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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles

May 27, 2023 - 27 mai 2023

Yavar Hameed and Jeffrey Monaghan: RCMP, Islamophobia, and the “War on Terror”

National RCMP Research Council 24/05/23 - Over the past two decades, there have been a litany of abuses directed towards Muslims and Arabs in Canada under the banner of the “war on terror.” Regrettably, these abuses continue and the “war on terror” carries on. While there are many agencies and institutions responsible for the pattern of racial attacks against minority communities, one institution is consistently at the core of these violations: the RCMP.

In-line with their history of repression and discrimination against outsider and Indigenous communities, the RCMP have marshaled the material and ideological resources of the “war on terror” – far from being supposedly neutral actors, as police mythology will often articulate – to act as activists for expanding their own policing power.

Islamophobia, Rendition, and Torture

The transgressions from the RCMP in pursuing Muslims and Arabs as terrorists is long. At the very inception of the “war on terrorism,” the RCMP was inextricably linked to the heinous US extraordinary rendition program by virtue of its sharing of false information without caveats to US authorities that resulted in Maher Arar’s rendition to Syria. Canadian involvement in US rendition programs only came under close scrutiny following the public advocacy and outrage associated with higher profile cases of rendition, like those of Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin.

The RCMP’s opportunistic reliance on rendition practices resulted in two independent judicial commissions, the O’Connor Commission and the Iacobucci Commission. Not only were the RCMP thoroughly criticized in the O’Connor Commission, the final report pointed out how “Canadian officials leaked confidential and sometimes inaccurate information about the case to the media for the purpose of damaging Mr. Arar’s reputation or protecting their self-interest or government interests.” Former RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli was forced to resign after blatantly lying to Parliament over the Arar case. However, with that one exception, no police officers have been publicly reprimanded in any form for the incredible violence directed towards these individuals. The blanket impunity for racist policing is conjoined to the subsequent activities of the “war on terror.”

In addition to rendition, RCMP were central in many of the subsequent actions directed against Muslims and Arabs. RCMP collaborated in discussions with DFAIT and CSIS about interviewing Omar Khadr while he was a child detainee in Guantanamo Bay. Although RCMP did not visit Khadr in detention in Cuba, it was briefed on the fruits of interrogations of Khadr by CSIS in October 2002 at the same time that it was positioning itself to actively engage in the now infamous post 9/11 surveillance of Canadian Muslims under Project A-O Canada. [...]

The harm RCMP have caused

The RCMP have been central in advancing the racist and discriminatory national security practices that have expanded over the past two decades of the “war on terror.” In the aftermath of 9/11, the RCMP reasserted its presence in anti-terrorism policing in the notorious racial profiling of Muslim men, which has received public censure from a public inquiry. Using strategic leaks to the media it attempted to justify its practices, while leveraging the threat of Muslim terror as an impetus for justifying greater policing powers. The RCMP used Islamic terror as a rationale for promoting and securing the new instruments of anti-terror policing to pre-emptively identify and arrest terrorist suspects. From community level surveillance of Muslim targets to more invasive attempts to construct Islamic terrorism bomb plots, the RCMP has continued to hyperbolize the threat that Islamic terrorism represents in Canada as a means of expanding national security policing and its own role within it.

Meanwhile, two decades of racialized terrorism panic produced by policing and media outlets has led to indelible impacts. Muslim communities have faced broad-scale impacts of policing and surveillance on the one hand, and, on the other, continue to suffer from brutal political violence at the hands of white supremacists who are often animated by the police’s Islamophobic sentiments. Certainly, there are layers of national security agencies responsible for the horrors of the “war on terror” but among those the RCMP remains an instrumental force in expanding and justifying the white supremacy of security policing in Canada. Read more - Lire plus

Shiri Pasternak: The campaign to abolish the RCMP unit called C-IRG

National Observer 19/05/23 - With the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)’s 150th anniversary looming next week, it’s a good time to take a closer look at their actual operations, beyond mythologization.

A campaign to abolish an elite police group in British Columbia has united a coalition of lawyers, Indigenous communities and organizations, human rights organizations, non-profits, environmental activists, politicians, academics, and abolitionist groups across the country.

The Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) has targeted the peaceful occupations of the Unist'ot'en and Gidimt’en clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, Gitskan solidarity blockades in New Hazelton, Secwépemc land defenders against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, conservationists at Argenta and Johnsons Landing Face, and anti-logging activists at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island.

These are not the usual police operations. The C-IRG polices conflicts specifically related to industrial resource extraction projects and is designed to handle “major incidents” such as hostage takings that require emergency safety and negotiation protocols and co-ordination across the force and government offices.

The emergencies the C-IRG manages, though, have been primarily the enforcement of corporate injunctions against Indigenous people and environmental activists at extractive sites. In fact, the C-IRG was created at the tail end of 2016 to manage resistance to the construction of the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline and the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. [...]

Why not reform C-IRG?

C-IRG has a long track record of being impervious to criticism and failure to be accountable for unlawful conduct. As early as 2020, the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) submitted a complaint to the RCMP’s Civilian Review Complaints Commission concerning the C-IRG’s implementation and enforcement of a checkpoint and exclusion zone in Wet’suwet’en territory. The association argued the zones constituted “improper and unlawful actions” of “overbroad scope.”

Along with other organizations, the civil liberties group had to file other complaints in 2021 and 2022 to challenge these same tactics at Fairy Creek, Argenta and Johnsons Landing Face. In 2021, logging company Teal-Cedar’s request to extend its injunction against Fairy Creek activists was denied by the judge, citing “substantial infringement of civil liberties” conducted by the C-IRG.

By 2022, the Civilian Review Complaints Commission had received about 500 complaints in areas where C-IRG is active. Only a handful were ever investigated. The Gidimt’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation filed a civil suit that year against the RCMP, the justice minister, and CGL’s private security force, Forsythe Security, alleging hundreds of incidents of C-IRG harassment, including theft, intimidation, surveillance, targeting, and unlawful arrests in their camp.

Journalists also filed a lawsuit against the RCMP that targeted C-IRG operations.

In March 2023, the Civilian Review Complaints Commission announced a systemic review of C-IRG, bowing to pressure from land defenders at Fairy Creek, Wet’suwet’en, and Argenta Landing. The Abolish C-IRG coalition released a letter criticizing the weak process and demanding an immediate suspension of the force while the review was underway.

International human rights bodies have also seemed unable to elicit any kind of accountability for C-IRG from the federal and provincial governments. The United Nations has issued three rebukes against the governments of Canada and B.C., alleging the police “have escalated their use of force, surveillance, and criminalization of land defenders to intimidate, remove and forcibly evict Secwépemc and Wet'suwet'en Nations from their traditional lands.” As well, a scathing report was released by the Special UN Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples on the use of police forces in Wet’suwet’en territory.

Unlike the use of the GSB command structure in other “emergencies” and “major incidents,” which usually have clear start and end points, C-IRG’s mandate for enforcement extends as long as projects are seen to be at risk of disruption from opponents. The Trans Mountain injunction, for example, dates back to 2014 when the company Kinder Morgan still owned it.

The call to abolish C-IRG is also a demand to reframe Indigenous land defence and climate activism as “emergency” police matters. These are urgent political issues. Not issues for corporate injunctions to solve. Read more - Lire plus

ACTION to support the Unist'ot'en camp

ACTION: Abolish CIRG

RCMP and Indigenous Peoples

Justin Brake: The RCMP suppresses honest reporting about colonialism

Azeezah Kanji: “Journacide” and the Settler Colonial Assault on Reality

Pipeline company spent big on police gear to use against Standing Rock protesters

'Death Outlives War': Analysis Estimates Post-9/11 US Conflicts Killed Over 4.5 Million

Common Dreams 15/05/23 - The post-9/11 War on Terror may have caused at least 4.5 million deaths in around half a dozen countries, according to a report published Monday by the preeminent academic institution studying the costs, casualties, and consequences of a war in which U.S. bombs and bullets are still killing and wounding people in multiple nations.

The new report from the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs shows "how death outlives war" by examining people killed indirectly by the War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.

"In a place like Afghanistan, the pressing question is whether any death can today be considered unrelated to war," Stephanie Savell, Costs of War co-director and author of the report, said in a statement. "Wars often kill far more people indirectly than in direct combat, particularly young children."

The publication "reviews the latest research to examine the causal pathways that have led to an estimated 3.6-3.7 million indirect deaths in post-9/11 war zones," while "the total death toll in these war zones could be at least 4.5-4.6 million and counting, though the precise mortality figure remains unknown." [...]

The new report examines the significant “causal pathways” that have led to indirect deaths. The first causal pathway is economic collapse, loss of livelihood and food insecurity. The report finds that more than 7.6 million children under five in post-9/11 war zones are suffering from acute malnutrition. Other causal pathways include destruction of public services and health infrastructure; environmental contamination; and reverberating trauma and violence.

"The United States government, while not solely responsible for the damage, has a significant obligation to invest in humanitarian assistance and reconstruction in post-9/11 war zones," said the author of the new report. Read more - Lire plus

Canada’s extradition law desperately needs reform

The Hill Times 24/05/23 - Canada’s extradition law has been described as the backwater of our nation’s legal system, scarcely known by most legal professionals and foreign to the average person. But the notorious Hassan Diab affair has allowed some Canadians to glimpse the law’s troubling features and the reasons for which parliamentary hearings took place in February 2023 to start a process of extradition reform. [...]

In the interest of “efficiency,” an accelerated extradition process was promoted to supersede an “antiquated” bureaucracy. But if the 1999 Extradition Act sped up the process, it also made it more authoritarian and unfair, wielding its power to run roughshod over the rights of the person sought. In 2012, then-minister of justice Rob Nicholson stated: “The guilt or innocence of the person sought is not a relevant consideration in the extradition context.” In other words, because extradition procedures are not trials, the integrity of the person sought is deemed inconsequential. But, in fact, the extradition process tacitly presumes their guilt from the start.

The requesting state, in contrast, suffers no such pre-judgment. A foreign state’s allegations against the accused are deemed reliable, even if materials are cherry-picked or falsified by omissions of exculpatory evidence. The Hassan Diab case is a textbook example of this flagrant injustice. With the current extradition law, it would appear that the rights of the requesting state trump those of the person sought between 90 and 99 per cent of the time. [...]

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent remarks regarding Diab’s case, saying that Canada will always stand up for its citizens, yields hope. His words signal the possibility of a much-needed change to the Extradition Act. Such a change would, among other things, guarantee transparency by prohibiting the suppression of exculpatory material and by disqualifying, from the start, extradition requests that submit unsourced and unsworn intelligence as evidence. In rejecting submissions that are tainted with secrecy and denial, a new extradition act would save innocent lives from the torment of wrongful surrender to a foreign state and wrongful conviction in a foreign court. This would mean that Diab’s horrific ordeal should never, as Trudeau put it, happen again. Source

Legalized immorality: the scapegoating of Hassan Diab

CALL Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Urging Him to Protect Hassan Diab

LETTER: Canada must protect Hassan Diab!

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Take Action to Prevent Another Wrongful Extradition of Hassan Diab! (all actions, one link)

Mansoor Adayfi: In search of Saeed: From Guantanamo to an Algerian prison

MEMO 19/05/2023 - Saeed Bakhouche – who I know as my brother 'Saeed', or prisoner 685 – was the last of 26 Algerians in Guantanamo. Those of us freed before him were very pleased when we heard that he was finally repatriated on 20 April to his home country, as an innocent man. But instead of enjoying the joy and peace that returning home should bring to a man from whom 21 years of family life have been taken, Saeed has unbelievably found himself in another prison.

This time he is in a prison outside the Algerian capital, facing new interrogators, with no legal representation and no family visits – a situation worse than Guantanamo. It has been a month now. Saeed was interrogated and investigated for 21 years supposedly by the world's most powerful and effective law enforcement and intelligence agencies – and yet he left Guantanamo without charge or trial. What possibly could the Algerians uncover after all this time that the Americans couldn't?

Legal overreach combined with lack of accountability to even basic principles of due process have become a familiar pattern in the 'war on terror'. This fact has been recognised by the UN even if it is unable to do anything about it. As a member of the UN, Algeria underwent a fourth Periodic Review by the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group in November 2022, however it did not accept broad recommendations related to arbitrary detentions.

This should be viewed in combination with the extension of Algeria's penal code in June 2021 to broaden the definition of "terrorism" to include between 250 to 1,000 peaceful political organisations and journalists. It is not hard to imagine how such legislation would treat a 52-year-old man released from Guantanamo with no charge. There are no charges and no judgements against Saeed. He was cleared by a Periodic Review Board (PRB) after a process that would resemble a cruel and decrepit comedy were the impact not so terrible on Saeed's life. [...]

In Algeria, an inside source said that Saeed's interrogators immediately started questioning him about the 21 years he spent in Guantanamo, from the time he arrived in diapers and shackles at the Cuban Island, to the day he was released 21 years later, with no charges against him. He was never offered a lawyer. After ten days of intense interrogation, he found himself standing before yet another judge in yet another court, who would decide again whether to release him or send him to prison, and this would all be based on his interrogators' report and no evidence other than this.

The source described the judge as "ill-tempered". Saeed answered all the questions posed to him by the judge, but he did not admit to the accusations in the file – not to his interrogators and not to the judge. Saeed's military supervisors in Guantanamo described him on record as "quiet" with a "desire to pursue a peaceful way of life". When he did not admit to the accusations, the judge said to him: "You will be stripped of all your civil rights." To which Saeed replied: "Then send me back to Guantanamo." That's the last we heard of him. We only know he was sent to a new prison, with new interrogators. [...]

On paper and in public relations and by lawyers and Parole Boards, we are told that the Algerians assured the US that they would abide by its legal and human rights responsibilities with ex-prisoners from Guantanamo. These "assurances" are recorded in connection with the earliest transfers. But what about men like Saeed? And what about others like him? How much does Washington really know about where he is and what is happening to us? The US State Department has a poor history in locating ex-Guantanamo prisoners who have been mistreated, tortured and imprisoned despite agreements that they would be resettled peacefully.

Sabri Al-Qurashi in Kazakhstan, investigated by the Intercept, was released to Kazakhstan in 2014 where he has no legal status, no ID, and his family is not allowed to visit, making finding a job impossible and rendering him a ghost in society. Ravil Mingazov who has been imprisoned in UAE for six years, has had no access to lawyers or family, and we have heard nothing from him in two years, men who were with him in prison told us the torture he suffered was worse than Guantanamo. The State Department is well aware of these cases and other cases but chooses not to intervene. We demand Saeed's immediate release. Guantanamo has not left us, and we have not left Guantanamo. We continue to wait patiently in the hope of success to come. Read more - Lire plus

ACTION: Stop Mohamed Harkat's deportation to torture in Algeria!

This 9/11 suspect and ‘torture prop’ has spent 20 years in Guantánamo. Is he nearing a deal with the US?

Guantanamo Prisoner Accuses UK of Helping US With Alleged Abuse

Blindman’s Buff: America’s Continuing Quest to Hide Torture

‘We Are Not Ghouls’: A must-watch testament to US war on terror horrors

A foreign influence transparency registry could cause more harm than good

Policy Options 16/05/23 - Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has launched a consultation on a proposed foreign influence transparency registry (FITA) and is seeking feedback on six specific questions.

Unfortunately, they are the wrong questions. We should instead be looking at the problems the registry is trying to address and asking if the proposed solution creates more harm than good.

The federal consultation paper points to harassment and intimidation of Canadians as one of the most troubling forms of foreign interference, but these acts are already offences under the Criminal Code. If a foreign actor or proxy engages in such behaviour, that actor should be prosecuted. That such acts may now be taking place with impunity suggests the need for stronger law enforcement or stronger laws, not this kind of registry.

The consultation paper then provides a specific example of “malign foreign influence” whereby a Canadian academic is asked by an individual employed by a foreign government to write an op-ed opposing a position taken by the federal government – without disclosing the foreign actor’s request to do so. This example sent shivers down my spine. It suggests Canadians who have interactions with foreign governments are servile dupes who have no capacity for individual judgment and/or agency.

It will be virtually impossible to determine if an opinion piece written by a Canadian academic following an encounter with a foreign official is a case of the official asking the academic to write the piece, or a meeting of minds on a given issue. Even with full disclosure, there is a risk that the opinion piece will be deemed to be “malign” because of the views expressed in the commentary, rather than because of any meaningful evidence of prior arrangements with the foreign actor. The predictable result is that academic interactions with certain foreign officials will become taboo, to the detriment of scholarly engagement.

The consultation paper leaves open the question of whether all countries will be covered by a registry, but it is likely that there will be pressure to follow the American approach, which is selective about which countries produce “malign” foreign influence. A private member’s bill currently in the Senate would do the same and it would include essentially all state and non-state entities in any authoritarian country on the basis that they are potentially subject to the direction and control of that government.

This catch-all approach would affect tens of thousands of Canadians who maintain links with the designated countries. It would force them to either register or cut off their ties with their native countries. This could include, for example, ties with alumni associations, cultural and sporting groups, business clubs, municipalities and kinship bodies on the grounds that all entities from certain designated countries are perceived to be under some form of state control.

It would result in many grey areas where the need to register is subject to the discretion of bureaucrats. In the absence of any evidence of material arrangements with a foreign state, it is likely that the test of registration will default to the views expressed by the Canadian individual or organization. Welcome to the registry of unCanadian activities.



Even if many such individuals and organizations are exempt from registration under one government, there would be no guarantee that they won’t be required to register if a different party is elected in the future. In any case, the fundamental problem with this approach would not be not in the number of entities that end up in the registry; it would be in the stigmatization of those for whom the threat of registration is always hanging over their heads, and the chill in civic discourse and political participation that would descend on whole communities. [...]

Proponents of a registry are fond of pointing to similar legislation in the U.S. and Australia, and asking why Canada has not followed suit. That is the wrong question. We should instead be asking if the American and Australian examples have resulted in less malign foreign influence and/or if any such benefits outweigh the costs of bureaucratic deadweight, social stigma and a toxic political environment. [...]

The recent media reporting of anonymous and unsubstantiated “intelligence” reports has created a frenzy of innuendo against Chinese Canadian politicians, scholars and community leaders – all in the name of national security. A combination of ignorance, ideological zeal, fear, groupthink and political cowardice has created the very conditions under which a foreign influence registry is most dangerous, and why we need to warn against it.

If, however, a registry is unavoidable, it should apply to all countries equally and be based on specific arrangements such as monetary payment between individuals or organizations and a foreign state, rather than on assumptions. Registration should be required only for lobbying of government officials and politicians, and not for private activities or general communications. It should not be based on country of origin, ethnicity, business/civil society affiliations or on one’s views. Inasmuch as any registry seeks to make foreign influence activities transparent, it should be accompanied by full government transparency in describing the types of influence activities that are deemed to be malign, and how the registry would reduce such bad acts. Read more - Lire plus

Amnesty International Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions 2022

Amnesty International 2023 - Three countries – Egypt (24), Iran (at least 576) and Saudi Arabia (196) – accounted for 90% of all known executions. Increases in recorded executions for murder and drug-related offences were largely responsible for the spike in Iran: recorded executions for murder had risen sharply by 75% from 159 in 2021 to 279 in 2022; and rose significantly for drug-related offences by 93% from 132 in 2021 to 255 in 2022.

The 196 executions in Saudi Arabia were the highest recorded by Amnesty International in the country in 30 years. The increase in recorded executions for terrorism-related offences and the resumption of executions for drug-related offences were mainly responsible for the significant increase in executions in Saudi Arabia: recorded executions for terrorism-related offences rose from 9 in 2021 to 85 in 2022; and for drug-related offences from 0 in 2021 to 57 in 2022.

The death penalty continued to be used in ways that violated international law and standards in 2022. Some examples included: [...]

• Different forms of “treason”, “acts against national security”, “collaboration” with a foreign entity, “espionage”, “questioning the leader’s policies”, participation in “insurrectional movement and terrorism”, “armed rebellion against the ruler” and other “crimes against the state”, whether or not they led to a loss of life: Iran and Saudi Arabia.

In Belarus, one man was executed and one man was believed to be on death row at the end of 2022. In May, Belarusian authorities adopted a new law introducing the death penalty for “attempts to carry out acts of terrorism”, in violation of the restriction on the use of the death penalty related to “the most serious crimes” and the stated goal of abolition under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Belarus is a state party. Read more - Lire plus

ACTION: Stop revenge executions in Iran

India Seeks Death For Jailed Kashmir Rebel Leader

Journalists are under threat at border zones

Columbia Journalism Review 02/05/2023 - Documentary filmmaker Jeremy Dupin was returning to the US from Haiti to spend Christmas with his daughter when he was detained and searched at the border. Reporter Seth Harp was on his way home to Austin from reporting on Mexican cartels when it happened to him. Freelance journalist Isma’il Kushkush was flying back to his place in New York. Independent filmmaker Akram Shibly was on the way home from Canada. Ernest M. was traveling from Paris to the London Book Fair. Around the world, authorities at ports of entry are granted latitude to search and detain incoming travelers, conduct interrogations without the presence of a lawyer, and even make copies of digital information on phones and laptops. These tactics, using laws designed to prevent terrorism, are being deployed against journalists with alarming regularity. 

There were 40,913 electronic-device searches by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers on the eve of the pandemic in the 2019 fiscal year, rising more than fourfold from 8,503 searches in 2015. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the US seem “more and more excited about this kind of end-run around the Constitution,” Adam Schwartz, senior staff attorney and assistant director at civil liberties nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, allowing them to “concentrate their firepower at the US border, where the courts unfortunately have given them freer rein,” he said. “These are kinks in the armor” of constitutional freedoms.

A recent UK case has put the spotlight back on the issue. On Monday, April 17, Ernest M., whose last name we are not using at his request over fears he may be subjected to further harassment, arrived at Paris Gare du Nord and boarded a train to London St Pancras International. When he arrived, at 7:30pm, he was approached by two plainclothes police officers and taken for questioning. Ernest, twenty-eight, is a foreign-rights manager at La Fabrique Editions. 

The French publishing house is the sister of Verso Books and publishes work by social critics including Silvia Federici, Henri Lefebvre, and Tariq Ali. In the interrogation room British officers reportedly asked Ernest his opinion on French president Emmanuel Macron. They asked about Macron’s proposed plan to up France’s retirement age. They asked if he’d name anti-government authors in his publisher’s catalogue. They asked him for the passcodes to unlock his laptop and phone. Ernest refused, so, after six hours of questioning—around 1:30am—he had his devices confiscated, was escorted to the British Transport Police station on Brewery Road, and was arrested.

He was detained under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, passed by Tony Blair’s government. This gives police the power to examine and detain anyone at a port, airport, or international train station for up to six hours—without needing a reasonable suspicion they have done anything unlawful—to investigate potential involvement with the “commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism.” [...]

Budgen told CJR that Ernest’s interrogators were mostly friendly. They offered him Hobnob biscuits. But he also told reporters “one of the police officers boasted to Ernest that Britain is the only country where they can not only access your phone and computer but download all the contents” and threatened he “would never be able to travel again because he’d be labeled a terrorist” if he didn’t comply. The incident is part of a wider “slide toward a surveillance society,” Jean Morisot, one of the publishing house’s owners, told the Telegraph. Ernest has been summoned to return to the UK on May 16 to collect his laptop and phone.

In the US, too, officials can gain access—without a warrant—to all information on a laptop or phone and share it with other federal agencies. (US law enforcement cannot scour phones even after an arrest. They can at a port of entry.) For journalists, this jeopardizes confidential sources and leaked information. According to a 2017 legal filing, classified information is among the items considered contraband by CBP during searches, imperiling journalists who work with whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing. The US-Mexico border has been subject to particular scrutiny, The Intercept has reported. Read more - Lire plus

FBI broke own rules in January 6 and BLM intelligence search, court finds

Associated Press 20/05/2023 - FBI officials repeatedly violated their own standards when they searched a vast repository of foreign intelligence for information related to the January 6 insurrection and racial justice protests in 2020, according court order released Friday.

FBI officials said the thousands of violations, which also include improper searches of donors to a congressional campaign, predated a series of corrective measures that started in the summer of 2021 and continued last year. But the problems could nonetheless complicate FBI and justice department efforts to receive congressional reauthorization of a warrantless surveillance program that law enforcement officials say is needed to counter terrorism, espionage and international cybercrime.

The violations were detailed in a secret court order issued last year by the foreign intelligence surveillance (FISA) court, which has legal oversight of the US government’s spy powers. The Office of the Director of the National Intelligence released a heavily redacted version on Friday in what officials said was the interest of transparency. “Today’s disclosures underscore the need for Congress to rein in the FBI’s egregious abuses of this law, including warrantless searches using the names of people who donated to a congressional candidate,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Security Project.

“These unlawful searches undermine our core constitutional rights and threaten the bedrock of our democracy. It’s clear the FBI can’t be left to police itself.” At issue are improper queries of foreign intelligence information collected under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which enables the government to gather the communications of targeted foreigners outside the US. That program, which is set to expire at the end of the year, creates a database of intelligence that US agencies can search. FBI searches must have a foreign intelligence purpose or be aimed at finding evidence of a crime. But congressional critics of the program have long raised alarm about what they say are unjustified searches of the database for information about Americans, along with more general concerns about surveillance abuses. Read more - Lire plus

DHS and FBI Depict Vegan Activists as Potential Domestic Terrorists

Lee Fang 15/05/2023 - Imagine a young woman named Jane who recently adopted a vegan lifestyle after learning about factory farming in college. She discusses animal welfare and begins attending protests. For most, Jane’s experiences sound remarkably benign.

But for the Department of Homeland Security, the young woman is following a "path of potential radicalization," according to new documents released through a public records request. The scenario was one of several depicted in a violence prevention workshop from the DHS Office for Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention, a division of the agency that works to counter domestic terrorism. Jane's supposed path towards violence — as featured in the DHS workshop — is composed of little more than everyday experiences that many Americans take as they embrace activism.

In the workshop scenario, Jane reacts with anger when discussing animal cruelty and mentions that she joined a group that has "a reputation for holding controversial protests." She had not only become "an animal lover," but had become "militant about food and animal rights, and other issues like testing." In other words, Jane exercised her rights to engage in constitutionally-protected speech. The documents, obtained via a public record request filed by American First Legal, show a series of potential domestic terrorists, including a pro-life mother and an anti-government conspiracy theorist. The workshop documents are dated in late January 2021, shortly after President Joe Biden took office.

The agency’s interest in animal rights activists follows years of influence from industry groups to pursue their critics as a threat to national security. The memo follows a pattern of federal agencies reaching to classify animal activists as domestic terrorists. Take, for example, this internal Federal Bureau of Investigation Sacramento Field Office memo that I am publishing on this Substack exclusively. The document uses flimsy evidence to take aim at Direct Action Everywhere, a Berkeley-based animal rights group, as a bio-terror threat. The FBI memo claimed that DxE had recklessly heightened the risk of spreading viral pathogens. The document, compiled by the Chemical and Biological Intelligence Unit, under the FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, carried a threat level of “high confidence.” Source

Inside the Pentagon's new "perception management" office to counter disinformation

The Intercept 17/05/2023 - the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration launched what it called the Office of Strategic Influence, which would seek to “counter the enemy’s perception management” in the so-called war on terror. But it quickly became clear that the office, operating under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, would be managing those perceptions with its own disinformation.

As the New York Times reported at the time, its work was to “provide news items, possibly including false ones, to foreign journalists in an effort to influence overseas opinion.” In the nascent Internet age, observers worried the propaganda could boomerang back on Americans.

“The question is whether the Pentagon and military should undertake an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions abroad,” the Times reported in 2004. “But in a modern world wired by satellite television and the Internet, any misleading information and falsehoods could easily be repeated by American news outlets.” Now, two decades later, “perception management” is once again becoming a central focus for the national security state. On March 1, 2022, the Pentagon established a new office with similar goals to the one once deemed too controversial to remain open. Very little has been made public about the effort, which The Intercept learned about through a review of budget documents and an internal memo we obtained. This iteration is called the Influence and Perception Management Office, or IPMO, according to the memo, which was produced by the office for an academic institution, and its responsibilities include overseeing and coordinating the various counter-disinformation efforts being conducted by the military, which can include the U.S.’s own propaganda abroad. [...]

The Smith-Mundt Act, passed in 1948 in the wake of the Second World War, prohibits the the State Department from disseminating “public diplomacy” — i.e., propaganda — domestically, instead requiring that those materials be targeted at foreign audiences. The Defense Department considered itself bound by this requirement as well. After the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon triggered backlash after U.S. propaganda was disseminated in the U.S. In 2004, the military signaled that it had begun its siege on Fallujah. Just hours later, CNN discovered that this was not true. But in 2012, the law was amended to allow propaganda to be circulated domestically, under the bipartisan Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, introduced by Reps. Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, which was later rolled into the National Defense Authorization Act. Read more - Lire plus

The U.S. still owes money to family of 10 Afghans it killed in "horrible mistake"

The Intercept 17/05/2023 - Nearly two years after the U.S. killed 10 members of an Afghan family, including seven children, in a drone strike that prompted a rare apology from the Pentagon, the U.S. government has yet to make good on a pledge to compensate surviving relatives.

Weeks after the attack, which targeted an aid worker whom intelligence officials had mistaken for someone else, the U.S. made a public commitment to condolence payments and pledged to help survivors relocate. With the help of U.S. officials, some of those survivors made it to California last year, including two of the aid worker’s brothers, Emal and Romal Ahmadi, and their families.



As they struggle to adapt to life in a new country, however, they feel abandoned by the U.S. government, according to volunteers and community groups that have assisted them. One volunteer recently started a fundraiser to help cover some family members’ living costs while they wait for the U.S. government to deliver on its promise. “They are living day to day in a very stressful environment of bills, and making sure they have their rent, and do they have enough food, and why did the utility bill go up this month?” Melissa Walton, who regularly visits members of the family, told The Intercept. “It’s stressful, and they didn’t ask for any of this, to have to leave their country and come to a different country and start over.”

Zuhal Bahaduri, executive director of the 5ive Pillars Organization, an Afghan American-led group that was established following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to support the thousands of refugees resettling in the U.S., said the Ahmadi family’s trauma compounds the many challenges facing the 76,000 Afghans who have arrived in the U.S. over the last two years. “There’s a lot of hurt and a lot of anger and a lot of frustration. The country that is responsible for the death of their children has helped them out by getting them here, but they do not feel fully supported,” Bahaduri told The Intercept. “I don’t understand why it’s taking this long,” she added, referring to the condolence payments “Do they think that all they had to do was relocate the family and that’s it? That that’s where their responsibility ends?” Read more - Lire plus

Turkish drone kills three YBS fighters in Iraq - Kurdish authorities

Reuters 23/05/2023 - A Turkish drone strike in northern Iraq on Tuesday killed three fighters from the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a militia affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Iraqi Kurdistan's counter-terrorism service said. The 5:00 a.m. strike targeted a YBS headquarters in the Sinjar district, the counter-terrorism service said.

Turkey has led a long-running campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants of the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, both of which Ankara regards as terrorist groups. Turkey regularly carries out air strikes in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts on Iraqi territory. It considers the YBS as an interlinked group to the PKK and YPG, and has targeted it before, most recently in February. Source

Tunisia: Ghannouchi sentencing marks aggressive crackdown on Saied opposition

Amnesty International 18/05/2023 - A Tunisian court’s decision to sentence opposition figure Rached Ghannouchi to prison under Tunisia’s anti-terrorism law highlights an intensifying campaign against the country’s largest party, which comes as part of a crackdown on dissidents and perceived critics of President Kais Saied, Amnesty International said today. 

On 15 May, Tunisia’s anti-terrorism court gave Ghannouchi, the leader of the opposition Ennahda party, a one-year prison sentence and a fine in connection with public remarks made at a funeral last year. “Tunisian authorities are increasingly using repressive, vaguely-worded laws as a pretext for repression and to arrest, investigate and in some cases prosecute dissidents and opposition figures. The sentencing of Rashed Ghannouchi shows a growing crackdown on human rights and opposition and a deeply worrying pattern,” said Rawya Rageh, Amnesty International’s acting deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“To sentence the leader of the country’s largest party based on public remarks he made a year ago – merely exercising his right to freedom of expression – is another indication of the political motivations behind these ongoing prosecutions.” On 22 February 2022, Ghannouchi made remarks at a funeral in which he praised the deceased as a “courageous man” who did not fear “a ruler or tyrant”. In a 15 May ruling, Tunisia’s anti-terrorism court sentenced Ghannouchi based on these remarks, said lawyer Zeineb Brahmi, a member of Ghannouchi’s legal defence team and the head of Ennahda’s legal office.

Ghannouchi is being investigated in various other criminal cases, but this is the first sentence against him since the 2011 revolution. The court sentenced Ghannouchi under Article 14 of Tunisia’s 2015 anti-terrorism law, which mandates up to life in prison or the death penalty, depending on exact circumstances, for statements that promote religious hatred. According to members of Ghannouchi’s legal defence team, they were not notified of a hearing or imminent sentencing. Police had arrested Ghannouchi, 81, on 17 April for a separate “conspiracy against the state” case. A judge is investigating him and at least 11 others under a law that mandates the death penalty for “trying to change the nature of the state” based partly on public remarks by Ghannouchi on 15 April. The judge has also remanded Ghannouchi and two other suspects in the case to pre-trial detention. Read more - Lire plus

Tunisian Journalists Protest Anti-Terror Laws

VOA 18/05/2023 - Tunisian journalists on Thursday protested against "repressive" anti-terror laws they say are being used to intimidate the media after a broadcaster was jailed for five years earlier this week.

Dozens of protesters gathered in front of the national union of journalists' headquarters in the capital Tunis, chanting: "We are journalists, not terrorists" and "Freedom for the Tunisian press." The rally follows a court's use of anti-terrorism laws on Tuesday to increase to five years a jail term handed to Khalima Guesmi, a journalist at Mosaique FM radio station, after he appealed a one-year sentence delivered in November.

Guesmi was found guilty of having intentionally disclosed "information relating to operations of interception, infiltration, audiovisual surveillance or data collection," his lawyer said after the latest ruling. "There is a frank and clear (political) orientation towards lockdown and repression, which targets disobedient media," said Mahdi Jlassi, president of the journalists' union. "We are once again raising the alarm against the rollback of freedoms in this country and the legal proceedings targeting journalists, lawyers and trade unionists, and other people for comments, articles, or even a song."

On Monday, two Tunisian students were detained after posting a satirical song on social media that criticized police and laws against drug use.

Around 20 journalists are currently being prosecuted for their work, Jlassi added.

Several local and international rights groups and trade unions on Tuesday warned "against the seriousness of the repressive direction of the current authorities" and called on activists and civil society "to mobilize to defend freedoms and human rights."

These groups have criticized the decline in civic freedoms in Tunisia since President Kais Saied launched a sweeping power grab on July 25, 2021. Read more - Lire plus

Pakistan Anti-Terrorism Court Allows Military to Prosecute 16 Supporters of Ex-PM Khan

VOA 25/05/2023 - An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan handed over 16 supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan to the army Thursday for prosecution in military tribunals for their alleged roles in violent protests sparked by his recent short-lived arrest.

The court in the eastern city of Lahore ruled the charges against the suspects "are exclusively liable to be inquired, investigated and triable by the military authorities in court martial." It directed city jail authorities "to hand over the custody of the accused" to the relevant military officer "for further proceedings." The 16 suspects include a former provincial lawmaker of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, the country's largest.

Pakistan has rounded up thousands of people, including women, in a countrywide crackdown in connection with the several days of PTI-led nationwide protests. The agitation erupted on May 9, when the popular 70-year-old opposition leader was violently taken into custody by paramilitary forces on corruption charges from outside a courtroom in the capital, Islamabad. The Supreme Court outlawed Khan's arrest two days later.

Protesters in parts of Pakistan stormed the public and military property, with some setting fire to the residence of a top army commander in Lahore amid allegations the security institution was behind the arrest. The army chief, General Asim Munir, swiftly announced that those involved in attacks against his institution would be brought to justice through military courts. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's cabinet subsequently endorsed the decision, despite demands by rights groups not to try civilians in military tribunals.

Khan and his party leaders have condemned the violence against military installations, alleging military intelligence agencies infiltrated the arsonists to justify the crackdown on his political party. The military says it has collected "irrefutable evidence" against arsonists. On Thursday, the cricket star-turned-politician denounced the decision to try his party members in military courts, saying that "the full force of state terror" had been unleashed against the PTI "to dismantle the party" on the pretext of arson.

"Over 10,000 PTI workers and supporters in jail, including senior leadership and some facing custodial torture," Khan wrote on Twitter. Pakistani authorities have recently released some of the senior PTI leaders from custody after they announced they were either quitting the party or politics, a move Khan says stemmed from custodial torture and pressure by the military to isolate him.

Critics have long opposed the prosecution of civilians in military courts, saying they deny citizens the right to a fair trial because proceedings are held in secrecy and even family members are not allowed to attend them. The army officer-run tribunals are exclusively used to try military personnel and those condemned as state enemies.

Amnesty International called on Pakistan Thursday to immediately reverse its decision and try the suspects in the country's civilian judicial system, using ordinary criminal laws commensurate with the offense. "We have documented a catalog of human rights violations stemming from trying civilians in military courts in Pakistan, including flagrant disregard for due process, a lack of transparency, and coerced confessions," the global watchdog said. Read more - Lire plus

Anti-War Activist In Moscow Gets Seven Years In Prison On Terrorism Charge

RFE/RL 17/05/2023 - A court in Moscow has sentenced anti-war activist Mikhail Kriger to seven years in prison on charges of justification of terrorism and inciting hatred. After the judge pronounced his sentence on May 17, Kriger sang a song in Ukrainian and said, "I think that KGB rotten louse will not last for seven years in power." His supporters chanted in the courtroom "Glory to the hero!" Kriger was arrested in November over his online posts criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin and condemning Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine Source

Open Letter to the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union: Ensuring the protection of fundamental rights on the AI Act

statewatch 17/05/2023 - With the European Parliament and Council of the EU heading for secret trilogue negotiations on the Artificial Intelligence Act, an open letter signed by 61 organisations - including Statewatch - calls on the Spanish Presidency of the Council to make amendments to the proposal that will ensure the protection of fundamental rights.

We, the undersigned organizations, are writing to draw your attention to a number of serious deficiencies in the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) (COM/2021/206), currently being negotiated by the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union and soon by the

Spanish Presidency.

This letter is based on the position of 123 civil society organizations calling on the European Union to foreground a fundamental rights-based approach to the AI Act in 2021. The AI Act is a fundamental piece of legislation that will have a strong impact on the EU population and, in all likelihood, also beyond our borders.

Some of our concerns relate to dangerous practices that lead to mass surveillance of the population. By fostering mass surveillance and amplifying some of the deepest social inequalities and power imbalances, AI systems are seriously jeopardizing our fundamental rights and democratic processes and values. [...]

We call on the incoming Spanish Presidency and Member States to ensure that the following features are reflected in the final text of the AI Act:

1- Expand the list of exhaustive prohibitions of those AI systems that pose an “unacceptable risk” to fundamental rights. It is vital that the Article 5 list of “prohibited AI practices” be expanded to cover all systems that are shown to pose an unacceptable risk of violating fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals, also affecting more generally the founding principles of democracy. At the very least, the undersigned organizations believe that the following practices should be banned altogether:

• Remote biometric identification (RBI) in public space that applies to all agents, not just law enforcement, as well as its uses both “in real time” and “ex post” (no exceptions).
• The use of AI systems by administrative, law enforcement and judicial authorities to make predictions, profiles, or risk assessments for the purpose of crime prediction.
• The use of AI-based individual risk assessment and profiling systems in the context of migration; predictive analytics for interdiction, restriction, and migration prevention purposes; and AI polygraphs for migration prevention.
• The use of emotion recognition systems that aim to infer people’s emotions and mental states.
• The use of biometric categorization systems to track, categorize and judge people in publicly accessible spaces, or to categorize people based on protected characteristics.
• The use of AI systems that may manipulate people or take advantage of contexts or situations of vulnerability, in a way that may cause or have the effect of causing harm to them.

2- Eliminate any type of discretionality in the process of classifying high-risk systems (article 6). [...]

3- Significant accountability and public transparency obligations on public uses of AI systems and on all “deployers” of high-risk AI. [...]

4- Rights and redress mechanisms to empower people affected by AI systems. [...]

5- Technical standards should not address issues related to fundamental rights and should include more civil society voices in their elaboration process. [...] Read more - Lire plus

Canadian scientist quits Google, warns of AI threat

ChatGPT boss warns U.S. Congress of AI risks

AI Expert: We Urgently Need Ethical Guidelines & Safeguards to Limit Risks of Artificial Intelligence

‘There was all sorts of toxic behaviour’: Timnit Gebru on her sacking by Google, AI’s dangers and big tech’s biases

Big Brother Watch report: Biometric Britain: The Expansion of Facial Recognition Surveillance

Ministers looking at body-worn facial recognition technology for police

EU rules allowing "exceptional" use of spyware against journalists need "fine-tuning"

statewatch 23/05/2023 - "The exact drafting on the possible use of spyware in relation to journalistic sources is still under discussion," says the document (pdf), dated 4 May, with negotiations ongoing in the Council's Audio Visual Media Working Party.

"Although all Member States agree on a common strong protection of journalistic sources," the document continues, "the provisions giving possibilities for exceptional instances still need further discussion and fine-tuning."

The EMFA "aims to improve the functioning of the internal media market," according to the European Commission, and also includes "a targeted safeguard against the deployment of spyware in devices used by media service providers or journalists."

As noted by Access Now:

"Since the initial Pegasus Project revelations, we’ve learned that governments and private actors in over 46 countries worldwide, including EU member states, have used invasive spyware to target and silence journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents, and dissidents. "

European Digital Rights recently argued that the Commission's proposal:

"...risks legalising routine deployment of spyware and other repressive measures involving or not surveillance technologies against journalists. This is due to the large broad and undefined scope of safeguarding “national security”, an area of exclusive competence of the Member States. Yet, it has been demonstrated how Member States have abused this notion of national security to impose mass surveillance or other exceptional repressive measures, not just in pursuit of fighting terrorism, but also for social and political control. It is therefore not acceptable that EU law endorses the “ground of national security” to justify the use of spyware against journalists. This exception counteracts the desired effect to protect journalists."

It is unclear what precisely the Council's "fine-tuning" involves - but given the institution's record, it is unlikely to involve increasing the level of protection set out by the proposal. Source

Video: Nowhere to turn: How surveillance tech at the EU borders is endangering lives | Access Now

Pegasus Spyware Is Detected in a War Zone for the First Time

Germany charges executives for selling spyware to Turkey

UK: Criminalizing Dissent - a bonfire of liberties

PILC 11/05/2023 - Using the Coronation as a smokescreen the Public Order Act 2023 was rushed into law on the 2^nd of May 2023. It is a restrictive piece of legislation. The Act will introduce yet more oppressive powers which will restrict people’s fundamental rights to peaceful protest.

The Public Order Act 2023 will see further restrictions to the right to protest by:

• Setting a very low threshold to define disruptive protesting
• Giving police significant new powers to prevent protests occurring outside of major transport networks, oil and gas and energy supplies. This offence will attract a maximum penalty of 12 months imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both.
• Introducing a new offence of obstructing major transport works – this offence will attract a maximum penalty of six months imprisonment, an unlimited fine or both.
• Making ‘locking on’ or going equipped to ‘lock-on’ a new criminal offence.
• Extending the use of stop and search powers – including suspicion-less stop and search – to protests.
• Introducing of new protest banning orders – the Serious Disruptive Prevention Order – that would prevent individuals from attending protests at all.
• Enabling the Secretary of State to bring civil proceedings in relation to protest activity where protest action is causing, or is likely to cause, serious disruption to key national infrastructure or access to essential goods or services in England and Wales.

The latest set of laws come soon after, and on top of, the protest restrictions outlined in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. This Act granted broad and unclear powers to both law enforcement and the Government, allowing them to suppress protests, even those carried out by a single individual. One crucial and worrying phrase allows the right to arrest anyone who the police believe “Intentionally or recklessly [are] causes a public nuisance.” This phrase is used in both Acts and there is a fear it will be interpreted broadly by the police. Protest is by definition public, and can be a ‘nuisance’ for some –that is the nature of protest. Many organisations – specifically Netpol have warned of this. This further extension of police and state powers are deeply authoritarian. Read more - Lire plus

ICLMG ACTIONS & EVENTS

UPDATED 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.

UPDATED 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.

Please share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

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

December 10, 2022 - ironically Human Rights Day - marked the 20th "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.

OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES

Attacks on dissent

Attaques contre la dissidence

EVENT: Webinar: Canada Closed its Doors to Justice for Mariano Abarca - What's next?

EVENT: Webinar: The Military-Industrial Complex and the Suppression of Dissent

Guinean Junta Requisitions Army Ahead Of Protests

ACTION: Peru: Alarming death toll amid repression

ACTION: Belarus: Trade union activity is not extremism!

Elections

Lawfare vs. Democracy: A Report by Progressive International & Common Frontiers

Freedom of expression and of the press

Liberté d'expression et de la presse

EFF: Decoding the U.N. Cybercrime Treaty

Migrant and refugee rights

Droits des migrant.es et des réfugié.es

Podcast: What does a tightened US-Canada border mean for asylum seekers? with Alex Neve & Naqib Sarwary

Biden Sends Troops to the Border as his Doctrine Continues to Create Forced Migration

Desperate families and gun-toting vigilantes converge in Arizona after Title 42 ends

Police

Collective of community groups demand an end to racial profiling in Quebec

Time’s up, game’s over: Toronto Police Service recognized with 2022 Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievements in Government Secrecy

Death rate among on-duty police officers fallen since 1960s, new data shows, with car crashes top cause

Europol data deals with violent police forces need “strong data protection safeguards”

Privacy and surveillance

Vie privée et surveillance

Leaked Government Document Shows Spain Wants to Ban End-to-End Encryption

Webinar: COINTELPRO: Then and Now

U.S. Marshals spied on abortion protesters using Dataminr

Plus de 50 opérations de surveillance aérienne par drones autorisées depuis un mois par les préfets

Q&A: Is Meta data-transfer fine enough to allay privacy concerns?

Neighborhood Watch Out: Cops Are Incorporating Private Cameras Into Their Real-Time Surveillance Networks

Lists

Listes

Biden administration to keep Cuba on the list of states sponsors of terrorism

Development of EU border police watchlist is “progressing well”

Miscellaneous

Divers

Alex Neve: Closing the Implementation Gap: Federalism and Respect for International Human Rights in Canada

Truth about Canadian aid policy revealed in briefing note

Upcoming book: Gendered Islamophobia: My Journey With a Scar(f), by Monia Mazigh

Fueling a war in silence: Canada’s role in the Yemeni Civil War

Biden is selling weapons to the majority of the world's autocracies

U.S. Supreme Court Narrows Scope of Liability Under Anti-Terrorism Act

IMF Joins the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact

Blood on hid hands: Survivors of Kissinger’s Secret War in Cambodia Reveal Unreported Mass Killings

Latin America Webinar Series. W1: Demilitarizing Security

Action: Urge PM Trudeau to reduce military spending

PROTEST: Stop CANSEC: North America’s largest arms show and “defense industry” event - May 31st in Ottawa

ACTION: Stop Deporting Russian War Resisters

July to December 2022 - Juillet à décembre 2022

In case you missed it, we've published our biannual summary of activities last month. Here are the legislation and issues we worked on from July to December 2022:

• Bill C-20, Public Complaints and Review Commission Act
• Bill C-26, An Act respecting cyber security & amending the Telecommunications Act
• Bill C-27, Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022
• "Online harms" proposal
• Countering terrorist financing & prejudiced audits of Muslim charities
• International Assistance and anti-terrorism laws
• Justice for Dr Hassan Diab & reform of the Extradition Act
• CSIS accountability and duty of candour
• Facial Recognition Technology (FRT)
• Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria
• Justice for Moe Harkat and abolish security certificates
• Canada’s armed drone purchase
• Listing of Iranian Canadians
• Ongoing No Fly List problems

For more details on each issue, click here. And here are the issues we plan to work on in the first half of 2023:

• Advocating for changes to anti-terror laws that prohibit Canadian organizations from providing international assistance in Afghanistan and other regions in need;
• Ensuring that the Canadian government’s proposals on “online harms” do not violate fundamental freedoms, or exacerbate the silencing of racialized and marginalized voices;
• Protecting our privacy from government surveillance, including facial recognition, and from attempts to weaken encryption, along with advocating for privacy law reform;
• Fighting for Justice for Mohamed Harkat, an end to security certificates, and addressing problems in security inadmissibility;
• Ensuring Justice for Hassan Diab and reforming Canada’s extradition law;
• The return of the 40+ Canadian citizens indefinitely detained in Syrian camps, including more than 20 children;
• The end to the CRA’s prejudiced audits of Muslim-led charities;
• Pushing for Canadian government action on behalf of Iranian Canadians negatively and unjustly impacted by the US terror listing of the IRGC;
• Greater accountability and transparency for the Canada Border Services Agency;
• Greater transparency and accountability for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service;
• Advocating for the repeal of the Canadian No Fly List, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada;
• Pressuring lawmakers to protect our civil liberties from the negative impact of national security and the “war on terror”, as well as 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.