. And that “will impact individual freedom of expression rights, increase the spectre of censorship and damage ​the historical record,” says the association. The association h​as joined civil liberties groups and international organizations who are raising the alarm about the bill which will mandate social media and other platforms monitor online posts and remove illegal content.

The bill would target terrorist content, content that incites violence, hate speech, intimate images shared non-consensually, and child sexual exploitation material. Platforms would have to remove illegal content within 24 hours of it being flagged, and a new regulator called the Digital Safety Commissioner of Canada would be in charge of enforcement. Experts have warned various aspects of the proposal, including the mandatory monitoring and removal of content, as well as sweeping new powers given to the regulator, would violate Canadians’ Charter rights.

The Liberals have promised to introduce the online harms legislation within 100 days of Parliament’s return on Nov. 22. The Heritage Canada consultation on the government’s proposal wrapped up in September, but the government is refusing to release the 423 submissions it received publicly. Some of the documents have been released by the organizations who participated.

A number of those have taken issue with a proposal to require online platforms to report flagged content to law enforcement. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association wrote that it has significant concerns the proposal would leverage online platforms as “agents of law enforcement, creating mandatory reporting and preservation obligations that may expand over time and significantly impact the privacy rights of Canadians.” It added that the government’s proposal to include CSIS is “of particular concern.” Advocacy group OpenMedia warned that the proposal would “lead to the automatic reporting of an enormous volume of lawful content directly to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), deputizing online platforms as surveillance agents of the state in a system not seen anywhere else in the democratic world.”

Digital rights advocacy group Access Now wrote that the 24 hour deadline to remove content is unreasonable and onerous. “Strict and short deadlines for content removals cannot be reconciled with international human rights law,” it said, noting that the Constitutional Council of France recently said short deadlines for removing online illegal content were unconstitutional, given their impact on freedom of expression. The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression has also previously warned 24-hour takedowns could lead platforms to delete legitimate expression, Access Now said.

Even some who are in favour of putting in place a regulatory system to address online harms took issue with the government’s approach. The Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) said that it believes in “regulating hateful, discriminatory, and harmful content” but it can’t support the government’s proposal as drafted. LEAF said the government is taking the wrong approach in treating five categories of illegal content the same way, and that lumping non-consensual sharing of intimate images in the same legislation as, for example, terrorist content is “highly problematic.” It also criticized the proposal to require mandatory reporting to law enforcement, noting that while it may be appropriate in the case of child exploitation materials, some individuals have “concerns about, fear of, or prior negative experiences with, police involvement – especially for those who are Black, Indigenous, and racialized.” The group added mandatory reporting “risks the over-criminalization of individuals and puts innocent people at risk of being reported to the police.”

Many of the participants also took the government to task for the consultation itself. They said the consultation shouldn’t have been held during the federal election, which made it more difficult to take part. The CCLA pointed out the consultation didn’t ask many questions, “suggesting that the government has largely already decided what it intends to do.” OpenMedia said the consultation “provides absolutely no opportunity to help shape the framework of either the problem at hand, nor any of the proposed solutions.” It argued this is “unacceptable policy-making in a democratic society. But it is particularly egregious as the government considers infringing on our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and limiting citizens’ ability to participate in the primary public spaces of our era, online platforms.” Read more - Lire plus

Liberals need to drop 'dumpster fire' Bill C-10, and address big tech's real damage: NDP

Revealed: Facebook's secret blacklist of "dangerous individuals and organizations"

The Intercept 12/10/2021 - To ward off accusations that it helps terrorists spread propaganda, Facebook has for many years barred users from speaking freely about people and groups it says promote violence.

The restrictions appear to trace back to 2012, when in the face of growing alarm in Congress and the United Nations about online terrorist recruiting, Facebook added to its Community Standards a ban on “organizations with a record of terrorist or violent criminal activity.” This modest rule has since ballooned into what’s known as the Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, a sweeping set of restrictions on what Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users can say about an enormous and ever-growing roster of entities deemed beyond the pale. In recent years, the policy has been used at a more rapid clip, including against the president of the United States, and taken on almost totemic power at the social network, trotted out to reassure the public whenever paroxysms of violence, from genocide in Myanmar to riots on Capitol Hill, are linked to Facebook. Most recently, following a damning series of Wall Street Journal articles showing the company knew it facilitated myriad offline harms, a Facebook vice president cited the policy as evidence of the company’s diligence in an internal memo obtained by the New York Times.

But as with other attempts to limit personal freedoms in the name of counterterrorism, Facebook’s DIO policy has become an unaccountable system that disproportionately punishes certain communities, critics say. It is built atop a blacklist of over 4,000 people and groups, including politicians, writers, charities, hospitals, hundreds of music acts, and long-dead historical figures. A range of legal scholars and civil libertarians have called on the company to publish the list so that users know when they are in danger of having a post deleted or their account suspended for praising someone on it. The company has repeatedly refused to do so, claiming it would endanger employees and permit banned entities to circumvent the policy. Facebook did not provide The Intercept with information about any specific threat to its staff. Despite Facebook’s claims that disclosing the list would endanger its employees, the company’s hand-picked Oversight Board has formally recommended publishing all of it on multiple occasions, as recently as August, because the information is in the public interest. The Intercept has reviewed a snapshot of the full DIO list and is today publishing a reproduction of the material in its entirety, with only minor redactions and edits to improve clarity. It is also publishing an associated policy document, created to help moderators decide what posts to delete and what users to punish.

“Facebook puts users in a near-impossible position by telling them they can’t post about dangerous groups and individuals, but then refusing to publicly identify who it considers dangerous,” said Faiza Patel, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program, who reviewed the material. The list and associated rules appear to be a clear embodiment of American anxieties, political concerns, and foreign policy values since 9/11, experts said, even though the DIO policy is meant to protect all Facebook users and applies to those who reside outside of the United States (the vast majority). Nearly everyone and everything on the list is considered a foe or threat by America or its allies: Over half of it consists of alleged foreign terrorists, free discussion of which is subject to Facebook’s harshest censorship. The DIO policy and blacklist also place far looser prohibitions on commentary about predominately white anti-government militias than on groups and individuals listed as terrorists, who are predominately Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Muslim, or those said to be part of violent criminal enterprises, who are predominantly Black and Latino, the experts said. [...]

But while labels like “terrorist” and “criminal” are conceptually broad, they look more like narrow racial and religious proxies once you see how they are applied to people and groups in the list, experts said, raising the likelihood that Facebook is placing discriminatory limitations on speech. Due to the company’s mimicry of federal terror sanctions, which are meant to punish international adversaries rather than determine “dangerousness,” it is Facebook policy that the likes of the Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company and the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund, a U.K.-based aid organization, are both deemed too much of a real-world danger for free discussion on Facebook and are filed among Tier 1 terrorist organizations like al-Shabab. “When a major, global platform chooses to align its policies with the United States — a country that has long exercised hegemony over much of the world (and particularly, over the past twenty years, over many predominantly Muslim countries), it is simply recreating those same power differentials and taking away the agency of already-vulnerable groups and individuals,” said Jillian York, director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who also reviewed the reproduced Facebook documents. Facebook’s list represents an expansive definition of “dangerous” throughout. It includes the deceased 14-year-old Kashmiri child soldier Mudassir Rashid Parray, over 200 musical acts, television stations, a video game studio, airlines, the medical university working on Iran’s homegrown Covid-19 vaccine, and many long-deceased historical figures like Joseph Goebbels and Benito Mussolini. Including such figures is “fraught with problems,” a group of University of Utah social media researchers recently told Facebook’s Oversight Board. Read more - Lire plus

Press Progress 14/10/2021 - The Prime Minister’s Office declined to clarify remarks by Justin Trudeau equating unnamed left-wing “extremist groups” with white supremacist groups and suggesting both sides are spreading “hatred, fear and mistrust” in Canada and other democratic societies around the world. Delivering a speech this week to an international conference in Malmö, Sweden on combatting anti-Semitism and racism, Canada’s Prime Minister turned his attention to the role of technology and social media in “enabling harmful content like hate speech.”

“We’re in a time right now where around the world we see an increase of polarization, of extremism, of radicalization everywhere, including in some of the most open, liberal democracies in the world,” Trudeau told the conference. “In our elections, in our public discourse and in mainstream communications — let alone social media — we’re seeing a rise in intolerance.” Trudeau then offered an unusual explanation for the source of “white supremacy” and “hatred” on social media platforms, suggesting these ideas are in fact being pushed by “extremist groups on the far-right and the far-left”:

“We see the organizations of extremist groups on the far-right and the far-left that are pushing white supremacy, intolerance, radicalization, promoting hatred, fear and mistrust across borders but within borders, as well.”

That comment left many scratching their heads. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network, an advocacy group that monitors hate groups in Canada, tweeted a statement accusing Trudeau of equating “anti-racists and anti-fascists with white supremacists and the far-right.” The PMO declined to identify which “far-left” groups Trudeau had in mind or name a single left-wing group in Canada that matched that description. The PMO also would not say how it defines “extremist groups.” Evan Balgord, Executive Director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, says “far-left” is a broad term, used commonly by right-wing media outlets to describe groups with an anti-racist or anti-oppression focus. “The far-right, if they took power, would use that power to discriminate against, exile and execute their opponents if they don’t kiss the boot enough, they don’t meet the standard of what’s Canadian, or because of their skin colour” Balgord said. “Leftist organizations in Canada, which are sometimes described as the far-left by conservative media, are typically struggling for equal rights for all.” Read more - Lire plus

The Intercept 16/09/2021 - On Tuesday, a Florida judge sentenced Daniel Baker, an anti-fascist activist, to 44 months in federal prison for social media posts that called for armed defense against possible far-right attacks on the state’s Capitol in the wake of the January 6 riots. Baker, a 34-year-old yoga teacher and emergency medical technician trainee, had no previous criminal convictions and has already been held for 10 months of harsh pretrial detention, including seven months in solitary confinement. He never brought a weapon near a government building; he amassed no armed anti-fascist forces; he made no threats on a single individual. Baker will, nonetheless, face considerably more prison time than most January 6 defendants, including those who crossed state lines, small arsenals in tow, with the aim of overturning a presidential election.

It goes without saying that a United States federal court is no place to appeal to ethical grounds for militant anti-fascist resistance. Yet Baker, while prone to hyperbolic and sometimes paranoid rhetoric, was certainly not alone in fearing that there could be January 6-style events in statehouses nationwide ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration and that local police could hardly be trusted as a bulwark. The Federal Bureau of Investigations warned of the potential for armed protests at state capitols. Florida is home to over 60 far-right, white supremacist, and neo-Nazi groups recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and there are well-reported links between Florida police departments and far-right militiae. If there are moral arguments for physically confronting fascists — and I believe there are — they would have been of scant relevance in Baker’s case: zero such confrontations took place or appeared on the horizon, and no far-right mobs amassed at the Florida Capitol around Biden’s inauguration. This should have been a straightforward First Amendment case, with Baker’s online speech, albeit bellicose, judged as constitutionally protected. Instead, the formerly unhoused veteran has been made a victim of government efforts to draw false equivalences between fascistic far-right forces and the anti-fascists who would see them opposed.

“The American government has chosen to side with white supremacists, except when their own bureaucracy forces them to prosecute the most blatant offenders, albeit gently,” Baker told me in an email from prison. “They criticized me for supporting Black Lives Matter, Feminist Liberation ideologies, Global Revolutionary movements and direct democracy. … The government has made its stance clear throughout my hearings.” During his sentencing hearing on Tuesday, Baker’s attorney highlighted the case of a Georgia man who drove to Washington, D.C., with guns and ammunition and sent private texts threatening to shoot Rep. Nancy Pelosi in the head. The Trump acolyte had missed the storming of the Capitol by one day due to car trouble. Like Baker, he was charged with the interstate communication of threats. Unlike Baker, he had a history of hideous, racist online speech, and direct threats. And unlike Baker, he could leave prison soon: He will be sentenced in December and faces between six months to two years in prison; his eight months of pretrial detention will count as time served. Taking into account time served, meanwhile, Baker will spend another 34 months — almost three years — in prison.

“Dan’s case speaks volumes about how the state represses the left much differently than it treats the far right,” Brad Thomson, civil rights attorney at the People’s Law Office, who did not represent Baker, told me. “Here, Dan was sentenced to three and a half years for online posts opposing another January 6 incident. But for actual participants from January 6, we’re seeing charges and sentences far below that.” Thomson added that “every case is unique, but the overall message people will get from this is that online speech calling for militant antifascist action will send you to prison for much longer than actually taking militant action with fascists.”

It would be naive and ahistorical to hope that the U.S. government would draw a moral distinction between militant acts carried out in the service of genocidal white supremacy on the one hand and militant resistance to such acts on the other. Even a week after January 6, when it seemed that racist Trumpians had made undeniable their singular role as an extremist threat to this country’s already diminished democracy, the government once again doubled down on its baseless two-sidesism. As Branko Marcetic argued in Jacobin after Baker’s arrest, cases like this exemplify how the invocation of domestic counterterrorism efforts against the right will inevitably harm the left, given the state’s reactionary ideological tendencies.

Like dozens of other anarchists, communists, and socialists from around the world, Baker spent his savings to fly to Syria to join the feminist-led, environmentalist, and directly democratic political project in Rojava. There, he fought with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units against ISIS. From his Kurdish comrades, he told me he learned the concept of “welatparazi,” which, he said, “denotes a sentimental feeling of loyalty and obligation of service towards one’s community which shelters and nourishes us.”The internationalist involvement in Rojava has been compared to the communist International Brigades who fought against Francisco Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War. Despite the fact that the U.S. had backed the very same Kurdish units in their fight against ISIS, Baker’s participation was consistently cited by the government as proof that he poses a terror threat. [...] “The government’s case relied heavily on the fact that Dan is anarchist,” Thomson, the civil rights attorney, noted. “There is a long history in this country of police, prosecutors, and courts targeting anarchists for trumped up charges and excessive sentences. This legacy goes back to Haymarket and continues to today, with Dan’s case being the most recent example.” [...]

Baker worries that, because of his felony conviction, he “won’t be able to find work or continue to rescue injured people” and that he will face far-right violence after his release and possibly while in prison too. He will be appealing his conviction, but the likely venue — the conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeals — will not be a welcoming one. In the meantime, he told me that he plans to read and learn more about liberation movements and abolitionist histories. At the end of our phone call on the day following his sentencing, he hurriedly read off a quote from the philosopher Bertrand Russell, which he had recently come across. “‘Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind,’” he said. “That’s how I feel.” Read more - Lire plus

Biden’s DOJ uses a Trump tactic: Federal prosecutors label Black Lives Matter protesters terrorists

Times Colonist 19/10/2021 - The NDP government is dropping a legal requirement to protect citizens’ private data by storing and handling it in Canada, in a new bill that alarms the information and privacy commissioner. Amendments to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act strip the 18-year-old restriction and allow public agencies to send personal information outside of Canada.

The restriction was rushed into force in 2004 out of concern that rampant online surveillance measures taken by terrorist-hunting authorities in the United States after 9-11 would give them access to B.C. data stored or handled in the U.S. That surveillance by governments and corporations such as Google and Facebook has only increased over the years, but the NDP is now saying the measure is out of date and hampers competitiveness. The bill previously barred storage or handling of information outside of Canada. The new section reads: “A public body may disclose personal information outside of Canada only if the disclosure is in accordance with the regulation.”

The independent information and privacy commissioner, Michael McEvoy, said the change is “exceedingly troubling.” The government is proposing to allow public bodies to send people’s personal information outside Canada without explaining how they will protect it. “The government is effectively asking the legislative assembly for a blank cheque to eliminate the current restrictions on public bodies accessing and storing people’s personal information outside of Canada.” McEvoy said a more comprehensive analysis is underway. He was consulted prior to the introduction of the bill and his obvious concerns were ignored.

The original measure was portrayed as way to guard against over-reaching U.S. counter-espionage agencies combing through British Columbians’ personal data being stored on U.S. servers. “We’re telling [president] George Bush and the Patriot Act to take a hike,” said then-Liberal cabinet minister Joyce Murray. [...] After years of preaching about the sanctity of freedom of information whenever the topic came up, the NDP is now going to start charging anyone who tries to exercise that right. Freedom-of-information requests for anything other than an applicant’s own personal information will cost about $25. Read more - Lire plus

FIPA: Transparency Matters - Stop Bill 22

Global News 14/10/2021 - An Afghan family that fled Kabul as the Taliban took over the country in August has been stuck in Ukraine for more than a month while they wait for Canadian immigration officials to process their paperwork. Jawed Ahmad Haqmal — a former interpreter for the Canadian Armed Forces — and his 11 relatives, including five children, were part of a large group that was evacuated by Ukrainian soldiers.

Since landing in Kyiv on Aug. 28, they have been staying at a hotel paid for by the Globe and Mail, whose reporter Mark MacKinnon assisted the family’s dramatic escape hours after two deadly suicide attacks outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. The family from Kandahar now finds itself in limbo with no end in sight. Haqmal is growing impatient, frustrated and concerned for his family’s well-being. “We are heartbroken. We are really hopeless,” the 33-year-old told Global News. “We are like prisoners living in this hotel,” he said. “I don’t know for how long more I will be waiting.”

It has been a long ordeal for the family that fled to Kabul back in July as the Taliban progressed to surround their hometown of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city. As part of their advocacy work to help Afghans get asylum in Canada, staff members at a Liberal MP’s office helped raise funds to get Haqmal and his family out of Kandahar and into a safehouse in Kabul. By early August, Haqmal said he had completed his biometrics at the Canadian embassy in the capital. He has already received facilitation letters from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for all his family members, including health insurance documents and ID numbers. Yet, there is still no word on when they would be able to set foot in Canada.



Canada has committed to resettling 40,000 refugees from Afghanistan. So far, approximately 2,400 Afghan refugees have arrived in the country. In July, the federal government unveiled a new, expedited “path to protection” for Afghans who supported Canadian troops as interpreters, cultural advisers or support staff, as well as their families. But the plan to resettle Afghan interpreters has been plagued with problems, delays and controversy as thousands like Haqmal continue to wait in Afghanistan or a third country.

Robert St. Aubin, who helped advocate and collect funds for Haqmal while working as a staff member for Marcus Powlowski, Liberal MP for Thunder Bay-Rainy River, said there is a lack of transparency and accountability from IRCC officials. “One of the biggest issues is that the immigration department is so opaque, it’s just not clear what’s happening,” he told Global News. “We are in the system and yet there seems to be no actual accountability to the democratically elected government when it comes to these officials.” Read more - Lire plus

New human-rights campaign targets Canadian practice of holding some asylum seekers in jails

The Globe and Mail 14/10/2021 - Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are launching a campaign urging Canadian provinces to cancel arrangements with the federal government that let them detain asylum seekers and refugee claimants in provincial jails. The national campaign, called Welcome to Canada, begins on Thursday with the aim of pressing the provinces into ending the agreements they have with the Canadian Border Services Agency, or CBSA. The arrangements allow thousands of immigration detainees each year to be held in provincial jails without a time limit.

The campaign is launching after the release of a joint report in June from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that documented how being detained in Canadian jails and treated punitively affect people’s mental health, especially for those who came to Canada seeking an open, tolerant society. The report calls for the gradual abolishment of immigration detention, where it says people experience human-rights violations. Asylum seekers and refugee claimants are only held if the CBSA determines detention necessary. Though individuals can be detained if they’re a potential danger to the public or officials aren’t sure of their identity, the joint report reads that over 80 per cent are detained because they’re deemed a “flight risk” – that is, there’s a concern they won’t show up for an immigration hearing or removal from the country. Many people are held for months without knowing when they’ll be released because there’s no time limit.

Asylum seekers and refugee claimants are usually held in immigration detention centres but can be placed in provincial jails if they’re deemed higher risk, and some provinces hold people in correctional facilities because they don’t have immigration detention centres. “Canada is involved in serious human-rights abuses against people who come here seeking refuge, seeking a better life,” said Samer Muscati, associate disability rights director with Human Rights Watch. “There’s no reason for any province to be complicit in this abuse.” Read more - Lire plus

TAKE ACTION: Welcome to Canada

No decision yet on whether Chelsea Manning can visit Canada

CBC News 08/10/2021 - Notorious U.S. whistleblower Chelsea Manning will have to wait until the new year to find out if she is allowed to enter Canada. The Canadian government is seeking to ban the former intelligence analyst — who was convicted in one of the largest breaches of classified information in American history — from entering the country, arguing that she should be denied entry due to the gravity of her espionage record. A two-day admissibility hearing in front of the Immigration and Refugee Board wrapped today so that both sides can submit written statements to the tribunal.

The adjudicator indicated her final written decision likely won't be made until 2022. Manning's fight dates back to September 2017, when border officers denied her and argued that if her offences had been committed in Canada, they would "equate to an indictable offence, namely, treason." The Canada Border Services Agency can deny entry to any traveller on the basis of "criminal inadmissibility." Manning became famous more than a decade ago by leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, the website founded by Julian Assange, while serving in the U.S. military. Manning said she wanted to expose what she saw as the U.S. military's disregard for how the Iraq War was hurting civilians, and that she did it "out of love" for her country.

During her Canadian hearing, Manning's lawyers argued her American offences are not equivalent to Canadian offences and she should be allowed to enter. Yesterday, co-counsel Joshua Blum pointed to a provision in the Security of Information Act — Canada's national secrets law — which includes whistleblower protection in the "public interest." Manning's lawyers also argued her actions were justified by "necessity" and that the public interest in disclosing that information outweighed the harm. "I was just shocked at how little people knew about how bad the war in particular was," Manning said Thursday during testimony under oath. Read more - Lire plus

Public importance of leaked military secrets crucial to U.S. whistleblower Manning's bid to enter Canada

China: UN must act on Xinjiang atrocities after petition shows mass global outrage

CBC News 08/10/2021 - The international community must strongly condemn the ongoing serious human rights violations in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang) and pave the way for justice and accountability, Amnesty International said today in an open letter to UN member states.

The call comes after 323,832 people from 184 countries and territories signed the organization’s petition calling on the Chinese authorities to release the hundreds of thousands of Muslim minority men and women arbitrarily detained and subjected to mass internment, torture and persecution in Xinjiang. “Around the world, hundreds of thousands of people have signed our petition to express their outrage at evidence of crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations being inflicted on Muslims in Xinjiang,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“It’s a clear sign that people around the world see through China’s efforts to silence critics and lash out in response to credible reporting on its atrocities in Xinjiang. Every signature is a direct call on China to immediately stop this systematic persecution. “The Chinese government must immediately release all people arbitrarily detained in the camps and in prisons, dismantle the internment camp system, and end the systematic attacks against predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang.”

Open letter urges UN to investigate human rights violations against Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities + New testimonies reveal impact on detainees’ family members Read more - Lire plus

'Historic Victory': US Judge Rules Guantánamo Detainee's Imprisonment Illegal

Common Dreams 21/10/2021 - Two weeks after a review board cleared Guantánamo Bay prisoner Asadullah Haroon Gul for release, a federal judge ruled this week that the Afghan's imprisonment by the U.S. military in Cuba for over 14 years without charge or trial is illegal. In a ruling still undergoing classification review, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday granted Gul's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, making him the first Guantánamo detainee in over a decade to win such a case against the government. Mehta ruled that the United States had no legal basis for imprisoning Gul, a 40-year-old militant captured in Afghanistan in 2007, because he was not a member of al-Qaeda.

"This is a historic victory for the rule of law and a much-needed reminder to the U.S. government that there are limits on what it may do in the name of national security," Tara Plochocki, an attorney for Gul, said in a statement. "I'm hopeful that Asadullah will soon be reunited with his family." While a prisoner at Guantánamo, Gul has been subjected to physical and psychological torture, "including being beaten, hung by his wrists, deprived of food and water, and prevented from praying," as well as "sleep deprivation, extreme cold temperatures, and solitary confinement," according to the human rights group Reprieve.

Mark Maher, a lawyer at Reprieve U.S. who also represents Gul, said: "We are thrilled for Asad. A federal court has finally affirmed what Asad has known for so long—he should be home with his family, and his detention is unlawful." "This is a landmark ruling," added Maher. "For 20 years, successive U.S. administrations have asserted their right to imprison people indefinitely, without charge or trial. Guantánamo was built on the shakiest of legal foundations, and that has never been more clear than it is today." The ruling does not mean that Gul's release is imminent. The Biden administration can appeal the decision, and as The New York Times noted:

In 2008, a federal judge ruled that 17 Muslims from China of the Uyghur minority were unlawfully detained at Guantánamo Bay but, as an oppressed minority, could not go home. The Uyghurs then languished at the prison for years while the Obama administration sought nations to receive them. The last three Uyghurs were sent to Slovakia for resettlement in 2013.

The U.S. government has argued it has the authority to indefinitely imprison Gul, citing his alleged connections to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and noting the continuation of the 20-year so-called War on Terror. However, on October 7 the interagency Periodic Review Board—which is tasked with determining whether Guantánamo prisoners pose a security threat to the United States—approved the transfer of Gul and Sanad Yislam al-Kazimi, a Yemeni captured in Dubai in 2003 and accused of being one of slain al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's bodyguards. There have been approximately 780 men and boys imprisoned at Guantánamo since it opened in 2002. Thirty-nine detainees remain at Gitmo following the transfer last month of Abdul Latif Nasser, a 56-year-old Moroccan held there for 19 years without charge or trial. Of those 39 prisoners, 28 have never been charged with any crime. Read more - Lire plus

Guantanamo Bay: Ahmed Rabbani to be released 7 years after US Senate Report established he was the victim of mistaken identity, says lawyer

Guantanamo detainee can pen letter on CIA mistreatment, US says

Biden Tells Supreme Court That Publicly Documented Torture Is a State Secret

Ruminations on the Abu Zubaydah Supreme Court Oral Argument: Three Surprising Turns

A US Lawyer Who Has Worked With Gitmo Detainees Details Her Journey Into a ‘Kafkaesque’ World

The Guardian 22/10/2021 - Israel has accused six prominent Palestinian human rights groups of being terrorist organisations, saying they have undercover links to a militant movement. Most of the groups document alleged human rights violations by Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The six are Al-Haq, a human rights group founded in 1979, Addameer, Defence for Children International – Palestine, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees. The Israeli defence ministry said they were linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular political movement with an armed wing that in the past carried out attacks against Israel. [...]

The groups, well known for their human rights work, have received funding from EU member states, the United Nations and other donors. The Palestinian Authority said the move was an “unhinged assault” on Palestinian civil society. “This fallacious and libelous slander is a strategic assault on Palestinian civil society and the Palestinian people’s fundamental right to oppose Israel’s illegal occupation and expose its continuing crimes,” it said in a statement. Shawan Jabarin, the director of Al-Haq, said the move was an attempt to stifle criticism. “They may be able to close us down. They can seize our funding. They can arrest us. But they cannot stop our firm and unshakeable belief that this occupation must be held accountable for its crimes,” he told the Times of Israel.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem called the government’s declaration “an act characteristic of totalitarian regimes, with the clear purpose of shutting down these organisations”. It added: “B’Tselem stands in solidarity with our Palestinian colleagues, is proud of our joint work over the years and is steadfast to continue so.” The Israeli government has previously cracked down on Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights organisations by clamping down on funding, denying entry to employees, and raiding offices. Read more - Lire plus

We are Google and Amazon workers. We condemn Project Nimbus

AccessNow 21/10/2021 - The news is full of articles that detail law enforcement agencies’ demands for access to our encrypted communications. They claim such access is required because criminals and terrorists use encryption. But that is only one side of the story. Encryption also protects us from the very criminals law enforcement is targeting. It’s a vital tool for keeping human rights defenders safe from powerful adversaries. It is essential for basic online safety and secure transactions and communications. And it is also essential for the survival of democracy, and any hope of abiding by human rights as laid out by the United Nations.

As humans, we all need the freedom to conduct personal and private conversations online without interference. However, strong encryption meets even more urgent needs. For human rights defenders, encryption can be the difference between life and death. That is why any policy related to encryption must ensure their important work is not compromised. If we weaken or bypass encryption, and fail to protect the most at-risk individuals and organizations in our communities, more people will get killed, and vital human rights work will suffer. Today, as COVID-19 pushes more of our activities online, more highly sensitive conversations, like those between human rights lawyers and their clients — the victims of human rights abuses — are conducted over the internet. It is imperative to keep these conversations private. At Access Now, our Digital Security Helpline handles cases that show why encryption is essential for a safer world.

Following are five examples, with the names of organizations and individuals, and any details that could leak their identities, changed or omitted to keep them safe.

Case #1: Ahead of the general election in Nicaragua, encryption helps protect civil society from surveillance, intimidation, and incarceration

Case #2: Under a corrupt regime, encryption keeps investigators and informants safe from reprisal

Case #3: As refugees and migrants cross the Mediterranean, encryption keeps SOS calls secure so Alarm Phone can save lives

Case #4: In investigations of human trafficking, encryption keeps informants safe from organized criminals

Case #5: When LGBTQ+ activists use social media platforms, strong authentication prevents compromise and attacks. Read more - Lire plus

Four strategies to defend encryption and our human rights

TAKE ACTION: Global Encryption Day: Make the Switch!

Politico 06/10/2021 - Non-binding resolution also asks for AI-based predictive policing ban. The European Parliament today called for a ban on police use of facial recognition technology in public places, and on predictive policing, a controversial practice that involves using AI tools in hopes of profiling potential criminals before a crime is even committed. In a resolution adopted overwhelmingly in favor, MEPs also asked for a ban on private facial recognition databases, like the ones used by the controversial company Clearview AI. The Parliament also supports the European Commission's attempt in its AI bill to ban social scoring systems, such as the ones launched by China that rate citizens' trustworthiness based on their behavior.

“This is a huge win for all European citizens,” said Petar Vitanov (S&D), the resolution's author.

The non-biding resolution sends a strong signal on how the Parliament is likely to vote in upcoming negotiations of the AI Act. The European Commission’s proposal of the bill restricts the use of remote biometric identification — including facial recognition technology — in public places unless it is to fight “serious” crime, such as kidnappings and terrorism. The AI Act’s lead negotiator, Brando Benifei (S&D) and almost all of his co-negotiators from other political groups in the Parliament have called for a blanket ban on facial recognition. This is in stark contrast to policies implemented in some EU member countries, who are keen to use these technologies to bolster their security apparatuses. Read more - Lire plus

EU facilitates surveillance: Access Now, PI, demand an investigation

TNI 12/09/2021 - There is a growing political demand for climate security as a response to the escalating impacts of climate change, but little critical analysis on what kind of security they offer and to who. This primer demystifies the debate - highlighting the role of the military in causing the climate crisis, the dangers of them now providing military solutions to climate impacts, the corporate interests that profit, the impact on the most vulnerable, and alternative proposals for 'security' based on justice.

Climate security is a political and policy framework that analyses the impact of climate change on security. It anticipates that the extreme weather events and climate instability resulting from rising greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) will cause disruption to economic, social and environmental systems – and therefore undermine security. The questions are: whose and what kind of security is this about? The dominant drive and demand for ‘climate security’ comes from a powerful national security and military apparatus, in particular that of the wealthier nations. This means that security is perceived in terms of the ‘threats’ it poses to their military operations and ‘national security’, an all-encompassing term that basically refers to a country’s economic and political power.

Climate security has been increasingly integrated into national security strategies, and been embraced more widely by international organisations such as the United Nations and its specialised agencies, as well as civil society, academia and the media. In 2021 alone, President Biden declared climate change a national security priority, NATO drew up an action plan on climate and security, the UK declared it was moving to a system of ‘climate-prepared defence’, the United Nations Security Council held a high-level debate on climate and security, and climate security is expected to be a major agenda item at the COP26 conference in November. 

As this primer explores, framing the climate crisis as a security issue is deeply problematic as it ultimately reinforces a militarised approach to climate change that is likely to deepen the injustices for those most affected by the unfolding crisis. The danger of security solutions is that, by definition, they seek to secure what exists – an unjust status quo. A security response views as ‘threats’ anyone who might unsettle the status quo, such as refugees, or who oppose it outright, such as climate activists. It also precludes other, collaborative solutions to instability. Climate justice, by contrast requires us to overturn and transform the economic systems that caused climate change, prioritising communities at the frontlines of the crisis and putting their solutions first.

What are the main problems with describing climate change as a security issue?

1. Obscures or diverts attention from the causes of climate change, blocking necessary change to the unjust status quo.

2. Strengthens a booming military and security apparatus and industry that has already gained unprecedented wealth and power in the wake of 9/11.

3. Shifts responsibility for the climate crisis to the victims of climate change, casting them as ‘risks’ or ‘threats’

4. Reinforces corporate interests.

5. Creates insecurity.

6. Undermines other ways of dealing with climate impacts.

In practice, it is difficult to divorce climate change from other causal factors leading to conflict, and there is little evidence that the impacts of climate change will necessarily lead people to resort to violence. Indeed, sometimes scarcity may reduce violence as people are forced to collaborate. Research in the drylands of Marsabit District in Northern Kenya, for example, found that during drought and water scarcity violence was less frequent as poor herding communities were even less inclined to start conflicts at such times, and also had strong but flexible common property regimes governing water that helped people adjust to its scarcity. 

What is clear is that what most determines the eruption of conflicts is both the underlying inequities inherent in a globalised world (legacy of Cold War and deeply inequitable globalisation) as well the problematic political responses to situations of crisis. There is also evidence that reinforcing a climate–conflict paradigm may increase the likelihood of conflict. It helps fuel arms races, distracts from other causal factors leading to conflict, and undermines other approaches to conflict resolution. Rather than looking to the military as a solution to the climate crisis, it is more important to examine its role in contributing to the climate crisis due to the high levels of GHG emissions and its pivotal role in in upholding the fossil-fuel economy.

Can we rescue the word security?

Security will of course be something that many will call for as it reflects the universal desire to look after and protect the things that matter. For most people, security means having a decent job, having a place to live, having access to healthcare and education, and feeling safe. It is therefore easy to understand why civil society groups have been reluctant to let go of the word ‘security’, seeking instead to broaden its definition to include and prioritise real threats to human and ecological wellbeing. It is also understandable at a time when almost no politicians are responding to the climate crisis with the seriousness it deserves, that environmentalists will seek to find new frames and new allies to try and secure necessary action. If we could replace a militarised interpretation of security with a people-centred vision of human security this would certainly be a major advance.

There are groups attempting to do this such as the UK Rethinking Security initiative, the Rosa Luxemburg Institute and its work on visions of a left security. TNI has also done some work on this, articulating an alternative strategy to the war on terror. However it is difficult terrain given the context of stark power imbalances worldwide. The blurring of meaning around security thus often serves the interests of the powerful, with a state-centred militaristic and corporate interpretation winning out over other visions such as human and ecological security. As International Relations professor Ole Weaver puts it, ‘in naming a certain development a security problem, the “state” can claim a special right, one that will, in the final instance, always be defined by the state and its elites’. 

Or, as anti-security scholar Mark Neocleous argues, ‘Securitizing questions of social and political power has the debilitating effect of allowing the state to subsume genuinely political action concerning the issues in question, consolidating the power of the existing forms of social domination, and justifying the short-circuiting of even the most minimal liberal democratic procedures. Rather than securitizing issues, then, we should be looking for ways to politicize them in non-security ways. It is worth remembering that one meaning of “secure” is “unable to escape”: we should avoid thinking about state power and private property through categories which may render us unable to escape them’. In other words, there is a strong argument to leave security frameworks behind and embrace approaches that provide lasting just solutions to the climate crisis. Read more - Lire plus

ACTIONS

NEW Canada must reform its extradition system now!

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!

No More Attacks on Afghanistan

World Beyond War - In response to a bombing at the Kabul airport, the US president authorized 2 drone strikes on August 27 and 29 that killed several Afghan civilians, including a family of ten. Official counts indicate that at least 241,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan and Pakistan war zones. We oppose any further attacks on Afghanistan, “over the horizon” or by troops on the ground.

How to Help Afghans in Afghanistan and Canada

Muslim Link - The people of Afghanistan are in dire need of humanitarian aid and Canada has committed to accepting 20,000 Afghan refugees.

How can you help? Click below for a list of ways you can support the people of Afghanistan at home and abroad.

Protect our rights from facial recognition!

ICLMG - 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.

+ Take action to ban biometric recognition technologies

Trudeau: 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. 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.

Stop Mohamed Harkat's Deportation to Torture

No one should be deported to torture. Ever. For nearly 19 years, Mohamed Harkat has faced the ordeal of being place under a kafkaesque security certificate based on secret evidence and accusations he cannot challenge, and facing deportation to torture in Algeria.

Please join us and send the letter below to Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair, urging them to stop the deportation to torture of Mr. Harkat.



• Your letter will also go to your Member of Parliament, along with the ministers of Justice & of Immigration.
• And don't hesitate to also sign and share this petition!

China: Free Canadian Huseyin Celil

The Chinese authorities accused Huseyin of offences related to his activities in support of Uighur rights. They held Huseyin in a secret place. They gave him no access to a lawyer, to his family, or to Canadian officials. They threatened him and forced him to sign a confession. They refused to recognize Huseyin’s status as a Canadian citizen, and they did not allow Canadian officials to attend his trial. It was not conducted fairly, and resulted in a sentence of life in prison in China. His life sentence was reduced to 20 years in February 2016. Huseyin has spent much of his time in solitary confinement. He lacks healthy food and is in poor health. Kamila needs her husband, and the boys need their father back

+ Urge China to stop targeting Uyghurs in China and abroad

OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES

Anti-terrorism laws

Législation antiterroriste

‘Are We Human?’ Modi’s Use of Antiterror Law Draws Scrutiny From Courts

Attacks on dissent

Attaques contre la dissidence

'Weapon of War': Cori Bush Decries Unregulated Use of Tear Gas on US Civilians

Free speech

Liberté d'expression

UN Human Rights Council found that Cihan Erdal's detention was arbitrary and calls for reparations

Jailed Egyptian Activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah Publishes Prison Writings as Sisi Cracks Down on Dissent

Hong Kong

Hong Kong lawmakers support plan to bar those convicted under security law from social work

Five-year prison terms for Hong Kong students deepen fears of retroactive use of national security law

National security law: Chinese University of Hong Kong’s student union becomes latest opposition-leaning group to disband under pressure

Migrants and Refugee Rights

Droits des migrant.es et des réfugié.es

Refugee claimants take Safe Third Country Agreement appeal to Supreme Court

No need to review ruling on Safe Third Country refugee pact, feds tell Supreme Court

UN quizzed over role in prison-like island camp for Rohingya refugees

“Missing in Brooks County”: Thousands of Migrants Denied Due Process at Border Have Died in Desert

Walls Are Dumb but President Biden's ‘Smart Border’ Is Even Worse

Police

Violence at Fairy Creek Is Part of a Reckoning Over Police Brutality in Canada

“Next generation” armed drone with police potential tipped for EU financial backing

EU: Interior ministers to debate ways to increase police access to digital data

Miscellaneous

Divers

Canadian Admits Fabricating Terrorism Tale Detailed in New York Times Podcast

A Reluctant Warrior? An Examination of Gen. Colin Powell’s Bloody Legacy from Iraq to Latin America

The BCCLA Sues to Stop Wardens from Placing Prisoners in Long-term Solitary Confinement

January - June 2021

What we've been up to so far in 2021:

• We called on the government to not expand anti-terror laws to fight racism
• We met with many MPs, agencies, policy staff from the Offices of the Minister of Public Safety and Minister of Justice, etc.
• We published a report exposing CRA's Prejudiced Audits against Muslim Charities
• We continue to call for Justice for Dr Hassan Diab and his family!
• We were featured in 85+ news media articles, op-eds and podcasts
• We co-organized and presented in various online events
• We published op-eds, articles & statements ...and much more! More details

During the second half of the year, we will organize activities around the 20th "anniversary" of the beginning of the so-called "War on Terror" and the rushed adoption of Canada's Anti-terrorism Act of 2001, as well as the problematic laws passed and human rights abuses inflicted since in the name of national security.

And we will continue fighting:

• against facial recognition technology, governments' attacks on encryption, and online mass surveillance
• for a review mechanism for the Canada Border Services Agency
• to abolish security certificates and end deportation to torture
• to repeal the Canadian No Fly List
• for justice for Hassan Diab & the reform of the Extradition Act Read more

Version française: Ce que nous avons fait à date en 2021. Aidez-nous à protéger les libertés civiles pour le reste de l'année!

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