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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles
September 27, 2025 - 27 septembre 2025
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Open Letter: Withdraw Bill C-2, the "Strong Borders" Act
| ICLMG is one of the signatories to this open letter initiated by the Internet Society. | |
The Hill Times 15/09/2025 - Dear Prime Minister Carney and Minister Anandasangaree,
The undersigned civil society organizations, companies, and cybersecurity experts, including members of the Global Encryption Coalition, urge the federal government to withdraw Bill C-2, An Act respecting certain measures relating to the security of the border between Canada and the United States and respecting other related security measures (Strong Borders Act).
Bill C-2’s stated aim is to improve security, but Parts 14 and 15 would do just the opposite by giving the Canadian government broader powers to access private information without a warrant and force services to install “technical capabilities” to access Canadians’ encrypted communications and sensitive data. The consensus among cybersecurity experts is clear. There is no way to provide backdoor access to encrypted data and communications without compromising the privacy and security of millions of law-abiding citizens. Failing to ensure adequate safeguards for use of encryption could lead to poor interpretations of the bill’s supposed protections against “systemic vulnerabilities,” leading to encryption backdoors.
Forcing businesses to create backdoors for law enforcement and intelligence agencies would:
- jeopardize the security and privacy of people in Canada and abroad, including children and vulnerable communities.
- expose Canadians to domestic and international surveillance.
- undermine the growth and resilience of Canada’s digital economy.
- subject Canadians to the rising cost of cybercrime.
Strong encryption is crucial to keep private information out of the wrong hands. In a digital society where online services, including AI companies, are increasingly collecting, compiling, and selling identifiable and sensitive data, encryption is often our last line of defense for privacy and security online. Preventing people and businesses from protecting themselves with the strongest security tools available would be disastrous. [...]
Salt Typhoon’s wiretap breach happened as a result of a US policy decision that forced telecommunications infrastructure companies to create a dangerous backdoor that attackers could exploit. Part 15 of Bill C-2 could do far worse—threatening the security of virtually any Internet-based service (within Canada and abroad) that receives similar orders, as well as the individuals and businesses that rely on them. [...]
Vulnerable populations will be at greater risk of harm
Bill C-2’s lawful access provisions would erode a last line of defense to ensure people can have safe experiences on and offline. International human rights bodies and child safety experts have recognized the importance of encryption to protect the safety and privacy of people, including children and vulnerable communities. Encryption ensures people have safe lines of communication online when they need it most. For survivors of domestic violence, encryption is a lifeline that secures confidential communication about escape plans and protecting victims (including children) from abusers. For children, it means schools and health authorities can help keep their sensitive data out of the hands of predators. For Indigenous communities and marginalized groups, it can help create safe spaces to engage in advocacy and connect with communities while avoiding harassment and surveillance online. Encryption also protects people from transnational repression, shielding sensitive data from other governments that could misuse it to silence criticism through intimidation or threats of violence.
Bill C-2 sets up Canadians for international surveillance
Bill C-2 could expose everyone in Canada to international surveillance. This would include information sharing amongst intelligence partners like the US, Australia, and the UK if its powers are used to support foreign law enforcement requests. For instance, Canada is currently negotiating a CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act) agreement with the US, which could give the US greater power to advance their domestic law enforcement interests in Canada. Such an agreement could incentivize and give leverage to US authorities to ask the Canadian government to force companies to create encryption backdoors. Enabling governments intrusive warrantless access to sensitive information could have the effect of turning regular citizens and institutions into foreign assets, including immigration lawyers, healthcare providers, and academic institutions.
Prime Minister Carney and Minister Anandasangaree: Don’t make one of your first acts of Parliament to jeopardize Canada’s digital security, privacy, and safety on and offline.
The undersigned signatories ask that the federal government withdraw Bill C-2 to address the immediate threats in Part 14 and 15 and conduct a full study including consultations and an Internet Impact Assessment to mitigate other risks in the Bill. This due diligence will help ensure the Bill aligns with its goals to improve safety in Canada, by making sure people and businesses have the strongest tools to avoid data breaches and the next major cyberattack, promote the resilience of Canada’s digital economy, and protect people and vulnerable communities from harm. Read more - Lire plus
NEW Protect Human Rights. Stop Bill C-2.
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Webinar: Stop Bill C-2: How the Strong Borders Act Harms Refugees & Immigrants
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CCLA: Bill C-9 Risks Criminalizing Peaceful Protest | |
CCLA 22/09/2025 - On September 19, 2025, the Government of Canada introduced Bill C-9 with the declared intent to make Canadians safer. Instead, this legislative proposal creates new criminal laws that could make the denial of fundamental freedoms much easier.
“We must all work together to combat hatred and build a more inclusive, equal society.” said Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, Director of the Fundamental Freedoms program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. “However, we must also remember that criminal law is not the solution to every social problem. As drafted, Bill C-9 risks criminalizing some forms of protected speech and peaceful protest – two cornerstones of a free and democratic society – around tens of thousands of community gathering spaces in Canada.”
“People living in Canada are entitled to physical safety and have the right to worship safely. These are already protected by existing law”, said Howard Sapers, CCLA Executive Director. “The majority of Bill C-9 does not address a gap in the law. Current offences such as mischief, intimidation, threats and harassment already give police the tools they need to protect public safety.”
“The new intimidation offence is far broader than existing prohibitions and could criminalize peaceful protests simply because they are seen as disruptive”, continued Bussières McNicoll. “The penalty of up to ten years in prison is very severe and could push activists into silence.”
“The new offence criminalizing the wilful promotion of hatred through the public display of certain terrorism or hate symbols increases the risk of stigmatizing and criminalizing peaceful protesters, in part because listing organizations on Canada’s terror list is a highly political decision”, said Bussières McNicoll.
“The new hate crime offence risks stigmatizing defendants throughout the entire judicial process, while they are still presumed innocent. The sentencing judge should continue to be responsible for labeling a defendant’s motivations and weighing their aggravating impact on sentencing, once a defendant has been found guilty of a criminal offence and all relevant evidence has been heard”, said Bussières McNicoll. Source
Hate crime bill could criminalize protests, civil liberties’ group says
CMPAC Analysis and Position on the Combatting Hate Act (Bill C-9)
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Two people arrested for mischief during protest against Carney government on Parliament Hill; one was released without charge
Centre for Free Expression: Flying the Flag: Kneecap and Bill C-9
YorkU Report: Documenting the “Palestine Exception": An Overview of Trends in Islamophobia, Anti-Palestinian and Anti-Arab Racism in Canada in the aftermath of October 7, 2023
| | Can the United Nations stop Israel? Canada can lead | |
The Hill Times 17/09/2025 - In Gaza, Israel is perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity, actions that constitute genocide. For the sake of all Gazans—and for our collective humanity—Israel must be stopped.
It is within the world’s power to intervene effectively to stop Israel, and Canada is well-positioned to play a key role. On Sept. 5, a panel of United Nations experts presented an urgent appeal to the General Assembly that it “convene an emergency meeting to,” among other things, “Call on Member states to act under ‘uniting for peace’ in line General Assembly resolution 377 V [a resolution that would circumvent vetoes at the UN Security Council] and recommend a peace operation.”
The appeal identifies a number of actions, including opening all crossings to unrestricted humanitarian access under direct UN oversight, demanding an immediate permanent ceasefire, and securing the release of arbitrarily detained Palestinians and Israelis. [...]
More recently, the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide, citing mass civilian casualties, starvation, blockaded aid, and collective displacement.
As Linda McQuaig recently wrote in The Toronto Star, “By now, it’s clear that Israel will keep killing Palestinians in Gaza unless the world intervenes to stop it.”
Canada can and should exercise leadership, as Lester Pearson did in 1950 and 1956, first by supporting the “Uniting for Peace” resolution, and second by recommending a large-scale, impartial UN peacekeeping force be deployed to Gaza.
There is a significant groundswell of support for such action. Alone or with others, Canada should immediately call on the General Assembly to convene an emergency special meeting under the “Uniting for Peace” provision. From there, the General Assembly is obligated to convene an emergency special session to develop recommendations for appropriate action to stop the killing, destruction, and obstruction of food, water, medicine, shelter, and other relief.
These recommendations can include military intervention. With two-thirds General Assembly support, they would be submitted to the Security Council for implementation, carrying the weight of the membership of the General Assembly.
We call upon the Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Canadian government to respond to the many urgent appeals from Canadians and the global community by demanding that the UN General Assembly convene an emergency special meeting without delay.
“Silence and inaction are not an option in the face of mass atrocities,” the UN experts emphasized. They added: “The General Assembly must uphold the duty of the United Nations to respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians, end the violence, and guarantee that life-saving assistance reaches the people of Gaza without obstruction or delay. Anything less makes the international community complicit in these grave violations.”
Now is the moment for Canadian leadership. We must act. Source
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| | Canada blocked visa applications without explanation for Gazans fleeing war: lawyer | |
The Canadian Press 17/09/2025 - When immigration lawyer Hana Marku opened her email weeks ago to a photo of an emaciated infant in the Gaza Strip, she said she felt helpless.
The child is among about 50 Palestinians the Toronto-based lawyer is representing. She said each one was blocked without explanation from submitting applications under the temporary visa program the Canadian government created to help them flee the Israel-Hamas war.
“She’s a baby girl who was born last year, and she was born into this war,” Marku said. “An infant whose bones I can count just by looking at a photo of her.” Marku said her clients in the Gaza Strip are facing death every day. One narrowly escaped being killed as he was bringing home flour after a bomb fell nearby, she said. Some have witnessed loved ones crushed by falling rubble.
The situation has prompted her to request a ruling from Federal Court declaring the Immigration Department has unreasonably delayed the processing of her clients’ applications, and that it acted unfairly by failing to explain the reason for the delays. She also wants the Federal Court to order the Immigration Department to reopen and consider her clients’ applications.
The Canadian government opened the temporary visa program in January of 2024. As part of the process, family members based in Canada were asked to submit documents then wait for a reference code that would allow them to finalize their applications.
Marku said that despite all her clients applying within a month of the program opening, none were given the chance to complete their applications, because their codes never arrived. The Immigration Department never communicated with her clients to say why they had not received codes or to explain the status of their applications either, she says.
Then this March, more than one year after the program opened, each of her clients received an email from the Canadian government stating that the program had reached its cap and had closed — and that none of them would be able to complete applications.
Marku says the government did not follow the procedures it set for the visa program. “The instructions, which the applicants relied upon, said that as long as the web form submissions were complete they would either receive codes, or an explanation about why they are not eligible,” she said.
The Canadian Press spoke with a family member of several of Marku’s clients, and agreed not to name him because of his fears that revealing his identity would put his family at risk in the Gaza Strip. He said he submitted applications for six family members on Jan. 9, 2024, but none got approved under the program.
“We followed the process,” he said. He said his sister and mother were later permitted to enter Canada through a separate visa program, and they have since applied for refugee status.
He said he had to take matters into his own hands to get them out of Gaza, since Canada couldn’t evacuate them. In April 2024, he flew to Cairo, paying US$15,000 in cash to smugglers who managed to transport two sisters and his mother through the Rafah border into Egypt on April 28.
“They were lucky,” he said. One of his sisters remains in Cairo, he said, because she couldn’t get approval to come to Canada. Marku submitted a letter to the Federal Court this August requesting an emergency hearing to resolve the issue.
“Under the Federal Court rules, there is no mechanism to seek an expedited decision at this stage. It just doesn’t exist,” she said, saying her request for an emergency hearing wasn’t meant to serve as a legal argument, but rather as a humanitarian plea.
The court has acknowledged Marku’s request, but she said it didn’t indicate how it plans to move forward. The Canadian government publicly endorsed a UN-backed finding in August that famine is occurring in the Gaza Strip. In a letter obtained by The Canadian Press, lawyers for the Immigration Department wrote that while they recognize the situation in Gaza is difficult, the case is ultimately “futile and moot.”
“The policy cap has already been reached,” they wrote to the Federal Court. “Receiving unique codes cannot assist them with their situations in Gaza.” In a statement, the Immigration Department told The Canadian Press its policy only required it to process applications submitted before it had reached its cap. The department declined to comment on the litigation.
As of July 29, a total of 880 Palestinians have arrived in Canada through the visa program, which had a cap of 5,000, according to Canada’s Immigration Department. Over 1,775 have also left Gaza and have been approved under the program, but have yet to arrive in the country. Another 400 came in through other immigration programs, it noted. Source
NEW Weekly Wednesday Ottawa Vigil: Next one on October 1st: See Their Faces, Hear Their Names: Urgently Evacuate Palestinians' Loved Ones from Gaza to Canada
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| | One year after ICJ ruling, 26 UN experts urge States to confront inaction over Israel’s unlawful occupation | |
UN OHCHR 19/09/2025 - On the anniversary of the adoption of the General Assembly resolution following the ICJ ruling on Palestine, UN experts* urged Member States to comply with their obligations under international law, take concrete actions to stop Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians and end its unlawful occupation. They issued the following joint statement:
“We are appalled that, despite the overwhelming support at the UN General Assembly for the resolution based on the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion of July 2024, which declared Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Territory unlawful and affirmed that all States are obliged not to recognise, aid, or assist the decades-long occupation. The situation today continues to be apocalyptic, with the Palestinian people facing an existential threat.
The resolution set out clear responsibilities for third States and international organisations, including the UN system, in relation to Israel’s unlawful occupation. It called on Israel to comply with international law by withdrawing its military forces, halting all new settlement activity, evacuating settlers from occupied land, dismantling sections of the separation wall built inside the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and ending the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources. The resolution clarified that any State that continues to aid, assist, or otherwise contribute to the occupation and its related violations risks breaching international law and becoming complicit in international crimes.
The one-year anniversary of the resolution comes at the bleakest of times. Seven hundred days of a military assault on the Gaza Strip and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory has killed and injured at least 230,000 Palestinians. 2.1 million civilians in the besieged enclave are literally starving. The whole of Gaza has been reduced to rubble and the entire population has been forcibly displaced, often multiple times. The failure of most Member States to act decisively exposes the deep erosion of the multilateral system that has been reduced to becoming the collateral damage of the Gaza genocide.
In recent months, the collective and far-reaching nature of the unfolding genocide has become undeniable – marked by mass killings, unspeakable suffering, and large-scale destruction. The violence is no longer confined to Gaza; it is spilling into the West Bank, where forced mass displacement and brutal attacks by armed settlers cannot be dismissed as the actions of a few rogue officials but are aided and abetted by the State at every level. Every branch of the Israeli State – it’s Executive, Parliament, and Courts – have failed to restrain or remedy this abuse of power. Instead, they have perpetuated and advanced the catastrophe, built – as with every genocide before it – on the systematic dehumanisation of an entire people.
The time to stop this genocide is long past. We are dismayed that Member States did not take the obligation to prevent a genocide seriously. Israel’s continued impunity and the failure to stop the monstrous crimes being committed against Palestinians has set the stage for further aggression by Israel against other countries in the region. It should have been stopped before Rafah was invaded; before Israel attacked several countries across the Middle East and North Africa.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel has concluded in a report published this week that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Yet instead of action, a world that is now fully awake to the horror of genocide and the injustice of occupation and apartheid is confronted with silence, or worse, justification from a small but powerful group of States that continue to enable Israel’s assault on Gaza, on international law, on the multilateral system and on humanity itself.
In this heartbreaking moment, we remind the international community of the recommendations that we highlighted in a statement issued on 18 September 2024 and recall the Position Paper issued by the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel.
To comply with the Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice affirmed the need to cut ties with the unlawful occupation. This means that sanctions cannot be avoided, including on Israel, on individuals and on businesses doing business with a genocidal regime:
- Israel must be removed from the United Nations;
- Economic and military relations must be cut, including through preventing trade or investment relations and cultural ties with Israeli actors that promote the occupation or benefit from it;
- States must not recognise and reverse any recognition of changes in status of the occupied Palestinian territory;
- A full arms embargo must be imposed on Israel, halting all arms agreements, imports, exports and transfers, including dual-use items that could be used against the Palestinian population under occupation, in line with the reminder issued to all States in Nicaragua v Germany; and
- States must prevent, investigate and prosecute all citizens and visitors in their jurisdiction who serve or have served in or for the Israeli military and contributed to the occupation, apartheid and genocide regime, including through buying property in occupied territory.
The longer States maintain these ties, the more they entrench normalisation and legitimise illegality – all the while fostering impunity and rendering themselves complicit in international crimes.” Source
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| | Not enemies, but people: Why the world needs to rethink the language of war | |
The Conversation 24/09/2025 - The United States military under the Donald Trump administration has sunk three Venezuelan boats that were allegedly ferrying drugs. American officials branded the people on the boats “narcoterrorists.”
The term “narcoterrorist” conflates the U.S. internal “war on drugs” and external “war on terror” and suggests drug smuggling is punishable by death without trial.
Canada, incidentally, has followed the lead of the U.S. by designating a list of drug cartels as terrorist organizations. This means Canada is now involved in the expansion of violence against people associated with drug smuggling or drug use when they’re labelled terrorists. It also aligns Canada with the American “war on drugs.”
The problem with the language of war
The problem with both terms — the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror” — lies in how they serve to justify killing people. Violence is portrayed as an appropriate response to a threat from an “enemy” rather than an attack on people who may or may not be linked to drugs or terrorism.
The attacks are carried out without the submission of evidence, and it’s almost impossible to verify claims of guilt after the fact. A brief look at the origins of the U.S. war on drugs shows how the term “war” can be used to normalize acts of oppression or violence.
It began in June 1971 when President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy No. 1” and announced a co-ordinated federal campaign against narcotics as part of a “law-and-order” campaign. His emphasis on fighting crime played upon his belief that “people react to fear, not love.”
Drugs and politics
While fear of drug use predated his presidency, Nixon made the issue a central part of his domestic policy. He framed his efforts as a fight to protect public health and safety as the justification for increasing the scope of police actions against drug sellers and users. The Shafer Commission, appointed by Nixon, recommended decriminalizing marijuana in 1972, but he ignored its findings and instead enacted more punitive anti-drug legislation.
Portraying drugs and drug users as a threat was a central part of Nixon’s law-and-order campaign. Privately, however, aides later revealed that his drug policy was also used to target political opponents, particularly anti-Vietnam War activists and Black communities — by associating them with drugs and justifying an increase in policing.
Nixon continued drug enforcement in the U.S. as well as through international policies aimed at curbing drug production. His administration’s war on drugs was not just a social order initiative, but a political strategy that weaponized drug policy to consolidate power and marginalize opponents.
Nixon aide John Ehrlichman later revealed the explicitly political nature of this campaign. By linking heroin to Black communities and marijuana to anti-war activists, the administration could discredit those groups and justify heavy policing and incarceration. The “war on drugs” therefore relied on racist attitudes to justify its heavy enforcement of Black communities.
People, not enemies
By branding the initiative a war on drugs, Nixon turned people addicted to drugs into enemies and implicitly made acceptable levels of oppression that would not be tolerated under normal circumstances. But drugs are not a force that an army can defeat. The war on drugs has been a failure and become the longest “war” in U.S. history.
The idea of a war on drugs erases people from the equation and dehumanizes them. Similarly, the war on terror emphasized an emotion, namely terror, and used that emotion to justify U.S. military actions abroad, including the ill-fated Iraq War.
The recent attacks on Venezuelan boats alleged to be transporting drugs follow this pattern of justifying acts of violence in the name of combating drugs. Both exploit an understandable fear of drug addiction or of a terrorist attack, and use that emotion to silence criticism of acts of violence as illegal and inhumane.
Decades later, Nixon’s campaign to demonize drugs has now coalesced with the war on terror, even though the term “war” seems inappropriate in both cases. Invoking war hastens decisions and short-circuits debate, because in a military conflict, decisiveness is crucial to avoid defeat. While initially declaring a war on drugs or terrorists may rally people in the short term, in the long term, it damages both domestic social policy as well as international relations.
Due process
In the recent strikes against Venezuelan ships, the U.S. could have apprehended the boats in international waters and brought the people on board to trial. This was the procedure during the recent Operation Pacific Viper in the east Pacific, when the U.S. Coast Guard boarded vessels and detained people accused of smuggling cocaine.
The U.S. could have followed the same procedure with the boats from Venezuela, but calling the people on board “narcoterrorists” implicitly justified characterizing them as enemy combatants in the war on drugs. They were civilian vessels, not part of the Venezuelan military. There may or may not have been drugs on board, and the people may not have been drug smugglers, but the world will never know for certain because the U.S. military killed them and sank their boats.
The language of war in such cases justifies actions made for political motives and undermines the rule of law. Overall it is part of a wider use of the term war by Trump, who recently also seemed to declare war on the city of Chicago. It’s all of an ongoing weaponization of the term “war” to assert dominance and justify violence, whether internally against American cities or externally against people the government calls “narcoterrorists.” Source
US war on “narco-terrorists” violates the right to life, warn UN experts after deadly vessel strike
Draft Bill Would Authorize Trump to Kill People He Deems Narco-Terrorists
| | Maha Hilal: US Mourns the Victims of 9/11, But What of the Victims of the “War on Terror”?
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TruthOut 11/09/2025 - In a video reportedly from 2006, a young Iraqi child was captured asking a U.S. soldier why America killed his dad. The soldier being questioned responds that it wasn’t him who killed the young boy’s father. When the child continues his line of questioning, the soldier turns the question around, asking him “do you hate Americans?” and “do you want to shoot me?” Elsewhere, graffiti on a wall in Sanaa, Yemen, depicts a U.S. drone and text written in Arabic and English by a child that says “why did you kill my family.”
Thousands of miles away, Hussein Al-Marfadi, one of many Muslim men who were incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay without charge, was transferred after 12 years in detention to Slovakia — a country where he had no roots. Lamenting his predicament, he said the Americans “killed our youth in Guantánamo and then they tossed us away like garbage.”
At another notorious prison, Abu Ghraib, a prison that the U.S. took over after it destroyed and occupied the country in 2003, Iraqis were subjected to the most egregious torture at the hands of Americans. Commenting on how his experience at the prison impacted him, Talib al-Majli — an Iraqi man who was incarcerated there for 16 months and never charged with anything — stated that “To this day I feel humiliation for what was done to me … The time I spent in Abu Ghraib — it ended my life. I’m only half a human now.”
Amid the violence of the U.S.’s war on terror, these stories, and hundreds of thousands more like them, are a reminder that Muslim people and communities have been rendered disposable as a means to the U.S.’s national security ends.
Unfortunately, the violence of the war on terror, which has been marked by militarism, draconian immigration policies, surveillance, federal terrorism prosecutions, detention, and torture has, thus far, continued unbated. This has resulted in the ongoing targeting and victimization of Muslim and other marginalized communities. Moreover, since Donald Trump began his second tenure as president, he has executed the “war on terror” with even greater fervor — expanding the post 9/11 “forever wars” and constructing new “security threats.”
Night Fell on a Different World
On September 20, 2001, in a speech to a joint session of Congress, President George W. Bush said that after the 9/11 attacks, “night fell on a different world.” Every year since the attacks, Bush and subsequent presidents have delivered remarks to commemorate September 11, 2001, reiterating the narratives of the war on terror, and mourning the victims of this tragedy. Last year, on September 11, 2024, a statement from President Joe Biden read in part, “Today, our nation comes together to renew our sacred vow: Never Forget.” Four years earlier, during Trump’s first term as president, he issued a proclamation that designated September 11 as Patriot Day. Similar to Biden, Trump reiterated the commitment that the United States would not forget the victims of the attacks with the assertion that “America steadied its resolve to hold accountable those who had attacked us and to ensure it would never happen again.”
Although the practice of official state commemorations can be expected, commemorations of 9/11 have gone beyond honoring the victims of the attacks, instead serving to weaponize grief in order to justify state violence. Using examples from the United States and Israel, “mourning par excellence,” is how Leeat Granek describes the work of nationalizing and politicizing grief as a means of justifying continued military engagement that executes further violence and kills even more people in its wake.
After 24 years of the war on terror and no acknowledgement of the violence that has been inflicted on Muslims and other marginalized communities, 9/11 commemorations by the state that are devoid of any recognition of the victims that the war on terror has created reinforce and entrench a certain idea of whose lives are grievable and whose lives are ungrievable. Philosopher Judith Butler describes the concept of “grievability” in their book Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence:
Some lives are grievable, and others are not; the differential allocation of grievability that decides what kind of subject is and must be grieved, and which kind of subject must not, operates to produce and maintain certain exclusionary conceptions of who is normatively human: what counts as a livable life and a grievable death?
Reinforcing Ungrievability
In 2024, on the 6th annual commemoration of the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism, then-State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller asserted in his statement to mark the day that “victims of terrorism must remain at the forefront of efforts to provide them with the justice and support they deserve” and that “we are committed to preventing future attacks and to hold terrorists to account for their crimes.” Though it was the UN General Assembly that established August 21 as this day of remembrance in 2017, the commemoration has provided a new platform for the U.S. to justify continued war. Moreover, by representing any violence by non-state actors as terrorism, the U.S. acts to depoliticize it in order to justify state violence as the only legitimate response.
Selective State-Sanctioned Mourning
On September 17, 2021, former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued an apology after an investigation revealed that the U.S. killed 10 members of an Afghan family, including 7 children. In his apology Austin asserted: “No military works harder than ours to avoid civilian casualties. When we have reason to believe we have taken innocent life, we investigate it and, if true, we admit it. But we also must work just as hard to prevent recurrence — no matter the circumstances, the intelligence stream or the operational pressures under which we labor.” Though Austin was expressing regret for the loss of this family’s lives, it was only because the U.S. could not plausibly deny its mistake and gross misconduct. This selective and performative apology — a form of acknowledgement and mourning — stood out as an exception, considering civilian deaths are rarely ever condemned by the United States. Even when they are, apologies like this one exist to deny the reality that the U.S. continues to murder civilians in the war on terror and beyond.
In her piece “Public Mourning and the Culture of Redress: Mayerthorpe, Air India, and Murdered or Missing Aboriginal Women,” Amber Dean writes that “state sponsored mourning … frequently precludes opportunities for reckoning with colonial histories and their legacies.” In the case of the U.S.’s murder of an Afghan family — one of the few times state violence was recognized by the U.S. — the apology served to erase the violence that the war on terror wrought at home and abroad long before August 2021.
Political Grief
The ongoing targeting of Muslims and other marginalized communities under the war on terror, coupled with the absence of any recognition of the violence inflicted on them, has produced profound and palpable grief. The authors of the recent paper, “The Significance of Political Grief: An Examination Through Major Global Events,” describe political grief as “the collective mourning experienced by communities facing systemic injustices, such as violence, oppression, and the loss of rights which can be exacerbated by societal structures that deny or diminish the legitimacy of their grief.” In the context of the war on terror, where the terrorist label has been weaponized to implicate Muslims and other marginalized communities, these communities are forced not only to endure relentless state violence but also to face their dehumanization as victims, denied even the legitimacy of their grief.
Although the state politicizes grief and mourning to weaponize state violence, mobilizing grief is not exclusively the domain of the state. By claiming, making public, and mobilizing their own grief, communities can resist the state’s monopoly over the differential allocation of the value of life – over the determination of whose lives have value and whose lives are disposable.
Grief can also serve as a powerful way to activate and motivate social justice claims for the aggrieved. Moreover, by channeling their grief toward collective action, Muslims and other communities impacted by state violence post-9/11 can also resist their erasure and assert their right to define the meaning of loss on their own terms.
One way that Muslim Counterpublics Lab, the organization I founded, has developed to channel political grief is through a physical and virtual exhibit titled “Shattering Justice and Re-Making the Muslim Threat.” Through a timeline of the war on terror, the project captures the violence that the state has wrought on Muslim communities through Muslim eyes. The goal of the exhibit is to provide a robust political education tool to preserve communities’ historical memory of the war on terror. The exhibit also provides an accounting of the trajectory of state violence post-9/11 in order to serve as a counter-narrative to resist the state’s hegemonic discourse on the war on terror and in doing so, provide a platform to support the development of justice claims. The visceral imagery of the timeline communicates the depth of the suffering and grief — thus rejecting the silencing of Muslim pain and grief.
Public Mourning and Remembrance
In her chapter on public mourning and redress, Amber Dean argues that the “lack of public mourning in response to certain deaths is tantamount to a failure to confer a type of symbolic or cultural capital, a capital that establishes one’s place as valued, as citizen, and ultimately as human.”
For communities impacted by the war on terror, this makes public mourning essential. By making grief visible, communities not only affirm the value of victims’ lives but also create platforms to voice collective grievances and to demand accountability for the violence inflicted on them. Public mourning is an act of remembrance told from the community’s own perspective, generating counter-narratives that challenge the state’s narrative violence and undermining narratives that have long justified and sustained state violence.
Public mourning, driven by impacted communities, is also crucial in addressing ongoing violence because it demands recognition and remembrance of the foundations the violence was built on — the foundation the state has tried so desperately to normalize so we forget it. In this vein, we can take heed from Concordia University Professor Yasmin Jiwani’s powerful words: “To remember is a political act as it resists hegemonic power that seeks to suppress subjugated knowledge, rewrite history, and stake claims of innocence.”
Establishing a Day of Mourning and Remembrance
President Bush officially launched the war on terror on September 20, 2001. Twenty-four years and hundreds of thousands of deaths later, the only thing we can expect is for state violence to continue. While we continue resisting this violence, we must continue to actively grieve and publicly mourn. As author C. Melissa Snarr writes in her article “Formative Political Grief,” “part of the work of successful social movements is to structure grief by moving it towards political grievance and collective agency.”
Instead of remembering September 20, 2001, as the day the war on terror was launched, our communities should reclaim it as a day of public mourning. Perhaps September 20 could be known from this year and every forward as the International Day of Remembrance and Mourning for victims of Islamophobia and the war on terror.
This day of mourning would create the space to grieve the countless lives that have been shattered by Islamophobia, the violence that has been unleashed, and the violence that continues in the United States’ global war on terror. Commemorating this day through public mourning would allow us to continue voicing our grievances and sustaining our resistance to state violence and imperialism while asserting our categorical humanity, dignity, and the grievability of our lives. Finally, this act of public and collective mourning would allow us to imagine and articulate a vision of collective liberation for all of our communities.
As the war on terror nears its 25th year, it is imperative to build and institutionalize platforms, public mourning rituals, and commemorations that counter its narratives, memorialize its victims, and preserve their stories as part of a collective demand for accountability and transformation. Source
| | ‘Killed us twice’: Families of US drone victims seek reparations in Somalia | |
Al Jazeera 23/09/2025 - Growing up in a nomadic family in central Somalia’s Galgaduud region, Luul Dahir Mohamed, like many girls in her Bedouin community, never got the opportunity to go to school.
But as she grew up, married and had two children – Mohamed and Mariam – she dreamed of a better life for them. After her marriage ended, the young mother decided to relocate from her rural community in Bergan to the central Somali city of El Buur in 2018, hoping the move would help her provide for her children.
But just a few months later, Luul, 22, and Mariam, aged four, were killed. It was April 1, 2018, when Luul and her daughter joined several other passengers in a pick-up truck headed to the town of Dac, about 18km (11 miles) from El Buur. They were on their way to visit Luul’s older brother Qassim when the vehicle was struck.
“She’d only been there [in El Buur] for a couple [of] months, before she was killed in the [United States] drone strike,” her other brother, 38-year-old Abubakar Dahir Mohamed, told Al Jazeera. That day, according to media reports and Luul’s family, US drones bombed the pick-up truck. Immediately after, locals found several bodies in and around the site. Further down the road, about 60 metres (200 feet) away, was the lifeless body of Luul, clutching onto her child, whose small body was covered in shrapnel.
“When they fired on the vehicle, Luul made it out with her daughter. They knew it was a woman and child, and then they fired once again, killing them both in the second strike,” Abubakar said from the Somali capital, Mogadishu. “The Americans claim to uphold human rights, but apparently, when it comes to people like my sister and niece, their lives don’t matter.”
Reparations ‘not feasible’
The Africa Command (AFRICOM), which oversees US military operations on the continent, has carried out more than 410 air raids in Somalia since 2005, according to the think tank New America, which tracks such attacks. According to AFRICOM’s own data, the command carried out 37 strikes in Somalia in 2018, including the one that killed Luul and Mariam.
A day after the April 1 strike, AFRICOM released a statement claiming it struck “five terrorists” and destroyed one vehicle in the strike. “No civilians were killed in this airstrike,” said the statement. The US military says its air raids target armed groups, including al-Shabab, in Somalia. However, locals and rights groups often report civilian deaths.
Twelve months after the attack, following pressure from rights groups, AFRICOM conducted an internal review and admitted that a “mother and child” had been killed in an attack near El Buur. This marked the first-ever US admission of civilian casualties from their decades-long air campaign in Somalia. The report did not name Luul and Mariam.
This month, legal rights organisation Humanus, which represents civilian victims of attacks like these, received a letter from AFRICOM, seen exclusively by Al Jazeera, confirming that Luul and her daughter were killed in a US attack.
AFRICOM is “committed to learning from the circumstances around these tragic deaths”, the letter read, but said making a “condolence payment” to Luul’s relatives, including her young son, now 13, is “not feasible”.
Victims’ families and rights groups say it is not enough. Read more - Lire plus
| | Where Are the Detainees? Hundreds of “Alligator Alcatraz” Prisoners Disappear from ICE Database | |
Democracy Now! 25/09/2025 - Hundreds of people who were once detained at the troubled immigration jail in the Florida Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” have disappeared.
Democracy Now! speaks with Shirsho Dasgupta, a Miami Herald reporter who found that, as of late August, about two-thirds of the 1,800 immigrants who were held there in July have gone missing from ICE’s online database, with their families and attorneys unable to locate them.
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled the jail could continue to operate despite reports of abuse.
“What we’re seeing at Alligator Alcatraz is basically a new model of immigration detention, where a state-run facility is operating as an extrajudicial black site, completely outside of the previous models of immigration detention in this country. And it’s making what was already a terrible system somehow even worse,” says Thomas Kennedy, policy analyst at the Florida Immigrant Coalition. Read more - Lire plus
US Congress was notified on Sept 23 of the 15th death in ICE custody since Trump took office
ICE Raid Turns Deadly in Chicago
Congressional candidate thrown to ground, protesters tear-gassed in clashes at Broadview ICE facility
No Secret Police Act: CA Gov. Signs Law Against Masked ICE Agents; Feds Say They Won’t Comply
Homeland Security Arrests 11 NY Elected Officials Inside 26 Federal Plaza
US Defense Bill Opens Door To Guns-For-Hire At The Border
“Material Support” and an Ohio Chaplain: How 9/11-Era Terror Rules Could Empower Trump’s Immigration Crackdown
| | Trump Troop Deployment in U.S. Climbs to 35,000 Boots on the Ground | |
The Intercept 17/09/2025 - The Trump administration has deployed roughly 35,000 federal troops within the United States this year, according to exclusive figures provided to The Intercept by official military sources. That marks a 75 percent increase on the previous count offered by The Intercept in July.
These occupation forces, drawn from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and National Guard, have been operating under Title 10 authority, or federal control, in at least five states — Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas — in service of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.
The true number of federal troops deployed may be markedly higher. When asked directly, Northern Command, which oversees military operations in North America, said it has no running tally of how many troops have operated under Title 10. The Office of the Secretary of War has, for weeks, dodged questions about the total number, refusing to say if they even know it themselves. The increase of 15,000 troops since July could reflect better accounting, as opposed to a marked spike in Title 10 deployments over the last two months, but it’s impossible to know for certain due to efforts by the Department of War to conceal basic information about the forces.
Experts say that the increasing use of military troops in the interior of the U.S. represents an extraordinary violation of Posse Comitatus, a bedrock 19th-century law banning the use of federal military forces to execute domestic law enforcement that is seen as fundamental to the democratic tradition in America. The deployments continue to nudge the United States closer to a genuine police state.
“The Trump administration has forced 35,000 troops into a role they did not sign up for: intimidating their own communities as pawns in Trump’s authoritarian power grab,” Sara Haghdoosti, the executive director of Win Without War, told The Intercept. “The scale of the abuse of both our communities and troops who signed up to defend the Constitution and now are routinely being ordered to violate it is breathtaking.”
The financial expense may also be astronomical. These deployments could already have cost hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. The actual number is unknown because the Pentagon is engaged in a coordinated cover-up of the costs.
“It’s impossible to know exactly how much the rapidly expanding police state is costing taxpayers,” Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, a nonpartisan research group, told The Intercept. “The aptly renamed Department of War refuses to publicly disclose the total number of troops deployed on U.S. streets, or the costs of the National Guard’s participation in the illegal, ineffective, and inhumane mass deportation agenda.” Read more - Lire plus
Trump Uses “Black Criminality” Myth to Take Over Black-Led Cities: Memphis Rep. Justin J. Pearson
Trump says he will call national emergency again in Washington, DC, if police fail to cooperate with ICE
| | The War on Terror Template For The Post-Charlie Kirk Crackdown | Remember the last time a rabid government didn't let reality get in the way of a long-sought agenda once a crisis provided an opportunity? | |
Forever Wars 15/09/2025 - Speaking of horror and miscalculation, it's been hard to avoid the War on Terror templates on display in the aftermath of the Kirk assassination. Certainly not since the still-unsolved Anthrax mailings has the FBI looked as incompetent. But the most conspicuous recurrence is the substitution of anything like an effort to understand and address what actually motivated the horrific event with the excitable opportunity for a fanatical right-wing administration to advance a preexisting agenda unsuited to a pre-crisis atmosphere. Stop me if you've heard that one before.
I don't know what motivated Kirk's killer and neither do you. Speculations abound, and as discussed above, I haven't had my brain sufficiently poisoned by the internet to understand the reported references at issue. A healthy and rigorous culture amongst both law enforcement and media would, following a thorough investigation, dive deeply into such reasons and root-cause issues. But much like after 9/11, we don't have that culture, in part because 9/11 politics worked so well for so long. Instead we have this:
On Monday, two senior administration officials, who spoke anonymously to describe the internal planning, said that cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives. The goal, they said, was to categorize left-wing activity that led to violence as domestic terrorism, an escalation that critics said could lay the groundwork for crushing anti-conservative dissent more broadly.
Domestic terrorism. Not one of the "leftist nongovernmental organizations"—likely the big liberal foundations, since Trump has threatened George Soros in the last few days—in the administration's crosshairs actually funds anything like domestic terrorism. Long before the Kirk slaying, a similarly designed effort sought to reclassify nonprofits within the liberal fundraising infrastructure, as well as the left-wing institutions that support Palestine, as domestic terrorists. That failed, but that was before there was a shooting of a conservative celebrity to exploit. This is their Saddam Hussein-era Iraq, and they really want to invade. One of the things they want most of all, as they wanted after Oklahoma City and as they wanted after 9/11, is to define their enemies as terrorists so their violence can only be seen as counter-terrorism. Counterterrorist violence enjoys legitimacy by default.
We're at a low ebb in this country's history of lawfulness. Appeals to the absurdity of this effort can win internet arguments (even that might be too optimistic) and little more. Terrorism has always been defined according to the prerogatives of those wielding power, and this is about to be a prime example. FOREVER WARS friend Sam Seder grew exasperated with CNN's interview with Utah Governor Spencer Cox for insufficiently pressing for specifics about the killer's alleged left-wing ideology given that the right-wing narrative about him is coalescing more rapidly than actual information about the killer is available. I get where Sam is coming from. But the implications of this emerging pretext are going to guide events more than any Utah or FBI investigation will.
After Pat Robertson died in 2023, I wrote this, about Robertson's fantastical attributions of blame for 9/11:
It's irrelevant that they offered no material explanation for how gays and liberals were the real culprits for 9/11. What mattered instead was the signal they sent, that there didn't need to be a material explanation for the attacks—there just needed to be a pre-existing enemy, here at home, whose works bore a culpability for the 9/11 atrocity that was realer than the truth. Not only was there no need to reassess, as Sontag suggested, America's military and economic relationship with oppressive Arab and Muslim governments, Robertson and company saw in the War on Terror a new front for a culture war, which for them meant a religious war. This tendency on the right, as documented in my book REIGN OF TERROR, would inform the entire War on Terror, even as many of its advocates grew disenchanted with the actual wars that resulted.
The reason to address the root causes of terrorism is because that's how you can actually save lives from terrorism. The reason to avoid addressing those root causes is because, in the first instance, they implicate your agenda; and in the second instance, because root causes get in the way of fulfilling the ambitions of your agenda. In 2025 as in 2001, the goal remains wielding permanent political, economic and social power. In the intervening years of the War on Terror, its normalized violence became ever more available as an option for those dreaming of such enduring dominance.
Something I tried to say in Baltimore was that the point of abolishing the War on Terror was to avoid reaching the precipice that we find ourselves at right now. There will be no abolition while Trump is in office, only the next form that the War on Terror takes. On display are, and will, be the wages of the unwillingness of the political class to abolish the War on Terror. Read more - Lire plus
Trump’s Idea of the Criminal Left Is a Fiction. A Coordinated Defense Against His Fascism Shouldn’t Be.
Going after ‘antifa’: Donald Trump’s plans to crush his political foes
Trump signs memo targeting ‘domestic terrorism’ amid fears of crackdown on the left
Right-wing extremist violence is more frequent and more deadly than left-wing violence − what the data shows
DOJ Deletes Study Showing Domestic Terrorists Are Most Often Right Wing
Republicans Push FBI To Designate Trans Advocacy As Violent Extremism. Inside The Project 2025 Organization's Proposal.
Hungary urges EU to designate antifa as a ‘terrorist’ group
| | Declassified Report Belies UK ‘Terrorism’ Designation for Palestine Action | |
Common Dreams 12/09/2025 - A declassified British intelligence report published Friday by The New York Times undermined the UK government’s claims and rationale for banning the direct action group Palestine Action under the country’s dubious anti-terrorism law.
Speaking earlier this week, UK State Security Minister Dan Jarvis defended the government’s terror designation for Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act of 2000, accusing the group and its supporters of an “escalating campaign involving intimidation and sustained criminal damage, including to Britain’s national security infrastructure.”
The report was published by the Times as former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock condemned the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s stance on Palestine Action, telling Middle East Eye that “simply, I can’t see how belonging to or demonstrating for a group that is rightly extremely concerned about the appalling situation in Gaza is terrorism.”
But the leaked report, issued March 7 by the UK’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Center (JTAC) and first reported by journalist Craig Murray in August, acknowledges that “the majority” of activities by Palestine Action “would not be classified as terrorism” under the law because they typically involve relatively “minor” property damage, such as “graffiti, petty vandalism, occupation, and lock-ons.”
The group’s actions include damaging property belonging to weapons makers such as the Israeli firm Elbit Systems, spray-painting warplanes at a British military base, and defacing US President Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland—acts experts say do not constitute terrorism.
“UK domestic counterterrorism legislation defines terrorist acts broadly to include ‘serious damage to property.’ But, according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury or to the taking of hostages, for purpose of intimidating a population or to compel a government to take a certain action or not,” United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said in July.
Türk added that the UK legislation “misuses the gravity and impact of terrorism to expand it beyond those clear boundaries, to encompass further conduct that is already criminal under the law.” [...]
The Terrorism Act has long been condemned by civil liberties defenders, who decry the law’s ”vague and overbroad” definition of terrorism, chilling effect on free speech and expression, invasive stop-and-search powers, pre-charge detention and control orders, sweeping surveillance and data collection, and other provisions.
More than 1,600 people have been arrested during demonstrations of support for Palestine Action—mostly organized by the group Defend Our Juries—since the group’s proscription, including nearly 900 attendees of a September 6 rally in London’s Parliament Square. Many of those arrested did nothing more than hold up signs reading: “I Oppose Genocide. I Support Palestine Action.” [...]
Last week, two Metropolitan Police officers speaking under condition of anonymity said they felt guilty and ashamed of having to arrest peaceful Palestine Action supporters. “Instead of catching real criminals and terrorists,” one of the officers told Novara Media, “we are arresting pensioners and disabled people calling for the saving of children’s lives.” Read more - Lire plus
At least 138 people have been charged under the UK Terrorism Act for supporting Palestine Action since July – far surpassing numbers related to the ‘War on Terror’ after 9/11
Lawyer who brought Hamas case claims he was unlawfully detained by police
| | OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES | | ICLMG ACTIONS DE LA CSILC | | The Liberal government has introduced a sweeping new national security and border omnibus bill, Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act. Under the guise of addressing border security and placating the Trump administration, the government is seeking unrelated powers – some of which they have unsuccessfully attempted to obtain in the past – which will have wide-ranging negative impacts on human rights and civil liberties. Please send a quick email to your MP, the Public Safety Minister, the Justice Minister, the Immigration Minister and the Prime Minister urging them to withdraw this dangerous bill. Thank you! | |
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!
| | 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 the Public Safety Minister demanding that he take immediate action to put an end to this abuse of power and hold those CSIS officers involved accountable. Your message will also be sent to your MP and to the Minister of Justice.
| | Canada must protect Hassan Diab! | | Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now! | Every day the government fails to bring these Canadians home, it places their lives at risk from disease, malnutrition, violence, and ongoing military conflicts. 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 and arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria without delay. | | 22 years of fighting deportation to torture: Justice for Mohamed Harkat Now! | | 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 the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice and your MP to reform the extradition system before it makes more victims. Thank you!
Version française: Le Canada doit réformer la loi sur l'extradition!
| | Canada must protect encryption! | |
Canada, with other G7 nations, continues to push to weaken our access to strong, reliable encryption, after decades of being supportive of strong encryption. We need encryption to safeguard our data, our online transactions, our communications, and to protect the lives of journalists and human rights activists.
Please send a message to the Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of Public Safety, as well as your Member of Parliament, to urge them to reverse course and once again commit to protecting encryption.
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 the Prime Minister and the Public Safety Minister calling for a ban now. | | What we’ve been up to from January to May 2025 and our plan for the rest of the year | |
ICLMG 30/05/2025 - Thanks to the support of our members and donors, here is what we were able to work on so far in 2025 :
- Open letter to the new Prime Minister and government
- 2025 federal election and National Security Info Card
- C-20: First independent watchdog for the CBSA
- C-27: Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022
- Online Harms
- Foreign Interference
- Combatting Racism & Islamophobia
- Canada’s terrorist entities list
- Palestine and the right to dissent
- Impacts of Counter terrorism financing
- Hassan Diab & Extradition
- Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism
- And more!
What we have planned for the rest of 2025!
We have our work cut out for us! In response to threats of tariffs and annexation from the Trump administration, the Canadian government has problematically committed to the rapid expansion of border security, surveillance and information sharing with the US, and expanded the use of rights violating anti-terrorism tools. We also cannot ignore the US crackdown on protesters and migrants under the guise of fighting terrorism and protecting national security. We need to ensure that Canada disentangles itself from the US national security regime, resists US pressure to expand surveillance and counter-terror powers and tools at the expense of our civil liberties, and increases protections for privacy, dissent, migrants and asylum seekers.
We will continue our work on these issues and much more:
- 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
- Advocating for restrictions on Canadian information sharing with the US, including the application of the US No Fly List in Canada
- Campaigning for the repeal of secretive and rights violating national security lists, such as the Terrorist Entities List and the Canadian No Fly List
- Halting the rapid expansion of new security measures at the border and continuing to push back against 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 agency
- Advocating with lawmakers and officials to protect civil liberties from the overall negative impact of national security
- Countering the escalating repression of free expression, dissent and protest in the name of “countering terrorism,” including the crackdown on protests in support of Palestinian human rights and against the genocide in Gaza. This includes countering new “bubble zone” laws at the municipal and federal levels
- 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
- Addressing the impacts of measures to counter terrorism financing on civil society groups, including the CRA’s targeting of Muslim-led charities and restrictions and criminalization of the provision of international assistance and humanitarian aid
- Calling for the return of Canadian citizens and the non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children, who remain indefinitely detained in Syrian camps
- Pushing for restrictions on the implementation of new foreign interference laws
- Keeping you and our member organizations informed via the News Digest
- And much more! Read more - Lire plus
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| | Les opinions exprimées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de la CSILC - The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of ICLMG. | | |
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