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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles

February 1st, 2025 - 1er février 2025

Eight years since the Quebec city Mosque massacre: ICLMG renews commitment to fight against Islamophobia

ICLMG 29/01/2025 - Today, we mark 8 years since the murder of six worshippers at the Quebec City Mosque, remembering the lives of Azzeddine Soufiane, Khaled Belkacemi, Aboubaker Thabti, Abdelkrim Hassane, Mamadou Tanou Barry and Ibrahima Barry, and honouring survivors, like Aymen Derbali.

They were killed in one of the most horrific mass shootings and acts of Islamophobia in Canadian history. Today is also the National Day of Remembrance and Action Against Islamophobia, and so we are remembering other victims, including the members of the Afzaal family murdered in London in 2021.

2024 has seen a staggering increase in Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism in Canada. As a coalition we commit to continuing our fight against the targeting of Muslims and racial and religious profiling in Canada's national security activities, including:

• Countering government officials', politicians' and the media's continued false portrayal of Muslims, including refugees and migrants, as a "security threat";
• Protecting the civil liberties of those who protest human rights abuses, including in support of Palestinian human rights;
• Rescinding national security programs that reinforce systemic Islamophobia, including the No Fly List and other border measures; the Terrorist Entities List; security certificates; and others;
• Advocating for justice for Canadian Muslims who have and continue to face the disproportionate brunt of anti-terrorism policies and the "War on Terror," including Mohamed Harkat and his fight against deportation to torture in Algeria;
• Hassan Diab's quest for justice and no new extradition to France; Abousfian Adbelrazik, still fighting for justice regarding Canada’s complicity in his detention and torture in Sudan; and the repatriation of Canadian men, women and children in indefinite detention in northeastern Syria;
• Ending the CRA's unfounded and prejudiced targeting of Muslim charities;
• We will continue to work tirelessly with our coalition members and community partners to fight Islamophobia, racism, and all forms of hate, along with human rights and civil liberties abuses, in Canada and abroad.

To learn more about the origins, impacts and what you can do about Islamophobia in Canada, visit our resource page. Source

NCCM marks 8 year since the Quebec city Mosque shooting with their Green Square Campaign

Hogue Commission succeeds in setting the record straight on foreign interference, but misses opportunity to highlight government failure to protect civil liberties

ICLMG 29/01/2025 - The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG) expresses mixed feelings with the release of the report from the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference, led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue. The report does an exemplary job of investigating and setting the record straight on the impact of foreign interference in Canada, making it clear that, while interference is a serious and ongoing concern, some of the most heated and sensational accusations – that our institutions are under existential threat or that there are traitors in parliament – are incorrect and suffered from exaggeration or inaccuracy. However, the report disappointingly fails to engage with some of the key concerns arising from this heated debate, including increases in hateful and xenophobic rhetoric, and the use of these unsupported allegations to justify the rushed adoption of significant legislation that will have clear and negative impacts on fundamental rights and freedoms in Canada.

“In Spring 2024, Parliament rammed the Countering Foreign Interference Act through both the House of Commons and Senate with little to no time to study the bill, extremely limited debate, and with legislators saying their hands were tied when it came to important proposed amendments to ensure that fundamental freedoms were protected while addressing foreign interference,” said Tim McSorley, national coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group. “This was justified by what we now know were unfounded or exaggerated concerns regarding the breadth and depth of the impact of foreign interference in Canada.”

He further stated that: “The Inquiry rightly highlighted that the debate around foreign interference has decreased trust in public institutions. However, it is deeply disappointing that the Inquiry did not take this opportunity to urge lawmakers, going forward, to ensure that measures to counter foreign interference are the subject of robust, in-depth debate, analysis and amendment, and to clearly state that precautions must be taken to ensure fundamental freedoms are protected.”

The ICLMG co-organized open letters to MPs and to Senators, signed by more than ten leading civil liberties, human rights, legal and free expression organizations in Canada raising concerns about Bill C-70 before its adoption, and launched an online letter-writing campaign for the public to express their views. The ICLMG also raised these concerns in appearances before the House of Commons and Senate committees studying the bill, and submitted a policy brief to the Hogue Commission outlining the problems with the government’s approach to Bill C-70, the Countering Foreign Interference Act, in particular.

Among the concerns shared:

• The expedited study of Bill C-70 – an almost unprecedented six weeks – meant that there was no time for in-depth analysis or drafting of briefs, severely limiting the ability of civil society organizations and experts to weigh in.
• Parliamentarians expressed that while they understood concerns, they were unable to formulate and present amendments on such a short timeline, and worried that amendments would further delay the process.
• While action to address foreign interference is necessary, it was premature to adopt legislation before knowing the full scope of the problems.
• Heated rhetoric, based on classified reports and leaked documents, created an atmosphere of fear and panic which was used to justify speedy action at the expense of careful examination. We now know, thanks to the Inquiry’s report, that these concerns were overblown.
• Several parts of Bill C-70, including amendments to the CSIS Act and the Criminal Code, new foreign interference offences, changes to the Canada Evidence Act, and the proposed Foreign Influence Registry, contained provisions that were overly broad, presented threats to freedom of expression, assembly and association, and undermined access to fair and open court proceedings.

Despite these concerns, the ICLMG welcomed several of the Commission’s recommendations, including addressing problems of over-classification of government documentation, ensuring greater public transparency around foreign interference, the need for greater caution around intelligence sharing, and the need to address acts of transnational repression.

The ICLMG also noted the proposal for a new agency to collect and monitor open-source intelligence. Any proposal to do so will need to take into careful consideration the potential of increased surveillance of Charter-protected communication and expression, especially given existing issues regarding efforts by national security agencies to collect and analyze “publicly available” or online material.

The ICLMG will continue to raise these concerns and monitor the creation and application of new laws and policies as well as the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission and how the Canadian government addresses foreign interference. Source

Lives ruined, no ‘traitors’ found: the cost of baseless reporting on Chinese interference

Lutter contre l’ingérence sans bafouer les droits

Écrit par Tim McSorley, Coordonnateur national, Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles. Traduit par Barbara Ulrich, traductrice. Originellement publié dans le numéro de décember 2024 “Imaginer une ville des droits humains” de la revue Droits et libertés de La Ligue des droits et libertés. Abonnez-vous ou procurez-vous un exemplaire.

CSILC Décembre 2024 - Des inquiétudes entourant l’ingérence étrangère continuent à faire les manchettes au Québec et à travers le Canada, suscitant l’examen approfondi, la controverse et les appels à agir aussi rapidement que possible afin de remédier à ce que les agences nationales de sécurité ont nommé de façon hyperbolique une menace existentielle pour le Canada.

Il y a de toute évidence des incidences d’ingérence étrangère qui soulèvent des préoccupations urgentes. À titre d’exemple, les révélations que les membres de la communauté Sikh au Canada ont été des cibles d’harcèlement, de violence et même de meurtre par des agent-e-s du gouvernement indien et d’autres menaces transnationales de répression envers des activistes de droits de la personne et leurs familles au Canada.

Cependant, ce débat a été trop caractérisé par la xénophobie, le racisme, la partisanerie politique, la surenchère ainsi que la précipitation à promulguer de nouvelles lois sévères étendues. Certaines de ces lois auront non seulement des retombées significatives sur les droits humains au Canada, y compris la liberté d’expression et d’association, mais également sur la contestation et la dissidence, la coopération et la solidarité internationale, la liberté académique et la liberté de presse.

Ceci est dû en grande partie à des renseignements secrets divulgués par des sources anonymes dont l’exactitude et la source soulèvent des questions de crédibilité. Une partie de ceux-ci a été examinée par l’Enquête publique sur l’ingérence étrangère, mais, puisque le rapport final tarde à se faire connaître, la crédibilité de ces fuites reste entière.

Des droits bafoués, encore une fois

Malgré ces questions restées en suspens, la réponse du gouvernement a été presque exclusivement axée sur l’octroi de nouveaux pouvoirs aux agences de sécurité nationales et dans la création de nouvelles infractions importantes, lesquelles entraîneront une réaction excessive et une hypersécurisation. Notre travail, depuis 2022, sur les incidences des lois sur la sécurité nationale et les luttes contre le terrorisme adoptées, témoigne de l’importance des définitions précises, des décisions basées sur des données probantes et des réponses qui sont nécessaires et proportionnelles.

Faire défaut d’adhérer à ces principes mine inévitablement les droits humains aussi bien que l’engagement et la participation démocratique. Ceci aura pour conséquence la marginalisation d’une diversité de communautés et d’organismes, notamment ceux des populations racisées, autochtones ou immigrantes et celles et ceux qui sont engagés dans la contestation, la dissidence et la remise en question du statu quo.

Loi adoptée à toute vitesse

L’exemple le plus flagrant est l’adoption précipitée de la Loi C-70 — la Loi sur la lutte contre l’ingérence étrangère — au mois de juin 2024, qui a entériné des changements aux systèmes canadiens de justice criminelle et de sécurité nationale.

Une loi d’une telle envergure aurait requis un examen approfondi. Cependant, dans la précipitation de légiférer sur les questions de l’ingérence étrangère aussi rapidement que possible, le projet de loi a été adopté par l’ensemble du processus législatif en moins de deux mois, presque du jamais vu.

À cause de la brièveté surprenante consacrée à la période d’étude, plusieurs aspects de cette législation n’ont pas été soumis à un examen et, par conséquent, des champs de préoccupation n’ont pas été pris en considération. Moins de temps voulait dire que les expert-e-s et les organismes ayant des ressources limitées ont dû précipiter leur analyse du projet de loi, rendant la soumission de mémoires et d’amendements appropriés presque impossible. Même lorsque les parlementaires et les sénateurs et sénatrices ont reconnu certaines préoccupations, le refrain était que l’étude du projet de loi ne pouvait pas être retardée afin d’adopter les nouvelles règles avant une prochaine élection potentielle, ce qui pourrait arriver à tout moment sous un gouvernement minoritaire.

Pouvoirs sans lien avec l’ingérence

À titre d’exemple, la Loi C-70 a changé la Loi sur le Service canadien du rensei­ gnement de sécurité (Loi sur le SCRS) en créant de nouveaux mandats plus facilement accessibles pour des perquisitions ponctuelles et la collecte secrète de renseignements à l’extérieur du Canada. Ces nouveaux pouvoirs doivent être approuvés par les tribunaux, mais ceci se passe à huis clos. Cela constitue une victoire pour le Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité (SCRS) qui, depuis des années, contrevient aux lois existantes régissant les mandats, notamment en dupant les tribunaux. Des seuils élevés pour l’obtention des mandats secrets sont l’une des principales façons dont nos droits garantis par la Charte des droits et libertés sont protégés ; le projet de loi C-70 les a affaiblis.

Ceci n’est qu’un des multiples changements inscrits dans la Loi sur le SCRS, lesquels ne sont reliés qu’en partie à la lutte contre l’ingérence étrangère et pourront, en réalité, s’appliquer désormais à toute démarche de collecte de renseignements ou d’enquête qu’entreprend le SCRS.

Des défenseur-e-s des droits humains, des organismes de développement international et de solidarité, des politicien-ne-s, des académiques, des syndicalistes, des activistes environnementaux, des défenseur-e-s des terres autochtones, des journalistes et beaucoup d’autres parties prenantes au Canada travaillent directement avec des contreparties internationales au jour le jour. Un grand nombre de ces collègues internationaux peuvent travailler pour ou représenter des gouvernements, des entreprises d’État ou des entreprises affiliées, des fondations, des institutions académiques ou des médias, ou travaillent pour des organismes multilatéraux composés de gouvernements étrangers. Ces partenariats internationaux sont incontournables, aidant à proposer de nouvelles perspectives, faisant des avancés en recherche et en politiques, partageant le travail de Canadien-ne-s à l’international et en aidant à bâtir la coopération et la solidarité internationale. Lire plus

English version: Combating interference without trampling on rights

Justin Mohammed: The Fight for the Return of Canadians Detained in Northeast Syria

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 - For the past four years, dozens of Canadian citizens – about half of whom are children – have been arbitrarily detained in Northeast Syria. Most have been living in squalid camps, in conditions that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism has found to constitute torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment. Their plight has, until very recently, gone under the radar of the Canadian public, media and political leaders. In stark contrast to others, such as Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor who have become household names due to the laudable efforts of the Government of Canada to bring them home from China, the Canadians detained in Northeast Syria have been stonewalled with a multitude of justifications about why Canada cannot repatriate them.

From the moment that the ICLMG became aware of this situation, it has steadfastly stood up for the human rights of these citizens. In 2019, a coalition of academics, civil society organizations, and lawyers were convened to discuss how this situation could be addressed, with the ICLMG playing an active role in those conversations. After a year of government advocacy, gathering information from the detainees’ relatives, and strategizing on ways to pressure the government into action, this coalition pushed the issue squarely into the public arena in January 2020, writing to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and demanding that he take action on behalf of these citizens. Human Rights Watch followed up with a landmark report on the Canadian detainees in June 2020, providing a springboard for the ICLMG and others to continue advocacy on these cases. In the first half of 2021, both the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on International Human Rights held hearings on the topic, during which Amnesty International, Save the Children, Human Rights Watch and others testified about the pressing need for action.



The first breakthrough came in October 2020, when a five- year-old orphaned girl was finally repatriated to Canada, and since then the ICLMG has played a leading role in sustaining the pressure on the Government of Canada. It spoke out against the secretive consular policy created by Global Affairs Canada that established an entirely separate framework for Canadians detained in Northeast Syria, and in June 2022, the ICLMG hosted a webinar highlighting the parallels of the Canadian detainees’ situation with the unlawful detention carried out by the United States at Guantanamo Bay. Since then, a number of the Canadian detainees have been able to return but many remain trapped in Northeast Syria.

With limited action from the Canadian government, in December 2022, lawyers Lawrence Greenspon and Barbara Jackman took the case of the Canadian detainees to the Federal Court of Canada, seeking to force the government into action. Regrettably, the Government of Canada continues to deny that it has any legal responsibility towards this group of Canadians, despite holding the very keys that would put an end to the human rights violations they are suffering on a daily basis. This intransigence indicates that the lessons of commissions and reports of the past, such as the Arar Inquiry, the Iacobucci Inquiry, and the 2018 Auditor General’s report on consular services, have not yet been learned. The scandalous treatment of the Canadians detained in Syria is sadly destined to be the next chapter in this shameful history.

Justin Mohammed is the former Program Manager (Campaigns & Advocacy) at Amnesty International Canada, and a former representative for Amnesty on the ICLMG steering committee.

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Canada: Bring Them Home!

By Xan Dagenais

On January 20, 2023, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown ruled that Canada must repatriate Canadians illegally and arbitrarily detained in Northeast Syria in conditions United Nations officials have found to be akin to torture. Brown wrote that the government was in breach of section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – guaranteeing all Canadians the right to enter, remain in, and exit Canada – and must act “as soon as reasonably possible” to bring Canadians home. Since then, the government has repatriated several Canadian women and children, but not all Canadians.

The Canadian government filed an appeal and, disappointingly, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the lower court’s decision. The families of the Canadians left behind have recently asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its shocking decision not to hear their appeal and play its role as a guarantor of rights and justice, as the government is not doing so of its own accord.

The government continues to have no justification to refuse to repatriate all detained Canadians. It does not allege any of them engaged in or assisted in terrorist activities, and Justice Brown saw no evidence that any detainee had committed offenses contrary to Canadian law.

It remains crucial to send the government a strong message to act quickly. Every day the government fails to bring home these Canadians, it places their lives at risk from disease, malnutrition, violence, and ongoing armed conflicts, including bombing by Turkey’s military. Source

Xan Dagenais is the Communications and Research Coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Version française : La lutte pour le retour des Canadien.nes détenu.es dans le nord-est de la Syrie

ACTION Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria + Initiate an independent investigation into the death of Canadian citizen FJ now!

ACTION “Canadians are dying": Free Jack Letts & 19 Canadian Kids, Women & Men in Syria

Rojava administration says Syrians in al-Hol can return

Khadija Cajee: Kids on Canada’s No-Fly List

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 - No-Fly List Kids (NFLK) is a group of Canadians with children or grandchildren whose names were erroneously flagged by Canada’s ‘No-Fly List’ or Passenger Protect Program (PPP) under Canada’s Secure Air Travel Act (SATA). NFLK’s sole interest was to ensure that the Charter rights of all Canadians, including those wrongly affected by the PPP, were protected.

In 2016, we discovered that our six-year-old son was considered a high profile passenger under SATA. We tweeted about this, and that tweet thrust us into the national spotlight. Within days, other families started to come forward with stories of their own, some having kids younger than a year old who were impacted by the same situation. Having a common goal of drawing attention and finding a solution to this problem, our group was formed!

We soon discovered that the No-Fly List had been around for about 10 years, was haphazardly put together and relied on airlines, rather than the government, to screen passengers. The momentum necessary to get the government to change the system required the help of many human rights organizations, lawyers and others who had been advocating tirelessly on this issue for almost a decade with little success. One of these organizations was the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG).

At the time, airline personnel could not tell passengers that they were on a list. They had to make a phone call to Public Safety Canada to clear the identified passengers, including infants, before they could board the flight. Sometimes, as the kids got older, they were subjected to invasive security checks, passport confiscations and immigration interrogations which were intimidating and very scary. This issue did not only impact kids. While the government refused to say how many people were on the list, research pointed to thousands of innocent people being affected, including veterans, cabinet ministers, Senators, seniors, students, airline pilots and, mostly, just regular people trying to go about their lives.

We leaned on Monia and Tim and the ICLMG team for guidance, advice and support. The research and expertise they had already put into this issue was invaluable in our various engagements with government officials. From little things, like printing fact sheets for our Day on the Hill, to big things, such as accompanying us to high profile meetings with various Ministers and Senators, including the Senate Committee on Human Rights and many others, they were there with and for us in ways we could never repay.

In 2021, a new and fully functional redress system called the Canadian Travel Number was launched. This system places the no-fly screening mechanism fully into the government’s control, distinguishes multiple people with the same name from each other and, crucially, allows Public Safety to tell parents or guardians that their child’s name is not on the No-Fly List. They are, however, under no obligation to do so, and adults still cannot be informed whether or not they are on the list. A person only learns they are on the list if Public Safety gives the order to deny them boarding their flight, after which they are provided a letter acknowledging they are on the list and how to challenge their listing.

While the optimal solution is for the list to be abolished in its entirety – an opinion we share with the ICLMG – we would not have gotten the above meaningful reforms without the support of this amazing group of people.

Our engagement with the government still continues to this day albeit on a smaller scale. But the advocacy for the civil liberties of all people is still a full-time passion for the team at ICLMG, who continues this relentless pursuit. We have nothing but admiration and gratitude for their work.

Khadija Cajee is the co-founder of No-Fly List Kids and Conquer COVID-19. linkedin.com/in/kcajee

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Fighting to Abolish the No-Fly List

By Tim McSorley

ICLMG has opposed Canada’s No-Fly List since its inception in 2007. Over time, we have documented the deep problems with this system, including how it lacks a fair appeal process, allows unregulated information- sharing with foreign entities which can lead to human rights abuses, violates fundamental rights, and leads to racial, religious and political profiling.

We’ve done so through research projects like the Information Clearinghouse on Border Controls and Infringements to Travellers’ Rights, which documented the experience of people in Canada dealing with the No-Fly List and other border controls. We have raised the issue in meetings with MPs, ministers and their staff, and highlighted it in multiple legislative briefs to parliament. Our backgrounder on the No-Fly List has consistently been one of the most visited pages on our website. We’ve also worked alongside impacted individuals, including the No-Fly List Kids and others, to advocate for meaningful changes along with the abolishment of the list.

Despite its nearly 20 year existence, the government has never conducted a review of the efficiency or impact of the No-Fly List. Like taking off our shoes and emptying bottles of water, it has become an accepted norm at airports despite no proof of positive impact, and troves of evidence of negative outcomes. The result is an anti-terrorism power that should simply be abolished, once and for all.

You can read more about the No‑Fly List here.

Tim McSorley is the National Coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group. Source

Version française : Des enfants sur la liste canadienne des personnes interdites de vol

Matthew Behrens: Canada Must Urgently Process Gaza Visa Applications During Ceasefire Window

Homes Not Bombs/Rural Refugee Rights Network 26/01/2025 - As a fragile temporary ceasefire takes hold in Gaza – one whose second phase may not come to pass, given the governing Israeli coalition’s reliance on members opposed to the deal – Canada has a rare but very brief opportunity to belatedly fix its modest Gaza temporary residence program, one that Immigration Minister Marc Miller had already concluded was a failure six weeks after its launch.

As the much criticized Gaza program marked its 1-year anniversary January 9, some 4,700 applications had been received, but only 616 individuals had arrived in Canada. None received Canadian assistance exiting Gaza; rather, those lucky enough to escape and their Canadian sponsors exhausted life savings to pay exorbitant border crossing fees into Egypt. An estimated 3,500+ applications remain unprocessed.

The punishingly slow pace of visa processing for Gazans – a paltry average of 2.5 applications completed per day, with a lethal waiting time for some of over a year – stands in stark contrast to the Canada–Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) program. During CUAET’s first year, Canada welcomed 129,000 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion and approved over half a million visas (an average of 1,370 applications per day), usually within a two-week turnaround. Canada waived security screening for those aged up to 17 and over 61, and dropped a required medical exam despite the Ukrainian population’s much higher risk of carrying tuberculosis, which Ottawa conceded “posed potential health risks to Canada.”  

Similarly, Canada welcomed over 8,000 Israeli visa holders during 2024. Palestinian Canadians and refugee advocates point to such figures as clear proof of a painful, discriminatory double standard that fails to adequately respond to what Canadian officials acknowledge are “catastrophic conditions” in Gaza.

While some 600 individuals still in Gaza were pre-approved last year for Canadian visas contingent on completing final biometric security screening in Egypt, they  remained in limbo as their names gathered dust on a list at the Israeli Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which has thus far failed to issue exit permits. Advocates were informed last week that the Canadian list is now considered outdated, and all names will have to be submitted anew, a further delay that exposes applicants to the ongoing threats of disease, death from exposure, and malnutrition that will only worsen if the ceasefire ends.  

While other governments – notably Australia – were able to facilitate the exit of thousands of Palestinians until the May closing of the Rafah border crossing, Miller glumly waved the white flag, claiming there was nothing Canada could do. Even if that were the case, it failed to explain why upwards of 1,000 Canadian visa applicants have been stranded for close to a year in Cairo, with no access to employment, education, medical care, or income supports.  

The Gaza immigration program has been controversial since its launch, from racial profiling questions to a ridiculously low cap. Palestinian community members have felt unwelcome – baselessly smeared as security risks – while Gaza health care workers seeking visas were asked questions violating patient confidentiality. Some of those lucky enough to arrive have faced rude and intimidating airport questioning from Canadian border officers, while others have struggled to receive provincial health care coverage. (Ontario relented last month, but Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador still refuse access).

While there’s temporary relief that bombs are no longer falling in Gaza, current conditions remain unlivable for the vast majority of the 2.1 million people squeezed into an area 1/7th the size of Ottawa.

To make best use of this short ceasefire time frame, Canadian immigration officials must urgently devote the same energy they invested into the Ukraine program, complete remaining Gaza applications (which could be done over 3 business days based on the CUAET pace), and negotiate with the Egyptian government and COGAT for the rapid exit of Canadians’ loved ones.

After 15 months of inexcusable Canadian program failures, it’s the least we can do to fulfill our promise to reunite Canadian families with their traumatized loved ones. Source

NEW ACTION Family Reunification February Call to Action: Canada Must Urgently Complete all Gaza Applications and Open the Borders During Ceasefire

After the ceasefire, Israel is still acting with impunity

IJV Canada January 2025 - On Monday, just a day after the ceasefire in Gaza came in to effect on Sunday, the Israeli army had already violated its terms, killing a 15 year old boy by sniper fire. On Tuesday, the Israeli army launched a new military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing 12 so far and rendering Jenin’s refugee camp “nearly uninhabitable”. 

Since the ceasefire went into effect, illegal Israeli settlers have been rampaging throughout the occupied West Bank. Over the past five days, they have wreaked destruction, setting fire to homes, vehicles and a nursery, injuring at least 21 people. This escalation of violence comes as US President Trump has rescinded the minimal sanctions Biden previously imposed on settler violence in the West Bank.

After 15 months of genocide, and in light of a so-called “ceasefire,” it is heartbreaking to witness Israel continue its terrorising campaign of violence against Palestinians with impunity.

With the Trump administration threatening to boost rather than reign in Israeli impunity, this is the time for Canada to define itself in the world and make good on its stated commitment to human rights and a rules-based international order. It’s time for Canada to take decisive action to end our complicity in Israel’s genocidal violence and stop Israel’s oppression of Palestinians once and for all.

Here are 5 things to demand the Canadian government does NOW:

1. Impose a full and immediate arms embargo on Israel
2. Stop tax breaks for war crimes in Palestine
3. Sanction Israeli officials and institutions
4. Recognize and take action against anti-Palestinian racism
5. Suspend diplomatic relations with Israel

Israel must be stopped, and we all have a role to play. Stay tuned for more calls to action in the coming weeks and months.

Shabbat shalom. Free Palestine. Justice now. Source

NEW ACTION Stop Killing Palestinian Children. Protect Palestinian Children Now.

Palestinian child administrative detainees reach all-time high

Gaza Ceasefire: Palestinian Lawyer Says Women, Children Released by Israel Faced Torture, Starvation

The Government of Israel orders UNRWA to vacate its premises in occupied East Jerusalem and cease operations in them

I’m One Of The ‘Indigo 11.’ Here’s Why I Did It

NEW ACTION Stop Ontario’s anti-Palestinian Persecution!

It’s time for Canada to withdraw from the Safe Third Country Agreement

CCPA 23/01/2025 - On his first day in office, U.S. President Donald Trump declared war on migrants. 

That might seem like hyperbole, but it’s barely an exaggeration—in one of the many anti-immigrant executive orders he signed on day one, he officially declared that irregular migration to the U.S. is an “invasion” and assumed wartime presidential powers to stop it, including the unprecedented move of deploying the military on U.S. soil to “secure complete operational control” of the border. 

Trump plans to build a massive machine of surveillance and repression in the United States to root out migrants, including stripping migrants of legally acquired citizenship. He plans to send millions of U.S. residents to countries across the world, some of whom have not seen “their” country since they were children, in order to fulfill his campaign promise of mass deportations.

The situation is bleak, and Canada has responsibilities—both moral and legal—to act. The first thing it should do is immediately withdraw from the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States.

An agreement that never made sense

The Safe Third Country Agreement is a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Canada, which was signed in 2002 and went into effect in 2004. It regulates refugee claims between the two countries. According to the terms of the agreement, a migrant applying for refugee status must do so in the first “safe” country that they arrive in. 

That means, for example, a migrant arriving from Haiti via Mexico cannot cross through the United States and then apply for asylum in Canada. Because the hypothetical migrant arrived in the United States first—and the U.S. is designated as a “safe country” by the terms of the agreement—they must apply for refugee status in the United States. The same would apply to a migrant who arrives in Canada first—they cannot then apply for refugee status in the U.S.

The initial agreement only covered official points of entry, such as land border crossings, airports, and marine ports. It did not cover the vast majority of the U.S.-Canada border. So when Trump first took office in 2017 and began to implement his anti-immigrant vision, migrants began fleeing to Canada through irregular crossing points.

The most famous of those crossings was at Roxham Road. Located between Champlain, New York, and Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, Roxham Road became the site where migrants fleeing deportation in the U.S. would arrive and cross into Canada. Because Roxham was not an official point of entry, it allowed migrants to legally apply for refugee status in Canada despite having previously been in the “safe country”—the U.S.

Between 2017 and 2023, around 100,000 people crossed the border at Roxham Road to apply for asylum—over 90 per cent of the total of irregular crossings into Canada.

In 2023, during then U.S. President Joe Biden’s first official visit to Canada, he and Trudeau announced that they had renegotiated the Safe Third Country Agreement. Now it would apply to the entire border, not just official points of entry. Roxham Road was closed—and so was a key legal path to asylum in Canada for migrants fleeing the U.S.

Time to withdraw

Back in 2007, a judicial review of the Safe Third Country Agreement—triggered by Amnesty International, the Canadian Council of Refugees, and other human rights groups—found that the agreement was unconstitutional and failed to live up to Canada’s obligations under international law to protect the rights of refugees. It found, in short, that the United States could not reasonably be considered a “safe country” for refugees due to its non-compliance with the Refugee Convention and the Convention Against Torture. 

The decision was overturned by an appeals court on procedural grounds—but even in the overturning decision, the court did not find that the U.S. was a “safe country.” 

That was 2008, years before Trump became the dominant figure in American politics by stoking anti-immigrant hate. Today, the immigration environment in the United States is significantly worse.

One of Trump’s day-one decrees was to completely suspend the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), the program through which all refugee claimants must pass to enter the United States, for 90 days “pending review.” If the program comes back at all, it will likely be significantly more restrictive. Trump also suspended access to section 208 of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which allows for asylum claims. 

It appears that, for now, there is essentially no way to make a legal refugee claim in the United States of America. The idea that such a place can be considered a “safe country” for refugees in this context is completely and obviously absurd.

Canada, though, continues to maintain this fiction as a signatory to the Safe Third Country Agreement. Pretending that the U.S. is a safe country means that Canada continues to lock out asylum seekers who have legitimate fears of persecution in their home country—and, increasingly, in the United States itself.

America’s Department of Homeland Security has been given a mandate to use “all legally available resources” to construct detention centres for migrants, and America’s federal government is setting up task forces in every state to manage the mass deportation of millions of people. The president of the United States has expressed plans—some of which are blatantly unconstitutional—to strip legally acquired citizenships. It would be reasonable to interpret the U.S.’ war on migrants as a form of persecution in itself. 

If Trump actually does even half the things he has promised to do to migrants in the United States, it will trigger a humanitarian crisis—and Canada has the responsibility to act to protect people fleeing persecution. 

A moral and legal obligation

When governments attempt to close migration routes, migration doesn’t stop—it just moves to more dangerous areas. When the U.S. “closed” the border with Mexico in the 1990s, more migrants moved into the dangerous terrain of the southwest desert. When Europe “closed” land migration routes coming from Turkey and elsewhere, more migrants chose to take the perilous journey across the Mediterranean in small and crowded boats.

In the past 10 years, over 31,000 migrants have “gone missing” in the Mediterranean while attempting to cross into Europe. Another 10,000 are “missing” along migration routes in the Americas during that same period, with the majority of those deaths being in the desert along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Canada has largely been insulated from these waves due to geography. It only shares a single land border with a country that it designates as a “safe country” for refugees, justifying a blanket refusal of asylum claims. But what happens when that country is no longer safe?

Like most countries, Canada is a signatory to the Convention on the Status of Refugees, an international agreement that outlines the legal responsibilities signatories carry towards asylum seekers. The convention is clear—refugees have a right to asylum from persecution, and they have the right to access such asylum even if they enter a country irregularly.

But the most important arguments in favour of scrapping the Safe Third Country Agreement aren’t legal—they’re moral. Do we, as a country, want to bear the weight of thousands more migrants dying while searching for lives of dignity?

During the Holocaust, a high-level Canadian government official—likely either Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King or his immigration minister—was asked how many Jews Canada should admit to the country as they fled Nazi persecution. They responded by saying that “none is too many.”

Let’s not say the same thing to refugees today. Source

Quaker groups file suit over the end of policy restricting ICE arrests in houses of worship

Trump Halts Refugee Admissions, Stranding Thousands Approved to Enter U.S., Fleeing War, Persecution

They Flee Russia as Dissidents Seeking Asylum. The U.S. Locks Them Up.

Owen Schalk: Forced disappearances in Kandahar show need for Canadian Afghanistan Papers

Canadian Dimension 20/01/2025 - Last month, the Globe and Mail published an article about “enforced disappearances” of Afghan prisoners by Canadian troops in Kandahar. So far, no other Canadian news outlet has reported on the serious allegations in the piece, which offer a rare peek through Ottawa’s wall of censorship at the actual functioning of Canadian military operations abroad.

The source of the allegations is Richard Colvin, a Department of Foreign Affairs (now called Global Affairs Canada) veteran who rose to prominence in 2009 as one of the main whistleblowers regarding Canadian complicity in the torture of Afghan civilians. For testifying to Parliament about the torture scandal, Colvin faced government retaliation. He was “denied promotions that normally would be routinely granted to a diplomat of his rank, and federal lawyers threatened him with prosecution for his decision to testify.”



Since then, Colvin has been compiling additional information about the Canadian military’s treatment of Afghan prisoners. His findings are disturbing. If true, they constitute what Colvin calls “a grave war crime” on a “massive scale.”

Colvin’s report draws from “hundreds of public and private sources,” and details how, during Canada’s occupation of Kandahar Province, Canadian soldiers conspired to secretly detain and transfer hundreds of Afghan prisoners to the central government’s security apparatus. Many of these Afghans were local farmers with no connection to militant anti-occupation forces. [...]

“A mindset of cynicism, non-accountability, and legal impunity”

While Canada allegedly delivered hundreds of unacknowledged Afghan prisoners to unknown fates, it must be noted that the Afghan detainees whose existence Canada reported fared little better.

As the torture revelations of 2007-2009 showed, Canada routinely delivered acknowledged prisoners to Afghan government jails where they were “whipped, beaten, starved, choked and subjected to electric shocks, despite Canadian assurances that their rights were being protected.” Then Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament in order to shut down the investigation into these reports. Justin Trudeau, despite initially supporting calls for an inquiry into Canadian complicity in the torture of Afghans, backtracked after becoming prime minister in 2015.

It appears that Afghan prisoners were not only tortured in the custody of the Western-backed central government. Canadian forces seemingly tortured prisoners too, as reported by law professor Amir Attaran in 2007. Through Access to Information, Attaran acquired three handwritten reports from Canadian military police in Kandahar. Attaran reported that the documents “show three men were brought to military police by a single interrogator in one day with injuries to their faces, heads and upper bodies… the men had swollen eyes, cuts on their eyebrows, gashes to their forehead and slashes on their cheeks.”

What’s more, insiders have alleged that Canadian forces repeatedly and knowingly killed Afghan civilians, that those who spoke out faced retaliatory action, and other soldiers were threatened against following their example.

In 2008, Claude Lepage, a member of Canadian special forces unit Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2), reported to the military ombudsperson’s office that he felt his team was “being encouraged [by superiors] to commit war crimes by the chain of command.” In one example, “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.”

In another case, “members of the unit bombarded several civilian residences… 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.”

Yet another: “…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.” The murderer of this unarmed man was allegedly promoted to sergeant.

Similar to Colvin, Lepage says he faced “retaliatory measures” after reporting these war crimes to the Canadian government. He was demoted, his salary halved, then he was kicked out of JTF2. Other soldiers reported that Michael Rouleau, head of the unit, threatened JTF2 members against speaking out. According to Sergeant Paul Demers:

Rouleau made, in my presence and in front of members of the unit, disapproving comments about Mr. Lepage’s behaviour and the fact that he denounced the death of an Afghan civilian… Mr. Rouleau implied that the unit disapproved of the fact that [Lepage] denounced the situation and that the treatment Lepage received would apply to those who denounced similar situations.

In fact, Canadian forces regularly killed Afghan civilians, but in general, these incidents did not get back to the Canadian public due to an enormous state and private media propaganda campaign designed to imbue Canadians with patriotic fervor for the Afghanistan mission.

As I wrote in my book Canada in Afghanistan: A story of military, diplomatic, political and media failure, 2003-2023, military and government officials made up almost half (47 percent) of all primary sources in Canadian newspapers, and they were the most-cited secondary sources. Canada’s media was 11 times more likely to quote a Canadian official than an Afghan official or civilian, and 158 times more likely to quote a Canadian official than an anti-war advocate. Ottawa’s carefully crafted narrative about the occupation thus dominated its public perception in Canada.

According to Colvin’s latest report on enforced disappearances, Canadian military and diplomatic conduct in Afghanistan encouraged “a mindset of cynicism, non-accountability and legal impunity.” The above examples reinforce this claim. [...]

Where are Canada’s Afghanistan Papers?

In December 2019, the Washington Post won access to hundreds of internal interviews with US government and military officials speaking about the war in Afghanistan. The documents, nicknamed the Afghanistan Papers, proved that the US government knew they had lost the war but continued to lie to the public in order to justify continued occupation.

Where are Canada’s Afghanistan Papers? They exist, in fact, but Canadians aren’t allowed to see them.

During the Harper government years, around 500 internal interviews were conducted on the topic of Canada in Afghanistan. So far, the only document produced by this secret review that Canadians can read is a 10-page summary consisting purely of “cheerleading” and “back-patting.”

More than a decade after Canada’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, the interviews are still hidden behind a wall of state censorship.

In a sense, Colvin’s revelations about forced disappearances in Kandahar reaffirms what we already knew: Canadian actions on the ground completely contradicted the lofty statements about democracy and human rights espoused by politicians and military command.

The revelations also show that Canadians deserve an Afghanistan Papers of their own. We deserve to know how the occupation functioned internally, what Canadian officials truly thought of events on the ground, and how much they knew about the torture and disappearance of Afghan prisoners. Getting this information, however, has proven more difficult that wringing truths out of Washington. Source

Hassan Diab: An Innocent Man Scapegoated by Lies and Disinformation

HDSC 16/01/2025 - On 2 January 2025, Elon Musk wrote on 'X' that "the mass murderer" is "living free as a professor in Canada". Musk also copied a tweet by the leader of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre (14 November 2024): "A man convicted in a French court for killing 4 people in a Paris bombing is living freely in Canada, even working as a professor".

Since early November 2024, there has been a concerted and malicious campaign, launched by B'nai Brith and others, in Canada, Israel, the UK, and the USA. It has directly triggered hate mail and death threats against Hassan Diab, his wife, and two children. The campaign was further boosted on 13 November 2024 by a front-page oped in the National Post written by the Israeli ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed. Articles appeared on 10 January 2025 in the National Post and the Ottawa Citizen trumpeting the headline: "Convicted bomber, Carleton part ways".

The French case against Dr. Diab was always extremely weak, a fact acknowledged by the Canadian extradition judge, Robert Maranger, who reluctantly committed Hassan for extradition to France in 2011. In his committal decision, Justice Maranger stated that the case against Hassan “contained a great deal of argument, hypothesis, conjecture, and references to information received, without describing the source of that information or the circumstances upon which it was received”. He added that “the prospects of conviction, in the context of a fair trial, seem unlikely.”

After Hassan was extradited to France in 2014, two of France’s most experienced and respected investigating judges, Jean-Marc Herbaut and Richard Foltzer, conducted a thorough and meticulous investigation. They found no direct evidence of Dr. Diab’s involvement in the 1980 attack on the synagogue on rue Copernic, and all scientifically verifiable evidence excluded him. The French investigators did, however, find solid evidence confirming that he was in Beirut at university, studying for and writing exams, when the bomber was in Paris. On 12 January 2018, Herbaut and Foltzer issued an 80- page Order of Dismissal, having found no evidence to justify sending Hassan Diab to trial. After 38 months of incarceration (much of it in solitary confinement) in a French prison without any formal charge, Dr. Diab was immediately released and he returned to his home and family in Canada on 14 January 2018.

In April 2018, the State Prosecutor, along with the civil parties representing the families of the victims, launched an appeal against the Order of Dismissal. The process dragged on for almost three years until, in January 2021, the Appeal Court overturned the investigating judges' Order of Dismissal and ordered that Hassan Diab be sent for trial. Hassan's Canadian lawyer, Don Bayne, commented: "The serious multiple errors of fact, reliance on evidence so unreliable it should be disregarded, misstatement of its own mandated handwriting report, resort to sheer speculation in an effort to explain away ‘essential elements’ of exculpatory fingerprint and consistent alibi evidence, willful ignorance of the actual evidence and imposition on Hassan Diab of an impossible onus to prove absolute innocence ‘indisputably’ demonstrate that the decision of the French Court of Appeal to set aside the Investigation Judges’ Order of Dismissal and order that Hassan Diab be put on trial in France is an unjust decision and one that perpetuates over a decade-long miscarriage of justice." [See Don Bayne's full analysis]

The label “convicted synagogue bomber”, plastered on Dr. Diab’s identity, is a vilification resting on the verdict of an in absentia bogus trial at the Paris Special Assize Court in 2023. The trial was designed to convict Hassan Diab, and the verdict resulted from defamatory fabrications, secret “intelligence”, denial of exculpatory evidence, and perjury. It is important to note that during the trial, the two investigating judges (JeanMarc Herbaut and Richard Foltzer), testified in Hassan's defence, repeating their original conclusion that there was no basis for a conviction. The Special Assize Court ignored their findings and declared Hassan guilty.

The unjust French conviction was based on secret, unsourced, uncircumstanced and unreliable “intelligence” – inadmissible in our system of justice. Canada must not be party to this injustice and must state urgently and unequivocally that Hassan Diab will not be subjected to a second extradition. Source

Independent Jewish Voices Canada denounces Bnai Brith's lies, smear campaign against Hassan Diab and media coverage

CAUT motion in support of Hassan Diab

MPs McPherson and MacGregor's letter of support for Hassan Diab

India detaining, ejecting Canadian man is the latest example of revived 'blacklist' for Sikhs: experts

CBC News 20/01/2025 - A Mississauga, Ont., man says he was detained at the Amritsar, India, airport on New Year's Eve without food or medical assistance for 36 hours before Indian officials ejected him from the country.

Gurcharan Singh Banwait, 77, a Canadian citizen for nearly 50 years, says he frequently travels to India for his healthcare charity International Punjabi Foundation, and he's never had an issue until his most recent trip. "It was painful," Banwait told CBC Toronto. "They put me in a room there, they locked it and put two security guards with guns." 

Banwait, who underwent heart surgery recently and has a spinal disc herniation, said he was not given a place to lie down and the cold weather made his back pain worse. He also alleges he was not allowed to go to the washroom unassisted, and that an Indian officer called him a "Khalistani," a term used for supporters of Khalistan, a Sikh separatist movement. "I was feeling embarrassed, insulted," he said.  

Those closely following the disintegration of Canada-India relations over the last few years say this is an example of an increasing trend of India harassing and blacklisting Sikhs and journalists, sparking concerns the country is using visas as a tool for foreign interference.

The Mississauga man says he's speaking out because he worries that other Sikh Canadians may be similarly detained or blacklisted but not know until after they've bought an expensive ticket, travelled for more than 14 hours around the globe and been potentially held in custody. "Nobody listens to you. They'll put you in jail and you're gone," Banwait said. 

CBC Toronto sent multiple requests to the Indian consulate and High Commission in Canada, as well as India's Ministry of External Affairs. The Indian High Commission refused to comment over a phone call, while officials in New Delhi did not respond. Global Affairs Canada is aware of the situation but cannot intervene in immigration matters on behalf of Canadians, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "Every country or territory decides who can enter or exit through its borders," the statement says. 

India monitoring diaspora 'with full force': lawyer 

For decades, India has used its central adverse list — more commonly known as a blacklist — to mark a person as inadmissible to the country. The number of Canadians on the blacklist has been growing since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of playing a role in the killing of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in 2023, according to Balpreet Singh, legal counsel and spokesperson for World Sikh Organization Canada.

A December investigation by Global News revealed agents of Indian proxies asked Sikh Canadians to sign affidavits professing their "deep respect" for India in order to get a visa. Indian diplomats and consular officials have used their discretion to grant or withhold visas to pressure people to conduct surveillance or become informants, sources told CBC News last year. "India using visas to manipulate people is foreign interference," Singh said. "Getting people here in Canada to do or not do certain things in order to get visas is just wrong." "It's a practice that really needs to end."

The Indian government has increasingly targeted individuals criticizing government policies or for association with movements like Khalistan, according to Raman Sohi, an immigration lawyer in Vancouver. The Indian government has resources, they have means to monitor people outside India. They're using those means with full force," Sohi said. India does not notify blacklisted individuals and often does not provide them with a reason, Sohi said. 

"They can deny you entry straight away," he said. "They can detain you … they can actually start prosecuting you there." Sohi says the Hindu nationalist ruling party under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is "trying to silence critics" and he doesn't expect the problem will get any better. "They're very aggressive," he said. 

As for Banwait, he is unsure if his Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card which allows a holder multi-purpose, multiple entry, lifelong visa, is valid or not. [...]

Blacklisted American journalist takes Indian government to court 

Angad Singh, an American freelance journalist and producer, is on the blacklist. 

He fought in court to find out why his OCI was cancelled and he was sent back to New York from Delhi in 2022.

According to the court documents, it was Singh's work as an assistant producer on VICE's award-winning documentary, "India Burning," which was about India's new anti-Muslim citizenship laws. The Indian government sees the story as "anti national propaganda to defame the country," according to court documents. 

"What we're seeing is its [visas] being weaponized against certain parts of the broader Indian diaspora, against certain minority groups, against those that might try to speak truth to power," Singh said. Singh continues his legal battle against the government's decision in a Delhi high court. Source

A climate activist is facing deportation from Canada — again

Editor’s note: Zain Haq was deported on Jan. 26. On Jan. 23, Haq and his wife Sophia Papp told The Narwhal that Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada denied their spousal sponsorship application for permanent residency, without giving them a substantive explanation — which they say the department is legally required to provide. In a statement, the department said: “Every individual facing removal is entitled to due process, but once all avenues to appeal are exhausted, they are removed from Canada in accordance with Canadian law.”

The Narwhal 20-27/01/2025 - Federal officials should intervene to halt the imminent deportation of climate activist Zain Haq from Canada, federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said on Monday.

“It’s globally precedent-setting,” May told The Narwhal. “No climate activist has been deported for so-called crimes that amount to non-violent civil disobedience in defence of the climate.”

Haq, a 24-year-old Pakistani national, has been arrested about a dozen times in British Columbia since 2020 for participating in non-violent acts of civil disobedience, including protesting fossil fuel subsidies and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. 

The Canada Border Services Agency revoked Haq’s student permit in 2022, making him inadmissible to Canada, alleging he wasn’t making progress on his degree at Simon Fraser University. (Haq has said the university supported him and that he was on track to complete his studies.) The border agency’s initial intervention happened before Haq pleaded guilty in 2023 to five counts of mischief, criminal convictions that Haq said were later included as part of the deportation order. 

A spokesperson with the Canada Border Services Agency told The Narwhal the agency can’t comment on Haq’s case, citing privacy reasons. The spokesperson noted foreign nationals must comply with study permit conditions, adding that “being engaged in lawful protest activities would not, in and of itself, render an individual inadmissible to Canada.”

Haq was set to be deported on April 22, 2024 — on Earth Day — when a federal judge denied his deportation appeal. Following community pressure, and more than 2,600 signatures on a petition urging the government to let Haq stay in the country, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller stepped in to cancel Haq’s deportation.

May urged the minister to again intervene before Haq is forced to leave the country on Jan. 25. “Zain Haq is a wonderful human being and I would trust him with my life,” May said, noting her own arrest for a similar protest against the Trans Mountain pipeline in 2018.

May joined Haq, his lawyer and his wife Sophia Papp for a press conference in Vancouver on Monday, at which they also called on Miller and Public Safety Minister David McGuinty to act before it’s too late. “Let’s stand up for justice, for human rights, for democracy, and for climate justice,” May said at the press conference.

Haq and Papp, a Canadian citizen, are awaiting a decision by the immigration department on a May 2023 spousal application they made for Haq’s permanent residency. Haq said he has a ticket booked for Jan. 25, from Toronto to Karachi, Pakistan, but remains hopeful he won’t have to use it if Miller intervenes again.

“The thing that the government has to decide on is that if my deportation goes through, the kind of message that sends to my generation,” Haq told The Narwhal. He said it would signal “a lack of realization that the government can be convinced to take action on climate change.”

Neither Miller’s office nor the immigration department responded to questions by the original publication time.

Who is Haq, why is he being deported and how did he get where he is today? Read more - Lire plus

Mass Deportation’s War-on-Terror DNA

Forever Wars 21/01/2025 - IT'S THE FIRST FULL DAY OF THE SECOND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, and the joined machinery of mass deportation and border militarization is revving up. From the executive orders Trump issued yesterday, we can see the influence of the War on Terror over what's coming. Hate to say I told you so. [This is not true. He loves it.—Sam.]

The Department of Homeland Security, that premier institutional legacy of the War on Terror, will move much further in the direction of treating migration as terrorism. One new executive order says that "many of these aliens unlawfully in the United States present significant threats to national security," including "preparations for terror-related activities." I don't need to tell FOREVER WARS readers that the absurd vagueness of the "terror-related" construction is a neon sign pointing upward, where the jig is.

Another border-relevant executive order is explicitly predicated on "Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists." It reads to me like the 2025 version of the Muslim Ban. Unlike the last time, it won't happen in the first days of the administration. Sixty days from now, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (what a time to be alive), and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are to identify "countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries." I wonder which ones they'll be. There's a line in here authorizing additional screening to any "refugee or stateless individual" in case you wanted a hint.

Along with the attorney general, the secretary of homeland security will "fulfill the requirements of the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005," according to the "Securing Our Borders" executive order. In other words, DHS and the Justice Department will create and manage a migrant DNA database. We'll see how this develops in practice, but for now, the measure seems reminiscent of the biometrics database created under the Bush administration for Muslim travelers known as NSEERS—and for that matter, similar biometrics databases the U.S. military created in Iraq and Afghanistan—now scaled up. These orders recreate the DHS migrant-propaganda office from Trump's first term, too.

DHS is empowered to use "any available technologies and procedures" to adjudicate migrants' "claimed familiar relationships" with people in the United States, so this is designed to be not only vastly intrusive beyond the border, but a windfall opportunity for, say, artificial-intelligence and biometrics firms. Meanwhile, here's a recent update from DHS about its use of facial-capture technologies under Biden.

Then, in a different executive order called "Protecting The American People Against Invasion" (my emphasis), DHS, the Justice Department, and state and local law enforcement are to create "Homeland Security Task Forces." These task forces are to be the integrated federal/state/local mechanisms of mass deportation. They appear modeled upon the Joint Terrorism Task Forces led by the FBI. JTTFs marry federal resources and priorities with local knowledge and manpower.

A separate section, one not explicitly tied to the HSTFs, gives the gist. Local cops, in states with cooperative governors and mayors ("as appropriate," the order caveats), will be deputized to raid and apprehend people perceived to be migrants:

…to authorize State and local law enforcement officials, as the Secretary of Homeland Security determines are qualified and appropriate, to perform the functions of immigration officers in relation to the investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States under the direction and the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security.

Much as the mechanisms of the War on Terror gave local police a counterterrorism mandate and access to counterterrorism funding, so too for mass deportation. And there is a related section in that executive order to pressure the compliance of Sanctuary jurisdictions by withholding unrelated federal funding. That's probably for Sanctuary Cities that don't have mayors under indictment with something to trade for a pardon or a dropped prosecution.

Then come provisions for DHS to expand its cages. Here the War on Terror and the long history of anti-immigrant nativism are in a symbiotic, iterative relationship—check out Daniel Denvir's All-American Nativism for more on that, as well as REIGN OF TERROR—so I don't want to make it out like the War on Terror was either sui generis, or the only prism through which to view what Trump is constructing and expanding. Think of how Guantanamo Bay housed migrant cages before it housed wartime cages and now, once again, houses migrant cages. The War on Terror normalized stuff like this provision:

The Secretary of Homeland Security shall promptly take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources or establish contracts to construct, operate, control, or use facilities to detain removable aliens. The Secretary of Homeland Security, further, shall take all appropriate actions to ensure the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law pending the outcome of their removal proceedings or their removal from the country, to the extent permitted by law.

"Or establish contracts" will ensure that for-profit prison companies flourish under mass deportation. And this is a labor exploitation issue as well as a migration-rights issue, as we saw the last time Trump was in office.

Then comes the Pentagon's role. The "Securing Our Borders" order instructs the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to "deploy sufficient personnel along the southern border of the United States to ensure complete operational control." That is a construction clearly written to justify continued escalation. "Complete operational control" is inherently subjective, vague and conceivably violated by any unauthorized entry. Part of that "complete operational control" is for both departments to collaborate on "deploy[ing] and construct[ing] temporary and permanent physical barriers," i.e., the Wall. U.S. Northern Command, another post-9/11 restructuring, will now "provide steady-state southern border security," per yet another executive order, this one giving military direction to the rhetoric that migration is an act of invasion.

I'm so old that I remember when then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis agreed to deploy an initial 5800 U.S. troops to the southern border while musing about Pancho Villa. Rather than revoke the deployment, the Biden administration chose to build on it. It was the classic liberal gamble of giving reactionaries some of their agenda in an attempt to mollify them, only to watch in horror as it stokes the reactionary appetite instead.

And then, as I wrote about for ZETEO months ago, Trump has designated the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists. There is no attempt made in the order to demonstrate cartel behavior is intermingled with or even akin to terrorist organizations' operations, it's just pure subtext taking over, the wages of many years of "El Qaeda" bullshit—which is to say, nativists understanding the opportunities the War on Terror affords.

What starts as temporary, emergency measures tends to become fixed in the firmament of American governance and normalized. Remember that as climate change prompts ever-greater human migration in search of safety and prosperity, within the United States as well as into the United States. Read more - Lire plus

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Trump moves to close Pentagon office focused on curbing civilian deaths

Stars and Stripes 24/01/2025 - The Trump administration is moving to abolish a Pentagon office responsible for promoting civilian safety in battlefield operations, suggesting that incoming Defense Department leaders may attempt to loosen restrictions on U.S. military operations worldwide.

In the days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, his transition team provided Pentagon officials with a set of orders outlining early priorities for his second term, including a desire to review and potentially abolish the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, said a U.S. defense official. The office, housed within the Department of the Army, is tasked with helping the military to limit unintended civilian deaths.

As a result of that order, the Army has begun drafting a proposal to defund and potentially “disestablish” the office, according to five people familiar with the discussions and an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the nascent plan.

Shuttering the office, which was established under a 2023 law, would require congressional approval. It was not immediately clear whether the Trump administration would seek to reallocate some of the center’s functions elsewhere.

“As is routine in a new administration, the [Defense Department] Agency Review Team tasked the Army to review its programs and responsibilities,” an Army spokeswoman, Cynthia O. Smith, said in a statement. “The Army continues to fund and support the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence” as the Pentagon department tasked with hosting it. Spokespeople for Trump’s acting defense secretary, Robert G. Salesses, could not be reached immediately for comment.

The early moves suggest the Trump Pentagon may distance itself from a host of measures established under President Joe Biden to prioritize the safety of noncombatants in conflict zones. Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who has promised to make the U.S. military more lethal, has complained about overly restrictive rules of engagement and said that service members “fight lawyers as much as we fight bad guys.”

The center’s roots lie in the thousands of civilian deaths that occurred in decades of U.S. counterinsurgent operations following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. During Trump’s first presidency, as civilian deaths surged during the air war against the Islamic State, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. oversaw a review of the military’s handling of civilian protection, setting in motion a process that led to the center’s establishment.

Under a follow-on plan established during the Biden administration, the Pentagon assigned specialists to military operations centers worldwide to advise commanders, incorporate civilian harm reduction into training exercises, refine data collection and improve the military’s response when deaths occur. The Center of Excellence, staffed by about 30 people with backgrounds in targeting, intelligence, civil affairs or humanitarian organizations, was established to share best practices across the military and assist commanders and battlefield personnel in integrating new information into their battle plans.

“If we want to protect our troops, we should continue to focus on these efforts rather than unwind them. Protecting civilians in conflict is both a moral and national security imperative,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado), an Army veteran who was involved in legislation that established the center, said in a statement. “I am ready to talk and work with anyone about why these efforts are important for national security and the safety of our troops. Read more - Lire plus

America’s gulag’: Trump’s Guantánamo ploy tars migrants as terrorists

The Guardian 30/01/2025 - It has been denounced as “America’s gulag”: a secretive, abuse-ridden Caribbean prison camp for terror suspects that Donald Rumsfeld once said contained “the worst of the worst”.

“All of us have scars in our souls, deformities, from living at Guantánamo,” a former Yemeni inmate recalled of his time at the notorious military detention facility in south-east Cuba. Even Donald Trump once balked at the “crazy” amount of money being spent confining prisoners in orange jumpsuits to Guantánamo’s concertina-wired cages.

This week the US president changed his tune, announcing plans to send tens of thousands of “criminal illegal aliens” to the US naval base that houses the Guantánamo Bay jail as part of his “mass deportation” campaign. “It’s a tough place to get out of,” Trump noted sarcastically after revealing that he had instructed the heads of the defense and homeland security departments to prepare a “30,000-person migrant facility” on the island.

“We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people,” said Trump, who claimed the move would help eradicate “the scourge of migrant crime in our communities, once and for all”.

The announcement delighted Trumpists. “The president is 100% correct to use Guantánamo,” the Texas Republican Chip Roy told Fox News, with the channel’s reporter celebrating Trump’s “creative” and “innovative” idea.

But it also sparked anger and revulsion, in the US and around the world. Many interpreted Trump’s move as an attempt to further demonize undocumented migrants by conflating them with the terror suspects who were imprisoned at Guantánamo’s detention centre after the then secretary of defense Rumsfeld opened it for “enemy combatants” three months after the 11 September 2001 attacks.

“This is political theater and part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to paint immigrants as threats in the United States … and fan anti-immigrant sentiment,” said Eleanor Acer, the senior director for refugee protection at the advocacy group Human Rights First. Vincent Warren, head of the Center for Constitutional Rights legal advocacy group, said: “Trump’s order [sends] a clear message … Migrants and asylum seekers are being cast as the new terrorist threat, deserving to be discarded in an island prison, removed from legal and social services and supporters”.

There was even stronger condemnation in Latin America, from where many of the migrants expected to end up in Trump’s camp hail. An editorial in Mexico’s leftwing newspaper La Jornada called the move “institutionalized sadism” and a Trumpian “spectacle of violence” designed to excite hardcore supporters. “The reopening of an international symbol of human rights abuses is a signal to Trumpists who believe the workers of the global south deserve the same punishment as supposed members of al-Qaida and the Islamic State,” it said.

Adam Isacson, a migration expert from the Washington Office on Latin America thinktank, said Trump’s headline-grabbing initiative was “absolutely part of the narrative” that a military response was needed to tackle the supposed threat from migrants, whom the recently installed US president has repeatedly cast as dangerous “animals” and “trash”.

“And the idea is to just scare the hell out of immigrant communities all around the United States too,” Isacson added. “They’re just trying to scare people and maybe scare people into just making their own arrangements and leaving the country on their own. This is all shock and awe.”

Trump’s decision to create a massive migrant facility at Guantánamo would not be the first time it has been used to house those seeking a new life in the US. In the 1990s, during the presidencies of George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans were held there in open-air camps after being picked up while making the perilous sea journey to Florida.

More recently, a far smaller number of migrants have reportedly been held there after being intercepted by the US Coast Guard. Those migrants have been held in a separate part of the base from alleged terrorists, 15 of whom are now imprisoned there, compared with hundreds after al-Qaida’s 9/11 attacks. The most notorious is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged Pakistani mastermind of that plot. It remains uncertain precisely whom Trump might send to his expanded Guantánamo camp and whether it will be used to hold migrants accused or convicted of crimes or simply anyone lacking documents.

Acer said the “outrageously vague and incredibly sweeping language” in Trump’s memorandum ordering Guantánamo’s expansion meant it was unclear who would be targeted. The three-paragraph directive calls for “all appropriate actions” to be taken to expand the facility in order to “address attendant immigration enforcement needs”. However, the activist called the president’s comment that the base was “tough” to escape “a disturbing signal that the Trump administration may be planning to hold people there indefinitely”.

During George W Bush’s “war on terror”, “the US chose to hold people on the Guantánamo base because they believed that it would be removed from legal scrutiny,” Acer recalled. Now she suspected Trump also planned to treat it “as a sort of rights-free zone”. “The whole thing is just absurd … Guantánamo is essentially designed to prevent outside scrutiny. Human rights abuses will be hidden,” Acer warned, adding: “The Trump administration is thumbing its nose at the law and the rule of law.” Source

Biden gave Trump the blueprint to lock up 30,000 migrants in a private ICE jail at Guantánamo Bay

Trump’s plan to send migrants to Guantanamo Bay could prove a costly mistake

Judge Set to Rule on Admissibility of 9/11 Confessions

Accused 9/11 Mastermind Agrees to Use of Disputed Confession for Life Sentence

Appeals court wrestles with Pentagon’s bid to rescind 9/11 plea deals

NEW ACTION Trump: Close Guantanamo

VICTORY! Federal Court (Finally) Rules Backdoor Searches of 702 Data Unconstitutional

EFF 22/01/2025 - Better late than never: last night a federal district court held that backdoor searches of databases full of Americans’ private communications collected under Section 702 ordinarily require a warrant. The landmark ruling comes in a criminal case, United States v. Hasbajrami, after more than a decade of litigation, and over four years since the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that backdoor searches constitute “separate Fourth Amendment events” and directed the district court to determine a warrant was required. Now, that has been officially decreed.

In the intervening years, Congress has reauthorized Section 702 multiple times, each time ignoring overwhelming evidence that the FBI and the intelligence community abuse their access to databases of warrantlessly collected messages and other data. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which Congress assigned with the primary role of judicial oversight of Section 702, has also repeatedly dismissed arguments that the backdoor searches violate the Fourth Amendment, giving the intelligence community endless do-overs despite its repeated transgressions of even lax safeguards on these searches.

This decision sheds light on the government’s liberal use of what is essential a “finders keepers” rule regarding your communication data. As a legal authority, FISA Section 702 allows the intelligence community to collect a massive amount of communications data from overseas in the name of “national security.” But, in cases where one side of that conversation is a person on US soil, that data is still collected and retained in large databases searchable by federal law enforcement. Because the US-side of these communications is already collected and just sitting there, the government has claimed that law enforcement agencies do not need a warrant to sift through them. EFF argued for over a decade that this is unconstitutional, and now a federal court agrees with us. Read more - Lire plus

A decade of attacks on our democratic rights – a timeline

Counterfire 26/01/2025 - The police attack on the Palestine movement last week is a dramatic escalation of repression, but it’s been ten years in the making, explains Shabbir Lakha.

Here’s a timeline of legislation and precedents that have led to the moment where police banned the Palestine demonstration on 18 January from marching to the BBC and mass arrested 77 people:

2015 – Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015

This made the Prevent duty a legal obligation in public institutions, particularly in schools, healthcare and local authorities, despite overwhelming evidence that it was Islamophobic and effectively criminalised solidarity with Palestine.

Children as young as three-years old have been referred to Prevent, and year on year the highest age group referred is eleven to fifteen years old. Since Oct 2023, we saw cases of children being questioned by Prevent agents without an adult present and for simply attending a Palestine march.

This was further bolstered by the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 and Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2021. Under these anti-terror laws the Stansted 15 were charged, pro-Palestine journalists like Richard Medhurst, Asa Winstanley and Sarah Wilkinson have been detained and activists have had their houses raided and electronics seized.

2016 Investigatory Powers Act 2016 aka Snoopers’ Charter

This gave the police, intelligence agencies and other state authorities the power to ‘bulk hack’, monitor and store emails, calls, texts, location data and internet history of anyone, even without suspicion of criminality.

2019

In 2019, the Metropolitan Police used Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 to ban Extinction Rebellion protests, raided their warehouses and forcibly removed protesters (who had previously been given permission) from Trafalgar Square.

2020

In 2020, a police counter-terrorism handbook listed the Stop the War Coalition, climate and anti-racist organisations as ‘extremist’, and listed them alongside actual neo-Nazi groups. This followed the government launching an investigation of ‘left-wing extremism’.

In 2020, the Police Federation publicly lobbied the government to ban Black Lives Matter in the same way they had Extinction Rebellion. Priti Patel, then Home Secretary, called BLM protesters thugs and criminals and authorised harsh policing which saw 135 arrested at one protest.

2021 Covert Human Intelligence Sources Act 2021, aka SpyCops Act

This authorised agents of the state (from the police to intelligence services to the Food Standards Agency) to commit murder, rape and torture legally while undercover.

This bill was proposed and passed through Parliament while the SpyCops Inquiry was ongoing, exposing how undercover police officers infiltrated left-wing groups and justice campaigns, deceived women into relationships and reported on the personal details of activists’ lives.

In March 2021, Metropolitan Police officers violently attacked, pinned to the ground and detained mainly women gathering at a vigil for Sarah Everard, who was murdered by a police officer. A directive to ban the vigil came from the Home Secretary Priti Patel.

2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022

This drastically increased police powers to restrict and stop protests, and effectively criminalised the way of life of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, already among the most persecuted and marginalised in society.

The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 created a two-tier citizenship whereby the Home Secretary can strip someone of their citizenship, on vague grounds and without notice, if you may be eligible for citizenship in another country, i.e. mainly black and brown people. The law also legalised the ‘offshoring’ of refugees and criminalised rescuing drowning refugees, in violation of international law.

In 2022, police in Brighton arrested three trade unionists from GMB while on a picket line of bin workers striking for fair pay. They were charged with obstructing a highway. This marked a shift nationally in policing to enforce conditions on picketing strictly.

2023 Public Order Act 2023

This further expanded police powers on prohibiting protests, including measures against ‘locking on’ and banning protest that could cause ‘serious disruption’ (determined at police discretion).

Days after the new Public Order Act came into effect, the Met arrested organisers of the Republic protest at the coronation, under the pretext that the cable ties on their placards were ‘lock-on devices’. The previous night at 2am, they arrested Westminster Night Safety volunteers for carrying rape alarms. On the day, protesters were kettled and stopped from entering the agreed protest area.

It’s this Public Order Act that is the most pernicious so far and has been used to exclude any protest at the Israeli Embassy permanently, to place strict restrictions on the route of every Palestine demo in fifteen months, and to charge Chris Nineham, Ben Jamal and others.

The Minimum Service Levels (Strikes) Act 2023 outlawed effective strike action by public-sector workers in key industries. It is in the process of being repealed through the Employment Rights Bill going through parliament right now.

The Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill 2023 is an attempt to ban local councils and public bodies from divesting from companies involved in Israel’s occupation and genocide, or fossil fuels abroad etc. The bill hadn’t passed by the time the election was called.

These last two, although not law, show the still continuing trajectory of authoritarianism, and focused on the two biggest challenges to the state over the last two years: the strike wave and the Palestine movement.

Repressive state apparatus

The judiciary is also a key part of this repressive state apparatus. Judges have increasingly handed down massive sentences to Kill the Bill, XR, Just Stop Oil, Palestine Action and other protesters for what should be seen as political crimes.

All these bits of law and precedent in and of themselves curtail our right to free speech, freedom of assembly and to protest. Taken together, they are serious affronts to our basic democratic rights, and make up some of the most draconian anti-protest laws in Europe.

As Leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party whipped its MPs to abstain on most of these laws, leaving the Tories unchallenged as they stripped away our rights and expanded police powers. Now, with waning popularity and having cut his teeth purging the left from the Labour Party, Starmer is very much on board with this new authoritarianism. His government is desperate to be on the good side of the financial elite and of Trump as a junior partner to US imperialism.

Campaigning to drop the charges from last Saturday, to repeal the Public Order Act and insisting on our right to mobilise for Palestine, to oppose genocide and occupation, and to hold our government, that is facilitating them, to account is the minimum we must do.

We have a big fight on our hands to protect our democratic rights. It was mass protest and concerted organising that won us the right to protest, to organise in trade unions and to vote. It will be mass protest and concerted organising that will stop them from taking these rights away. Source

Prevent review's problematic recommendation to focus more on ideology failed to stop Southport attacker despite known fixation on and history of violence

Australia - Excessive Force, Special Powers, and Misinformation Characterise Policing of DLF Protests, Report Finds

MALS 27/01/2025 - The Policing of the DLF Protests, a comprehensive new report by Melbourne Activist Legal Support (MALS), details disturbing patterns of police misconduct, misuse of special powers, and media misinformation during the Disrupt Land Forces (DLF) protests in September 2024.

The report, based on eyewitness accounts from trained independent legal observers, reveals a concerning escalation of police violence and a coordinated effort to suppress dissent and stifle the right to protest.

The report documents the use of potentially lethal weapons, including chemical irritants, explosive disorientation devices, and kinetic impact projectiles, often deployed indiscriminately and against non-threatening protesters. Instances of police using shields offensively and employing dangerous crowd control manoeuvres which contributed to an environment of fear and panic are also detailed.

Quotes attributable to MALS Spokesperson:

‘Beyond excessive force, MALS strongly criticises the pre-emptive invocation of special police powers under the Control of Weapons Act and the Terrorism (Community Protection) Act, which MALS asserts were used to stifle protest and intimidate activists rather than address legitimate security concerns.’

‘The use of anti-terrorism legislation in the absence of any credible terrorist threat is deeply concerning and sets a dangerous precedent for future protests. These powers were clearly used to suppress dissent and restrict fundamental freedoms.’ Source

Russia: Special Rapporteur appalled by prison sentences to punish Navalny lawyers

UN OHCHR 21/01/2025 - The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation, Mariana Katzarova, today urged authorities to end the severe crackdown on the legal profession in Russia and stop endangering the lives and safety of lawyers.

“I call for the immediate release of lawyers Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptser, and Igor Sergunin, and for the verdict against them to be annulled,” Katzarova said. “This week, when we mark the International Day of the Endangered Lawyer on 24 January, the Russian government continues reprisals against lawyers for carrying out their professional duties, such as this latest case of the lawyers defending late opposition politician Alexei Navalny.”

On 17 January 2025, Kobzev, Liptser, and Sergunin were sentenced on “extremism” charges, under part 2 of article 282.1 of the Russian Criminal Code, after a sham trial in the Petushki district court of Vladimir region. The expert condemned the sentencing on “extremism” charges of the three lawyers. “This serves as a chilling warning to all lawyers considering taking on politically sensitive cases, especially those defending clients facing political persecution,” she said. “The term ‘extremism’ has no basis in international law, and constitutes a violation of human rights when it triggers criminal liability.”

There was no public information about the trial of Kobzev, Liptser and Sergunin, as such hearings are closed to the public. When the verdict was announced on 17 January 2025, the hearing was opened and about 50 people, including journalists and lawyers, were allowed to enter the courtroom. Five others, four of them journalists, were arbitrarily detained, apparently to prevent them from attending the hearing, and later released.

“The persecution of lawyers and journalists is part of an alarming pattern of targeted repression and State control that is silencing independent media and the legal profession throughout Russia,” Katzarova said. In her 2024 report to the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur documented the continuing attacks on the legal profession in Russia. “Lawyers have been imprisoned, prosecuted, disbarred and intimidated simply for carrying out their professional duties,” she said.

“Widespread use of vague legal definitions and unpredictable, often abusive, interpretations, as well as closed trials, have allowed Russian authorities to misuse and instrumentalise counter-extremism, counter-terrorism and national security legislation to stifle critics, ban anti-war speech, imprison legitimate political opponents and punish and endanger their defence lawyers,” Katzarova said. “This practice must end.”

The Special Rapporteur has been calling for the release of the three lawyers since their detention in 2023. “Even more lawyers, including Alexandr Fedulov and Olga Mikhailova, two other former lawyers of Alexei Navalny, have had to flee the country and remain in exile facing similar charges,” she said. “Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the number of lawyers convicted and imprisoned in Russia has reached an all-time high,” the Special Rapporteur said. Source

Six UN Special Rapporteurs to the Italian Government: Human rights concerns over the "Security Package" Bill

Human Rights Center 18/01/2025 - After the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, six Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council have also written to the Italian State to request a review of the text of Bill No. 1660, approved by the Chamber of Deputies in September 2024 - now Bill 1236, under discussion in the Senate - which introduces various criminal measures potentially suitable for restricting freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

The Special Rapporteurs who have written to the Italian Government are those on: the freedom of peaceful assembly and association, the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the human rights defenders, the human rights of migrants, contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.

Some human rights at risk from the possible adoption of the Security Bill

The United Nations experts point out that some of the provisions under discussion may violate a series of norms of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ratified by Italy in 1977), particularly Articles 9 (personal liberty and security), 12 (freedom of movement), 14 (fair trial), 17 (privacy), 19 (freedom of opinion and expression), 21 (freedom of peaceful assembly), and 22 (freedom of association). There is also a risk that the norms under discussion in the Senate may give rise to discrimination on ethnic or racial grounds or against migrants, in contrast with Article 2 of the Covenant and in breach of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In particular, since some of the activities targeted by the repressive action would be linked to environmental protests, the independent United Nations experts point out a possible violation of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, which Italy ratified in 2001. Extensive reference is made to the recent adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Model Protocol for Law Enforcement Officials on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Context of Peaceful Protests.

Counter-terrorism measures and possible revocation of Italian citizenship

The provisions of the bill that the experts consider not in line with human rights norms are numerous. The norms aimed at modifying Articles 270 and 435 of the Criminal Code (terrorism offenses), punishing as a crime the act of procuring or disseminating manuals and instructions on the use of explosives or how to sabotage essential public services "with the purpose of terrorism," risk being politically exploited, since the purposes of terrorism are not precisely defined, in addition to potentially affecting those who detain or share these documents for research purposes or journalism.

Another debatable norm is the one that provides for the revocation of Italian citizenship for individuals convicted of serious terrorism offenses, not only for those who already possess another nationality, but also for those who "may acquire another citizenship." It is therefore admitted that the consequence of the conviction may be the reduction of the person to a stateless status. The Special Rapporteurs invite the utmost caution in considering this measure, which should be applied only in extreme cases.

Risk of restricting the civic space

The provision that punishes "Anyone who, through violence or threat, occupies or holds without title a property intended for the dwelling of others" (occupation of houses by homeless people) is also potentially contrary to fundamental rights. As are the provisions that prohibit access to infrastructures, railway lines, roads, or similar (typically, the places where environmental protest actions take place). The bill aims to increase penalties for damage to property or violence committed during public demonstrations, but without, according to the experts, precisely defining what is meant by damage or violence; it also reintroduces the offense of obstructing road or rail traffic with one's body, provided for by a 1948 law and which had been decriminalized in 1999. All these measures, according to the Special Rapporteurs, contrast with the broad freedom to express one's opinions in the most varied forms (marches, pickets, flash mobs, acts of civil disobedience, etc.) guaranteed by Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

According to General Comment 37 (2020) of the Human Rights Committee dedicated precisely to the freedom of assembly, state authorities must presume the peaceful character of these demonstrations and they should be able to take place in any public space, except in exceptional circumstances. Also criticised are some norms that would aggravate the penalty for violence or threats or resistance to a public official, including "If the violence or threat is committed in order to prevent the realization of a public work or strategic infrastructure" and which provide that the forces in service for the maintenance of public order may carry video recording devices. All these measures are considered potentially contrary to the freedom to demonstrate and the right to privacy, and lend themselves to discriminatory and disproportionate use. The Aarhus Convention, in particular, attaches particular value to the right of citizens to know about and participate in the community's choices that have an impact on the environment, including by organising manifestations and public gatherings.

Demonstrations in places of detention

Finally, the experts dwell on some provisions of the bill that severely punish acts of revolt within a penitentiary institution. Among the acts of revolt are also included passive resistance conducts that affect the performance of official acts or services of the institution. Similar rules also apply to revolts in migrant detention and reception facilities. In this case too, the envisaged measures lend themselves to a use that contrasts with the right of detainees and migrants to demonstrate and protest peacefully, including through forms of civil disobedience, the exercise of which must also be considered functional to maintaining conditions of dialogue and democracy in places of detention.

Next steps

The letter from the six Special Rapporteurs requesting clarification from the Italian Government on the points indicated is dated December 19, 2024 and was made public on January 16, 2025. The Italian Government's response will be made public on the dedicated website for communications from Special Rapporteurs and responses received from States. Source

Security Bill, relatives of massacre victims against the law that “shields” services: “Criminal license, an offence to the Constitution”

OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES

Access to information

Accès à l'information

Want to see a copy of a speech by Canada's top general? Then you’ll have to pay

Accountability

Reddition de comptes

Prime Minister announces a change to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians

Why Sanctioning the ICC Would Be Terrible for Civil Liberties

Trump’s Sacking of PCLOB Members Threatens Data Privacy

Artificial intelligence

Intelligence artificielle

Leaked documents expose deep ties between Israeli army and Microsoft

France spearheads member state campaign to dilute European AI regulation

EU lacks guidance on AI prohibitions, as rules start to apply

Criminalization of dissent

Criminalisation de la dissidence

A new House bill purports to counter terror financing, but it reads a lot like the ‘foreign agent’ laws used to quash dissent in Russia and Hungary

Biden Grants Clemency to Indigenous Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier

Freedom of expression

Liberté d'expression

Why Did the US Block a Canadian Professor From His Own Book Event?

Biden Attack on Nonprofit Over Palestine Stance Made Trump’s Job Easier

Pressure Grows to Free Egyptian Activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah & Stop Harassment of Hossam Bahgat

Freedom of religion

Liberté de religion

The NCCM is headed to the Supreme Court of Canada on Bill 21

La Ligue des droits et libertés : Droits humains et enjeux constitutionnels : un recadrage s’impose

Migrant and refugee rights

Droits des migrant.es et réfugié.es

'I did not expect to be a slave': Amnesty International report exposes abuse of migrant workers

Stephen Harper’s firm behind spy tech used in ‘dystopian’ Greek refugee camps

Deportations: New role for Frontex as EU pushes for more “voluntary” returns

Police

Déontologie policière : le chien de garde sans dentier

US police union that backed Trump says January 6 pardons send ‘dangerous message’

EU police cooperation with Egypt sacrifices "people's rights and freedoms" for security

Privacy and surveillance

Vie privée et surveillance

WhatsApp says journalists and civil society members were targets of Israeli spyware

Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

Changes to how DNA is collected are at the heart of Russia’s latest encroachment on civil liberties

Terror lists

Listes d'entités terroristes

Trump revokes Biden removal of Cuba from US state sponsors of terrorism list

Houthis on the terror list: what does it mean for Yemen?

Transparency

Transparence

Ten years of tracking transparency: the Transparency Reporting Index

Miscellaneous

Divers

Trump Grants Clemency to 1,500+ Jan. 6 Insurrectionists; Elon Musk Is Accused of Giving Nazi Salute

160 national security staffers are sent home as the White House aligns its team to Trump’s agenda

5 Things You Need to Know About Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Pick for National Intelligence Director

Takeaways from FBI director nominee Kash Patel’s combative confirmation hearing

Christian Nationalist at the Pentagon: Pete Hegseth’s Calvinist Sect Embraces Confederacy, Crusades

Senate confirms Kristi Noem as Trump’s homeland security secretary

Democrats Are Worried About John Ratcliffe’s Role in the 2020 Election. They Should Also Take a Look At His AI Gigs.

Is TikTok a national security threat – or is the ban a smokescreen for superpower rivalry?

ICLMG ACTIONS DE LA CSILC

Canada: Abolish rights-violating terrorist entities list!

On 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 list is an arbitrary political tool that undermines freedom of association, 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 these deep flaws, and more, the ICLMG has consistently called for the list to be abolished since the Canadian coalition’s founding in 2002. Please join us in urging the Canadian government to abolish the rights-violating terrorist entities list once and for all. Thank you!

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Le Canada doit abolir la liste des entités terroristes! & partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

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!

Send an email using ICLMG’s one-click tool and share widely!

Letter in English + Lettre en français

Sign and share the LeadNow petitions to protect Hassan from further injustice

Petition in English + Pétition en français

For more information on the case of Hassan Diab, read our webcomic, watch our animated version of the comic, or visit justiceforhassandiab.org.

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.

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21 years of fighting deportation to torture: Justice for Mohamed Harkat Now!

December 10, 2023 - ironically Human Rights Day - marked the 21st "anniversary" of the arrest of Mohamed Harkat under Canada's rights-violating security certificate regime. For Mr. Harkat, it's been two decades of fighting deportation to torture, 16 years of harassment and intrusive surveillance, arbitrary detention, solitary confinement, secret trials, PTSD: enough is enough! We call for justice for Moe Harkat now! Watch - Visionnez

TAKE ACTION: Stop Moe Harkat's deportation to torture!

ACTION: Arrêtez la déportation vers la torture de Mohamed Harkat!

Reform Canada's extradition law 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!

Version française: Le Canada doit réformer la loi sur l'extradition! + Partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

Phone PM Justin Trudeau

TAKE ACTION: Justice for Hassan Diab!

Just Peace Advocates' action: Write a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau: Say “No" to a second extradition of Hassan Diab

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.

Thanks to the support of our members and donors in the second half of 2024 we have been able to work on the following:

• Bill C-20, the Public Complaints and Review Commission Act - which has been adopted and will finally create an independent watchdog for CBSA
• Bill C-27, Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022 and the very problematic Artificial Intelligence and Data Act
• Bill C-63: The concerning Online Harms Act
• Bill C-70: The new and highly controversial Foreign Interference law
• Bill C-353: The Foreign Hostage Takers Accountability Act
• Palestine and the right to dissent
• Canada’s terrorist entities list
• Monitoring the implementation and review of the authorization regime for international assistance to vulnerable populations in areas controlled by “terrorist” groups
• Combatting Racism & Islamophobia
• Repatriation of all Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria
• Justice for Dr Hassan Diab
• Mohamed Harkat & Security certificates
• 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 2025!

The coming year will present many challenges, old and new. Much of our successes from this past year will continue to need follow-up, as we track the establishment of the new CBSA review body, and push back against new foreign interference laws and attempts to silence protest. There are also the challenges we will face with the incoming US government, which is already playing out its promises to increase the securitization of the US-Canada border with more police, drones and facial recognition surveillance. This will place the rights of all travellers, but especially asylum seekers searching for protection and better living conditions, at risk.

We’ll also have our own election in Canada this year, and ICLMG will be working to both make sure the public is aware of the parties’ track records on civil liberties and national security, as well as to secure commitments to protect our rights from candidates and the new government once it is in office.

We will continue our work on these issues and much more in the next year:

• 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 in support of Palestinian rights and lives
• Co-creating a mechanism to monitor how the new Countering Foreign Interference law is used, as well as continue pushing back against xenophobic fear-mongering
• 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
• Fighting for Justice for Hassan Diab and reforming Canada’s extradition law
• Monitoring the implementation of the authorization regime for organizations that provide international assistance to vulnerable populations in areas controlled by “terrorist” groups
• Pushing back on the false narrative depicting migrants and refugees as security risks, and advocating for rights protection and accountability for border agencies, including by monitoring the creation of a new CBSA and RCMP watchdog and complaint body
• 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 Canadian Security Intelligence Service
• Advocating for the repeal of the terrorist entities list, 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
• 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.