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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles

September 16, 2023 - 16 septembre 2023

22 Years Later: The Continuing Impact of the War on Terror on Human Rights in Canada

ICLMG 11/09/2023 - Today, September 11, 2023, marks 22 years since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the beginning of the so-called “War on Terror.”

Many of the laws and tools swiftly created or expanded afterwards continue to violate human rights and civil liberties today. Furthermore, Canada, along with other states, has shown over the last two decades how it can adapt the concepts of terrorism, anti-terrorism and national security to capture more and more areas of expression, association and dissent, engage in systemic discrimination and racial, religious and political profiling, as well as intrude in our lives through more and more surveillance, undermining encryption and privacy protections.

For these reasons, over the past two decades the ICLMG coalition has steadfastly worked to address the following issues, among many others:

• The continuing expansion of anti-terror and national security laws and powers
• Security Certificates, which undermine the rights of non-Canadians, including the case of Mohamed Harkat
• Extradition and problems of due process, including the case of Hassan Diab
• The criminalization of dissent
• The use of secret evidence in courts, intelligence used as evidence, the growing discretionary powers granted to national security agencies, and CSIS misleading the courts
• Surveillance, facial recognition and artificial intelligence
• The impact of anti-terror laws on the provision of humanitarian aid and other forms of international assistance
• The No-Fly List and the terrorist entities list
• Canadian complicity in indefinite detention and torture abroad, including Canadians detained in northeast Syria and the lack of redress in the cases of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, Muayyed Nureddin, Omar Khadr, Abousfian Abdelrazik & Mohamedou Ould Slahi
• Canada’s planned armed drones purchase
• Systemic Islamophobia, including the CRA’s prejudiced audits against Muslim charities and dubious counter-radicalization programs

For more details on the above issues and to read about ICLMG's specific plans for the fall of 2023, click on the following link. Read more - Lire plus

Version française: 22 ans plus tard : L’impact persistant de la guerre au terrorisme sur les droits humains au Canada

MAC gives its "Friend of the Community" award to Tim McSorley and ICLMG

ICLMG 15/09/2023 - Watch ICLMG’s National Coordinator Tim McSorley’s award acceptance speech at the MAC 2023 Convention. Thank you to MAC for this honour and for all their important work!

“It was such an honour to join the Muslim Association of Canada at their convention. I am humbled to receive their “Friend of the Community” award for my work and the work of the ICLMG against Islamophobia and fighting for justice. And thank you Abdul Nakua for such a kind and moving introduction!” – Tim McSorley

Visit macnet.ca to learn more about MAC’s work. Read more - Lire plus

The Ontario Superior Court Confirms Bias in CRA Audit but Delays Justice for the Muslim Association of Canada

MAC 14/09/2023 - A recent ruling by the Ontario Superior Court marks an important acknowledgment in the ongoing battle against systemic Islamophobia, recognizing the differential and biased treatment the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) faced during the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audit. However, the court’s decision to allow the CRA to continue to conduct audits with prejudiced practices, unchecked and without consequence, raises profound concerns for the Muslim community and the wider charitable sector.

Although the court acknowledged the CRA’s biased approach in MAC’s audit, it stopped short of providing a resolution, citing the incomplete administrative process of the audit. The court’s decision to delay justice is detrimental to Canadian Muslims, both emotionally and financially. As such, the decision risks overshadowing the very essence of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which stands as a safeguard of individual rights against overreach by the state and unlimited discretion. This ruling does not reflect the experiences and testimonies of countless Canadian Muslim-led charities who have been impacted by the CRA’s prejudiced audits. 

The Charter challenge was originally filed by MAC in April 2022 and was subsequently heard in court a year later, in April 2023. The challenge seeks to address the deeply concerning question of whether the CRA’s audit and methods for assessing terrorist financing risks posed by Muslim charities are rooted in systemic Islamophobia and violate Charter rights. These included Section 2(a) concerning freedom of religion, Section 2(b) on freedom of expression, Section 2(d) related to freedom of association, and Section 15 which addresses equality rights. 

“The court’s ruling is not only legally wrong but also departs from the courts’ long-standing commitment to safeguarding the rights of all Canadians. When the state overreaches and the rights of Canadians are infringed, timely intervention is not just an option, it’s an obligation. Unfortunately, the court has lost sight of this fundamental principle,” said Geoff Hall, a lawyer at McCarthy Tétrault LLP who represents MAC on the Charter challenge. “It’s deeply troubling that the court would tacitly accept a premise that Canadian Muslims can be considered a national security risk. More Muslims have been killed in Canada at the hands of self-confessed white nationalists than in any other Western nation. Yet we would never accept that ‘white’ people are an inherent security risk and worth singling out for investigation.”

“The court’s decision to recognize the inherent bias and prejudice against the Muslim community in the audit validates our long-held concerns. It underscores the urgent need for reform,” said Sharaf Sharafeldin, the President-Strategy of MAC. “However, we are disappointed by the court’s choice not to address these violations immediately, effectively allowing these infringements on our community’s rights to persist indefinitely. We remain committed to pursuing justice and ensuring that the rights of Canadian Muslims are respected." Read more - Lire plus

Judge expresses sympathy, but rules audit of Muslim charity should run its course

Mother of Canadian man detained in Syria ‘overjoyed’ to get word of son following Canadian delegation visit of the camps

The Canadian Press 31/08/23 - A civil society delegation that visited Syrian prison camps is calling on Ottawa to give immediate consular assistance to Canadian detainees and to swiftly repatriate all citizens wishing to return to Canada. The four-person delegation says it held meetings with officials and saw several Canadian men, women and children, as well as non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children.

The detained Canadians are among the many foreign nationals in ramshackle centres run by Kurdish forces that reclaimed the war-ravaged region from militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Delegation members, including Senator Kim Pate, also want Canada to issue temporary residence permits to ensure that non-Canadian mothers and siblings of Canadian children can travel to Canada. The members say Canada is complicit in a serious international human-rights failure through a policy of essentially warehousing thousands of foreign nationals, more than half of them children.

“We are extremely concerned by what we saw, what we experienced and what we heard on the ground while we were there,” Ms. Pate told a news conference Thursday. “Nothing in my working life prepared me for the experience I would have over the last week.”

Asked about the delegation’s urgent calls for action, Global Affairs Canada pointed to a 2021 policy framework for deciding whether to provide extraordinary assistance to Canadians in northeastern Syria. The department said Canadian consular officials remain actively engaged with Kurdish authorities, international organizations operating in the region and the recently returned delegation for information and assistance to Canadian citizens.

The humanitarian mission also included Alex Neve, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa, retired Canadian diplomat Scott Heatherington and Hadayt Nazami, an immigration and human-rights lawyer. The delegation said it interviewed one Canadian woman and three non-Canadian women, who have 13 children among them, being held in the al-Roj camp. The women have been told by the Canadian government they will not be allowed to travel to Canada, but that their children can go without them, the delegation said in a summary of its visit. “They shared with the delegation a range of challenges they face in the camp, including schooling for their children, and a number of serious security and health concerns.”

The delegation also met with two Canadian men held in Syria, Jack Letts and Muhammad Ali, saying both want consular assistance and to be able to return to Canada. Both have significant health issues and have had no consular visit or direct support from Canadian officials during five years in detention, the delegation said. “They made it clear that they are prepared and would welcome an opportunity to respond to any accusations that they have committed terrorism-related acts or face any other criminal charges, through fair proceedings in the Canadian legal system,” the visit summary said.

It added that both men have been interrogated or interviewed on multiple occasions by U.S. intelligence officers or police, who they believe were primarily from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “One of the men has also been interviewed by intelligence officials from two other countries. To their knowledge neither man has ever been interviewed by Canadian intelligence officials or police.” Delegation members had hoped to see seven other Canadian men believed to be in custody in Syria, but they were not granted access.

“Many Canadians may be tempted to conclude that these individuals are the authors of their own misfortune,” Mr. Heatherington said. “But what was clear to us is there is no common storyline as to how or why these individuals ended up in northeast Syria at the time that the region was in the cruel grip of [Islamic State] control.” The delegation said authorities in the region want to ensure that detained Syrians and foreign nationals are dealt with through a justice system that meets international standards. They are preparing to begin trials of foreign nationals, a caseload of between 4,000 and 5,000 prisoners, with a complement of about 30 terrorism court judges, the summary said.

“It’s almost impossible to imagine that this is remotely viable in a way that doesn’t begin to stretch out for decades,” Mr. Neve, a former secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada, said at the news conference. Mr. Letts’s mother, Sally Lane, said she was “overjoyed” to hear news of her son after years of silence. Mr. Letts, 27, became a devoted Muslim as a teenager, went on holiday to Jordan, then studied in Kuwait before winding up in Syria. His family says he was captured by Kurdish forces while trying to escape the country with a group of refugees in 2017.

Ms. Lane, who has long been pressing Ottawa to help repatriate her son, said she cannot thank the delegation enough for what it achieved. “To know that they managed to see and talk to Jack when he’s been incommunicado for so long, and for him to know that there are people who care, is a massive development in our struggle to get him home,” she told The Canadian Press. “Jack is barely holding on. He and the other Canadian nationals have had to endure what no human being should ever have to endure.”

Ms. Lane said she was told her son had a blunt question for the Canadian delegation. “He asked them to be frank with him and to tell him if he will still be there in 10 years’ time.”

The Canadian government must drop its “cruel campaign against families who simply want to end this nightmare and bring our loved ones home,” Ms. Lane said. “We’ve all suffered enough.” Ottawa has helped bring home some women and children from Syria but it has shown no interest in repatriating Canadian men. Lawyers for Mr. Letts and three other Canadian men held in Syria are telling the Supreme Court of Canada that Ottawa is “picking and choosing which Canadians to help out of a hellish situation, when it knows that the cruel conditions will continue indefinitely for anyone left behind.”

In an application to the top court, counsel for the men say their foreign jailers will release them if Canada makes the request and facilitates their repatriation, as it has done for other citizens. The lawyers are asking the Supreme Court to hear a challenge of a Federal Court of Appeal ruling, handed down in May, that said the federal government is not obligated under the law to repatriate the men. The top court will decide in coming weeks whether to hear the case. In a recent statement, Ms. Lane said her family’s only hope to see Mr. Letts again “is for the Supreme Court to acknowledge that our son has the right to life and the right to return to his country of citizenship.” “Anything less is inhumane and against all Canadian values.” Read more - Lire plus

Searing account of the dystopian treatment of John Letts and Sally Lane

Senator Pate's office press release: Urgent Call for Canada and International Community to Act to Uphold Human Rights in Northeast Syria

CBC: Canadian detainees in Syria 'warehoused in inhumane conditions': Senator

CBC Ottawa Morning with Robyn Bresnahan: Delegation explains why Canada must repatriate all detained in Syria (radio)

Hill Times: ‘Complete abdication of responsibility’: group that visited Syrian detainees says pressure building on feds to act

Canadian Lawyer Magazine: ‘Rule of law has been decimated,’ says law prof Alex Neve of Canadians detained in northeast Syria

Radio-Canada: Canadiens détenus en Syrie : « Une situation comparable à Guantanamo »

Global News: Ottawa urged to take action on Syria ISIS camps’ ‘echoes’ of Guantanamo Bay

CPAC: Humanitarian delegation discusses recent trip to Syria – August 31, 2023 (video)

ACTION: Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now!

Une experte de l’ONU décrit l’enfer que vivent des enfants canadiens détenus en Syrie

Radio-Canada 09/08/2023 - Insomnie, malnutrition, traumatisme, automutilation… Des enfants de moins de dix ans, détenus avec leur mère québécoise dans des camps du nord-est de la Syrie, vivent dans des conditions inhumaines et dégradantes qui s’apparentent à de la torture.

C’est le constat que fait Fionnuala Ni Aolain, la rapporteuse spéciale de l'ONU sur la promotion et la protection des droits de l'homme dans la lutte antiterroriste, qui a visité fin juillet les prisons et camps de détention contrôlés par les Forces démocratiques syriennes (FDS), une alliance de combattants kurdes et arabes soutenue par les États-Unis. Mme Ni Aolain est la première responsable onusienne à avoir eu accès aux camps surpeuplés d'Al-Hol et de Roj, ainsi qu’à la prison Panorama, où sont détenus 52 000 présumés djihadistes et membres de leurs familles, de 57 pays différents, dont le Canada. Selon l’ONU, 60 % des détenus sont des enfants, et la plupart ont moins de 12 ans.

Je ne crois pas qu’il existe sur terre un autre centre de détention où la grande majorité de la population carcérale est principalement composée d'enfants de moins de 12 ans. C’est horrifiant - Une citation de Fionnuala Ni Aolain, rapporteuse spéciale de l'ONU

Dans un entretien téléphonique avec Radio-Canada, elle dénonce notamment la séparation systématique des garçons de leurs mères par les FDS. Certains de ces enfants ont à peine neuf ans. Cette pratique cause, selon elle, des dommages irréparables et constitue une violation des lois internationales. On ne parle même pas d’adolescents ici, ce sont des préadolescents, dit-elle, tout en soulignant que cette procédure vise en particulier les ressortissants d'autres pays que la Syrie et l'Irak. En ce qui concerne les enfants de la détenue québécoise que Mme Ni Aolain a rencontrés, aucun d’eux n’a jusqu’à maintenant été séparé de sa mère, affirme l’experte de l’ONU, mais ils encourent un risque extrême de séparation. [...]

Quant au sort de la détenue québécoise et de ses six enfants, son avocat, Lawrence Greenspon, affirme qu’Ottawa refuse le rapatriement de sa cliente parce que les autorités estiment qu'elle présente un risque pour la sécurité. Selon Me Greenspon, la détenue se retrouve désormais face à un dilemme : soit elle renvoie ses enfants au Canada seuls, soit elle les garde avec elle en détention. Si les enfants sont rapatriés seuls, ils seront placés dans des familles d'accueil, selon l'avocat, leur mère n'ayant aucun proche au Canada.

Dans un message daté du 21 juin, le ministère canadien des Affaires étrangères indique que la femme avait des croyances idéologiques extrémistes qui pourraient la pousser à agir violemment. Mais Me Greenspon réfute cet argument, tout comme l’experte de l’ONU, Fionnuala Ni Aolain. Cette femme est lourdement handicapée, dit-elle. Elle n’est pas en mesure de faire 100 pas sans l'assistance de l’un de ses enfants. Elle est incapable de s'asseoir correctement à cause d’une plaie infectée. Elle souffrait tout au long des 40 minutes que j'ai passées avec elle. Pour une femme dans sa condition, la laisser seule, sans le soutien de ses enfants, c’est comme une condamnation à mort, ajoute Mme Ni Aolain. C'est inconcevable! La rapporteuse de l’ONU n’y va pas par quatre chemins pour critiquer Ottawa et sa proposition de rapatrier les enfants sans leur mère : Aucun être humain ne devrait être invité à faire ce choix et aucun gouvernement civilisé ne devrait proposer un tel choix. Read more - Lire plus

Une experte de l'ONU critique la séparation "systématique" des garçons dans les camps syriens

600 Iraqi citizens prepared to leave al-Hol camp

Procès de l’attentat de la rue Copernic à Paris. Les dessous d’un verdict annoncé

Orient XXI 07/09/23 - En face des avocats généraux et de ceux de la partie civile se trouvaient trois avocats pour la défense emmenés par le bouillonnant William Bourdon. Ces derniers ont maintenu que leur client était innocent en réitérant pour l’essentiel les raisons pour lesquelles les juges Herbaut et Folitzer avaient ordonné un non-lieu en 2018.

Cette affaire vieille de plus de quatre décennies est remplie de nombreuses zones d’ombre et contradictions qui n’ont pas été explorées pendant ce procès hors normes. La décision finale du 21 avril condamnant Hassan Diab à la perpétuité ne pourrait pas clore un dossier à la fois si complexe et douloureux pour la France. Il s’agit ici de mettre en lumière quelques-unes des multiples incohérences et interrogations qui émergent des 140 heures d’instruction de ce nouveau procès. Car la question demeure : a-t-on fait assez pour trouver la ou les personnes qui ont exécuté ce crime odieux ?

Commençons par l’élément considéré comme le plus important aux yeux des magistrats. Il constitue, selon le président Petiteau, le principal motif pour la condamnation du suspect : la photocopie d’un ancien passeport libanais de Hassan Diab. Elle le situerait en France au moment de l’attentat. Pendant plusieurs jours, la cour se penche sur le document et les nombreux visas y figurant. Or, pendant le procès, cette pièce à conviction est de nouveau réfutée par le juge Herbaut, qui maintient qu’elle aurait très bien pu être utilisée par un tiers.

Ainsi, les magistrats ont dû composer avec la photocopie granuleuse d’un passeport parmi plusieurs autres retrouvés le 3 octobre 1981 sur un individu en provenance de Beyrouth à sa descente à Rome du vol 231 de la Middle East Airlines. Ce document, normalement irrecevable dans une cour pénale, se trouvait dans le sac d’un certain Ahmed Ben Mohamed, étudiant à l’université de Tlemcen. Rapidement, la police l’identifie comme étant Rachid Abd Abou Salem, membre du Front populaire de libération de la Palestine-Opérations spéciales (FPLP-OS), un groupuscule dissident du FPLP, le mouvement marxiste palestinien fondé par Georges Habache en juillet 1967. Le sac d’Abou Salem contient des cartes d’identité palestiniennes, des permis de conduire et surtout des passeports : péruvien, maltais, et celui de Hassan Diab.

Au bout d’une semaine d’incarcération, Abou Salem est mystérieusement relâché et disparaît dans la nature avec tous ces documents. Jamais on ne demande des comptes aux Italiens, et aucun effort ne semble avoir été fait depuis pour retrouver cet homme-clé. Pourtant, il s’agit du neveu du chef du FPLP-OS, Selim Abou Salem, « qui habite tranquillement dans le sud du Liban », nous dit avec regret le juge Marc Trévidic, qui fut lui-même responsable de l’enquête entre 2007 et 2015, après avoir pris le relais du juge Jean-Louis Bruguière. Cependant, parmi les victimes de l’attentat de Copernic figure une citoyenne israélienne très médiatique, la journaliste vedette Aliza Shagrir. À l’époque, les Israéliens contrôlent une partie du Sud-Liban depuis 1978 et manœuvrent militairement dans toute la région au moment des faits. Or, jamais ils ne tentent, pas plus que les Français, d’appréhender Abou Salem, pourtant à leur portée, ou d’élucider son rôle dans cette affaire. Pourquoi ?

Les autorités italiennes conservent seulement dans leurs tiroirs une photocopie de piètre qualité du passeport libanais de Hassan Diab. Ce n’est que 18 ans plus tard, le 30 juin 1999, qu’Israël fournit le nom et la photocopie du passeport à la Direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST), le service de renseignement du ministère français de l’intérieur, ancêtre de la Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure (DGSI). En parcourant les feuilles photocopiées, la DST trouve des visas pour la Grèce, l’Espagne, la Yougoslavie, la Turquie, la Syrie et l’Algérie, tous datés entre août 1980 et octobre 1981. Aucun visa pour la France ni de tampon frontalier qui situerait Diab dans l’Hexagone. Depuis le début de son calvaire, Hassan Diab dit avoir perdu son passeport en septembre 1980 et insiste sur le fait qu’il ne l’aurait utilisé qu’une fois, pour des vacances en Grèce au cours de l’été de cette même année. [...]

Ainsi, de nombreux éléments semblent avoir été négligés, y compris par la défense, pendant ce procès, au cours duquel n’ont été présentées que des preuves circonstancielles. En effet, 43 ans après les faits, rien ne colle : les empreintes digitales recueillies lors de la garde à vue d’Alexander Panadriyu ne sont pas celles de Hassan Diab ; l’écriture du premier ne peut être imputable à ce dernier ; les portraits-robots sont divers et contradictoires ; la présence de l’accusé à Paris est réfutée par plusieurs témoins beyrouthins ; le passeport et les visas qui le condamnent sont invérifiables, des photocopies de mauvaise qualité ont été découvertes, mais n’ont été prises en compte par la justice qu’en 1999, etc. « Il n’y a eu aucune nouvelle preuve pour mettre en doute l’innocence de mon client ! », fulmine William Bourdon, après la condamnation à la réclusion criminelle à perpétuité de Hassan Diab. Ce vétéran des procès politiques souligne l’aspect « incroyablement fragile » du dossier étudié par les juges d’instruction. [...]

« Je suis ici devant vous pour éviter une erreur judiciaire », poursuit Me Bourdon à la veille de la décision du tribunal. En vain. Les regards se tournent désormais vers le Canada : selon plusieurs sources, Paris aurait récemment demandé à Ottawa l’extradition de Hassan Diab (que réclament également les lobbies pro-israéliens français et canadiens). Dans une lettre ouverte adressée le 8 juin dernier au premier ministre du Canada Justin Trudeau, plus de 130 membres de la communauté juridique du pays, convaincus de l’innocence de Diab, dénoncent la « forte pression politique » exercée par la France et affirment que l’extradition ne doit pas être utilisée comme « un instrument de persécution ». Lire plus

English translation: Trial of the attack on rue Copernic in Paris. The underside of an announced verdict

Podcast episode: "Beyond Kafkaesque": Will Hassan Diab Receive Justice?

PSAC letter: Calling on Canadian Government to refuse extradition request for Dr. Hassan Diab

ACTION: Justice for Hassan Diab!

CAUT issued warning to its researchers: "You do not have a legal obligation to talk to a CSIS officer"

Time Higher Education 09/05/2023 - Scientists in Canada have reported being approached by intelligence agents enquiring about their foreign partnerships in what appeared to be part of a broader crackdown on research ties with China, the country’s leading faculty association has claimed.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) called on its members to resist apparent attempts by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to violate a 60-year-old agreement to generally keep out of campus affairs. “Some people are being terrified” by the requests for information, said David Robinson, CAUT’s executive director.

Other markers of the Trudeau government’s hardening line on academic ties to China include a new federal order requiring researchers applying for grant support from the nation’s three major science funding agencies to describe any potential national security risks arising from their planned work. The government has also banned research partnerships with any foreign institution that has ties to its nation’s military or security services – a characteristic of all Chinese universities – and it is working on legislation that would require the formal registration of people working on behalf of a foreign government. [...]

After hearing about contact between CSIS agents and scientists and administrators, CAUT decided to issue advice to its members, Mr Robinson said. “We sent out information to our members saying, if you’re contacted by CSIS, the first thing to do is talk to us – we have a lawyer that handles this case – because there’s never an innocent conversation with a CSIS agent,” Mr Robinson said. At least one institution, the University of Waterloo, has also issued the same basic warning to its researchers. “You do not have a legal obligation to talk to a CSIS officer,” Waterloo told its faculty in an advisory.

Canadian higher education more generally, however, was showing more willingness to engage with the government. The U15 grouping of Canada’s top research universities said it was working with federal officials to create guidelines for scientists that incorporated the perspective of national security officials. The idea, said Chad Gaffield, a professor of history emeritus at the University of Ottawa who serves as the U15’s chief executive officer, “is to routinise the handling of research security on campuses just as we do with the other aspects of the responsible conduct of research”.

But for now, Mr Robinson said, the uncertainty about the government’s intent was a major part of the problem with a federal approach that relied on academic scientists to judge security risks. He added that CSIS agents directly contacting scientists seemed to clearly violate the Pearson-Laskin Accord, reached in 1963 between CAUT and the government, led by Lester Pearson at the time, which was forged after several Jewish academics were accused of links with Moscow.“CSIS should not be active on campus, should not be engaged in any general surveillance,” Mr Robinson said. Its agents should get active on campuses only “when there’s clear and definitive risks that have been assessed and approved by higher-ups”, he said. Source

Guidance on Interacting with CSIS agents or other public safety officers

Webinar: The Media, CSIS and Modern Sinophobia

ONLINE EVENT: Canada Proposes Foreign Influence Registry: A lot could go wrong! Sept 20, 4PM ET

Playbook for RCMP’s Wet’suwet’en raids provided by former U.S. commander in Iraq and Afghanistan

Ricochet 17/08/23 - The RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG), a special unit that polices Indigenous resistance against resource extraction in British Columbia, has adopted the playbook from former CIA director David Petraeus, according to a presentation at a summit held on Wet’suwet’en territory this week.

Kai Nagata, communications director at Dogwood BC, spoke at the third annual Peace and Unity Summit for Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan hereditary chiefs, elders and allies from human rights organizations from around the world.

Looking around the room, those in attendance sat in shock at what they were hearing and seeing. Nagata’s presentation highlighted the darker truths behind the campaign of violence and intimidation many Indigenous community members have experienced on their territory for years in their fight against the Coastal GasLink pipeline. The images of the RCMP’s militarized tactical team raids on Wet’suwet’en territory in the winter of 2021 made headlines across Canada and around the world. During the raid, RCMP snipers, canine units, and specially trained forces of the C-IRG chain-sawed their way through Molly Wickham’s cabin door and arrested her. Shaylynn Sampson, along with journalists Michael Toledano and Amber Bracken, were also inside the cabin. It was in that moment, as images travelled around the world, that the fight of the Wet’suwet’en land defenders went global.

But, Nagata said, there is much more going on in those pictures of men in heavy tactical gear, using brutal force as they arrested unarmed Indigenous land defenders. In 2019, the global investment firm Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co (KKR) purchased a 65 per cent equity interest in the Coastal GasLink Pipeline project from TC Energy Corporation through a separately managed infrastructure account in partnership with the National Pension Service of Korea. CGL represents a $6.6 billion dollar investment, and will move 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas from Dawson Creek to the LNG Canada processing plant at Kitimat. KKR isn’t taking any chances when it comes to protecting its investment.

Hereditary Chief Na’Moks has said that the 2021 raids, and the constant surveillance of the Yintah, “is a form of war, physical and psychological.” “Although KKR may deploy CIA tactics on our lands and to our people, they will never succeed with their project. We see more value in our lands, waters and freedoms than what any amount of their money would ever be worth.”



Since those dramatic raids, land defenders living on Gidimt’en territory have had to contend with constant video and photo surveillance, stress-inducing traffic stops, harassment and intimidation, walk-throughs at every hour of the night and day, sometimes blasting loud music from an RCMP truck, as well as physical searches and restraints with zip ties. These tactics are designed to wear an insurgent opponent down. But land defenders are not insurgents and BC is not Afghanistan. It only begins to makes sense if you know who designed them. On its website, KKR states that when you partner with them “you benefit from the breadth and expertise of the entire firm.” Some of that “expertise” comes from chairman and founder David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA, and former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Petraeus is also the author of U.S. army publication FM-3-24 MCWP 3-33.5 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, a four-step playbook on how to quash insurgents. KKR hired Petraeus in 2013. “I identify ways to reduce risk,” Petraeus is quoted in the presentation document. “Once we’ve made investments, we help companies as they run into problems. And it’s surprising actually how much you can help them with just sheer determination, boots and the ground, working with nation leaders.” Those “problems” are the Indigenous communities that opposed the construction of the pipeline and have refused to sign agreements. Those “boots on the ground” are the RCMP and the C-IRG units operating with impunity on Wet’suwet’en territory.

Gitxsan leader Hup-Wil-Ax-A Kirby Muldoe said he is worried about the lethality of KKR forces. “These men are trained to kill. Where they have been fighting, they probably killed before and now they’re pointing guns at Indigenous people.” The dots between the RCMP and Petreaus can be easily connected, Nagata said. They’re less obvious between KKR and Forsythe, the private security force contracted by CGL. The RCMP’s chief superintendent John Brewer is the C-IRG's gold commander. In 2010, he served as NATO’s senior police advisor to Afghanistan under Petreaus. It was under his leadership that C-IRG raided Gidimt’en territory in 2021.

Nagata explains how people missed making those connections during a particularly disruptive time. “Environmental activists in the States, who bad been tracking environmental and human rights violations there, did sound the alarm when KKR took over CoastalGaslink, but that warning came during the 2020 raids and the ‘Shut Down Canada’ protest, then COVID hit, and people didn’t have time to do the research to understand the implications of this company taking over security for CGL.” The strategy has been to divide and conquer, he said. In many ways that’s the history of Canada — pitting elected chiefs against hereditary chiefs, those who side with industry against those who refuse to be forcibly removed from their land.

The blueprint for the tactics can be traced back to Standing Rock in 2016, in which the RCMP used the anti-pipeline resistance to justify creating the force’s C-IRG, CBC recently reported. “Coastal GasLink has agreements in place with 20 band councils along the pipeline route,” Nagata explained in his presentation. “Those come with training and jobs, plus cash payments to the bands over the life of the project. However, one leaked contract shows bands are required to dissuade members from opposing the project or even criticizing Coastal GasLink on social media. In that community, 70 per cent of members voted ‘no’ to the agreement, but the band chief signed anyway.”

Gidm’ten Hereditary Chief Woos (Frank Alec) believes that those policing his territory are not from the government; they’re the corporations and their private para-military forces. “These people came here and said this is what we’re going to do. They geared up for war against women, pregnant women and elders.” In Canada, corporations succeed 76 per cent of the time in obtaining injunctions against Indigenous people, Nagata’s presentation states. “How often do judges give Indigenous plaintiffs an injunction against a company? 19 per cent of the time. If people refuse to recognize an injunction, they become targets for both police and private security.” Much has changed on Wet’suwet’en territory since those 2021 raids and much remains the same. The Coastal GasLink pipeline is now 90 per cent complete, at a heavy cost to investors and to the land itself. CGL has been issued 37 warnings and committed 17 infractions related to non-compliance with sediment restrictions. Read more - Lire plus

RCMP Spent Record Amount to Protect CGL Pipeline Last Year

UN Special Rapporteur says Canada should cease construction of Coastal GasLink pipeline, halt the criminalization of Indigenous human rights defenders

‘Today is a good day to die’: Brandi Morin reports from a new RCMP raid at Fairy Creek

Memo called for RCMP to issue apology over handling of N.S. mass shooting months ago

Quand la police «produit la menace» au nom de la sécurité

Le Devoir 24/08/23 - Le 1^er juillet 2013, un couple nouvellement converti à l’islam a été arrêté après avoir caché une bombe artisanale dans un buisson près du Parlement de la Colombie-Britannique, à Victoria. La police s’est félicitée d’avoir déjoué un complot terroriste qui devait assombrir la fête du Canada, mais la réalité était tout autre : l’homme et sa conjointe n’avaient aucunement l’intention de semer la mort. Ils ont été poussés à fabriquer une bombe par des policiers dans le cadre d’une enquête digne d’une « parodie de justice ».

Dans un documentaire qui arrive en salle ce vendredi, la réalisatrice montréalaise Amy Miller remonte le fil de cet événement fabriqué de toutes pièces par des policiers de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada (GRC). Le film Produire la menace montre comment les agents, qui ont pour mission de révéler de soi-disant terroristes, ont manipulé ces citoyens marginalisés pour les convaincre de fabriquer une bombe et de la placer dans un espace public.

« Au Canada, on aime se dire qu’on n’est pas comme les méchants Américains, mais il n’y a pas que la CIA ou le FBI qui font de mauvaises choses comme ça », affirme en entrevue la réalisatrice Amy Miller. La grande force du documentaire de près d’une heure et demie, c’est qu’il repose en bonne partie sur les images captées par des caméras cachées de la police durant cette enquête menée à l’aide d’agents d’infiltration. On assiste à la descente aux enfers du couple formé de John Nuttall et d’Amanda Korody, piégé par des policiers qui cherchaient à tout prix des coupables.

L’homme et la femme sont vulnérables. Ils vivent dans la pauvreté et présentent des signes d’une santé mentale fragile. Un jour, un inconnu qui se présente comme un adepte de la foi musulmane offre de les aider. Il agit comme un guide spirituel, répond à leurs questionnements existentiels et leur donne de l’argent. C’est un agent double de la GRC. De fil en aiguille, d’autres prétendus bons samaritains, qui sont en fait des membres de la GRC, se joignent à l’effort d’aide. Et ça vire mal, très mal, pour le mari et la femme. Ils se font convaincre, contre leur gré, par un mélange d’acharnement, d’intimidation et de peur, de commettre un attentat.

« J’ai l’impression d’être dans un film », confie John Nuttall à sa femme, tous deux surveillés à leur insu par des caméras de la police. Leur « ami » se fait passer pour un connaisseur de l’islam et leur explique, à tort, que c’est une « obligation » pour un bon musulman de commettre un attentat. L’ami musulman laisse entendre qu’il a lui-même participé à des attaques violentes. Le couple est terrifié. « On ne savait pas quoi faire. Si on n’arrivait pas avec un plan [pour commettre un attentat], il nous ferait du mal. On craignait d’avoir affaire à un moudjahidine qui allait nous tuer », raconte Amanda Korody dans le film.

Dans une scène captée par les caméras de la police, un agent double tente par tous les moyens de soutirer des aveux au couple. De lui faire dire qu’il s’apprête à commettre un attentat au nom de l’islam. John Nuttall refuse : « C’est ton projet à toi », répond-il à son « ami ». Devant l’insistance des agents doubles de la police, le couple accepte finalement de tourner une vidéo où il annonce son intention de faire exploser une bombe en public. En privé, les deux présumés « terroristes » filmés à leur insu disent pourtant qu’ils ne veulent faire de mal à personne.

La réalisatrice a eu accès à ces images percutantes tirées de l’enquête policière grâce à la collaboration de l’avocat du couple, qui lui a fourni des centaines d’heures d’enregistrement déposées en preuve devant les tribunaux. Condamné pour complot terroriste, le couple a passé trois ans en détention, mais les cours d’appel provinciale et fédérale ont finalement ordonné la libération des deux prisonniers, qui ont été victimes d’une « parodie de justice », a tranché une juge.

Le documentaire rappelle une série d’autres causes célèbres où des policiers de la GRC ou des agents du Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité (SCRS) ont commis des crimes plutôt que de se contenter d’amasser des preuves lors d’infiltrations menées au nom de la sécurité nationale. Les Québécois ont eu affaire à de telles méthodes lors de la crise d’Octobre, en 1970. Des représentants de la GRC ont volé la liste de membres du Parti québécois, incendié une grange, participé à un vol qualifié et même rédigé un faux communiqué au nom du Front de libération du Québec, rappelle dans le film le militant Alexandre Popovic, porte-parole de la Coalition contre la répression et les abus policiers. Son essai de 2017, Produire la menace. Agents provocateurs au service de l’État canadien, a inspiré la réalisatrice Amy Miller. « À qui profite la provocation policière ? La provocation policière sert d’abord à la police », dit Popovic dans le documentaire.

Les agences de sécurité nationale subissent une énorme pression pour démontrer leur utilité, surtout depuis les attentats du 11 septembre 2001. Ils doivent arrêter des « méchants » de temps en temps, ne serait-ce que pour justifier leurs budgets, souligne dans le film John Kingman Phillips, avocat d’Omar Khadr, cet enfant-soldat canadien qui a été détenu pendant dix ans à Guantánamo après avoir été arrêté en Afghanistan. Ottawa a offert des excuses et une indemnité de 10,5 millions de dollars à Khadr pour le rôle du Canada dans cette affaire. Condamné pour complot terroriste, le couple Nuttall et Korody a passé trois ans en détention, mais les cours d’appel provinciale et fédérale ont finalement ordonné la libération des deux prisonniers, qui ont été victimes d’une « parodie de justice », a tranché une juge.

Des musulmans, des Autochtones et des militants pour le climat ont aussi été ciblés par l’appareil canadien de « sécurité nationale », rappelle dans le documentaire la professeure Pamela Palmater, du Département de politique et d’administration publique de l’Université métropolitaine de Toronto. Des militants de la nation wet’suwet’en et leurs alliés qui ont tenté de bloquer la construction d’un gazoduc dans l’Ouest canadien ont été ainsi qualifiés « d’écoterroristes ». « On peut donc te surveiller et te définir comme une menace », résume la professeure d’origine autochtone. La machine de surveillance contre les menaces à la « sécurité nationale » vise à préserver le statu quo, rappelle le film d’Amy Miller. Le statu quo favorise les entreprises, la « croissance économique », au détriment de tout le reste. Les nouveaux outils numériques comme les algorithmes, la reconnaissance faciale et l’intelligence artificielle laissent entrevoir une ère de surveillance accrue, selon les experts cités dans le film. Big Brother a de beaux jours devant lui. Read more - Lire plus

Be informed of upcoming screenings on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

Canada and Saudi arms exports

Ceasefire 01/09/2023 - The Canadian government has long argued there is no evidence that its exports of heavily weaponized armoured personnel carriers (designated “light armoured vehicles’ by their manufacturers, General Dynamics Land Systems – Canada) have been used by Saudi Arabia in its deadly war against Yemen, despite being called out by name in UN Expert Group reports condemning these exports.



Canadian LAVS and border security in Saudi Arabia

Canada has, however, always acknowledged the role of the LAVs in Saudi Arabian border security. Now we learn of horrific allegations against Saudi border forces accused of killing hundreds of people trying to cross the border from neighbouring Yemen:

Peter Beaumont writes in the Guardian:

Saudi border guards have been accused of killing hundreds of Ethiopians using small arms and explosive weapons in a targeted campaign that rights advocates suggest may amount to a crime against humanity.

Arms Trade Treaty and Crimes Against Humanity

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has an absolute prohibition (Article 6) on arms exports if a state party has knowledge that the arms would be used in the commission of a war crime or crime against humanity. Article 7 of the treaty stipulates that a State Party “shall not authorize” an export where “there is an overriding risk” that the arms in question “could be used to…. commit or facilitate a serious violation of human rights” [emphasis added]. The ATT Article 7 international legal obligation has been incorporated into Canadian law through an amendment to Canada’s Export and Import Permits Act, which reads, in article 7.4:

7.4 The Minister shall not issue a permit under subsection 7(1) or 7.1(1) in respect of arms, ammunition, implements or munitions of war if, after considering available mitigating measures, he or she determines that there is a substantial risk that the export … of the goods or technology specified in the application for the permit would result in any of the negative consequences referred to in subsection 7.3(1).

The “negative consequences” in subsection 7.3(1) of the Canadian legislation mirror Article 7.1 (b) of the Arms Trade Treaty, which includes the “commission or facilitation of a serious violation of human rights”. Ceasefire.ca comments:

Canadian LAVs, exported to Saudi Arabia over many years, are an integral part of that country’s border security equipment. In these circumstances, there is clearly and unmistakably a “substantial risk” that these exported Canadian LAVs could be used to facilitate the commission of the horrific crimes against migrants of which the Saudi security forces stand credibly accused by the UN and human rights organizations.

Whither Canada?

We call on the Government of Canada to immediately suspend any further exports of LAVs to Saudi Arabia, including in particular parts and servicing support for those LAVs previously exported. Read more - Lire plus

“They Fired on Us Like Rain”: Saudis Accused of Killing Hundreds of Ethiopian Refugees at Border

The Canadian government’s poor track record on public consultations undermines its ability to regulate new technologies

The Conversation 16/08/23 - Over the last five years, Canada’s federal government has announced a litany of much-needed plans to regulate big tech, on issues ranging from social media harms, Canadian culture and online news to the right-to-repair of software-connected devices, and artificial intelligence (AI). As digital governance scholars who have just published a book on the transformative social effects of data and digital technologies, we welcome the government’s focus on these issues.

By engaging with the public and experts in an open setting, governments can “kick the tires” on various ideas and build a social consensus on these policies, with the aim of creating sound, politically stable outcomes. When done well, a good public consultation can take the mystery out of policy. For all their plans, the Liberal government’s public-consultation record related to digital policy has been abysmal. Its superficial engagements with the public and experts alike have undermined essential parts of the policymaking process, while also neglecting their responsibility to raise public awareness and educate the public on complex, often controversial, technical issues.

Messing up generative AI consultations

The most recent case of a less-than-optimal consultation has to do with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s (ISED) attempts to stake out a regulatory position on generative AI. The government apparently started consultations about generative AI in early August, but news about them didn’t become public until Aug. 11. The government later confirmed on Aug. 14 that ISED “is conducting a brief consultation on generative AI with AI experts, including from academia, industry, and civil society on a voluntary code of practice intended for Canadian AI companies.” The consultations are slated to close on Sept. 14. Holding a short, unpublicized consultation in the depths of summer is almost guaranteed to not engage anyone outside of well-funded industry groups. Invitation-only consultations can potentially lead to biased policymaking that run the risk of not engaging with all Canadian interests.

Defining the problem

The lack of effective consultation is particularly egregious given the novelty and controversy surrounding generative AI, the technology that burst into public consciousness last year with the unveiling of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. Limited stakeholder consultations are not appropriate when there exists, as is the case with generative AI, a dramatic lack of consensus regarding its potential benefits and harms.

A loud contingent of engineers claim that they’ve created a new form of intelligence, rather than a powerful, pattern-matching autocomplete machine. Meanwhile, more grounded critics argue that generative AI has the potential to disrupt entire sectors, from education and the creative arts to software coding. This consultation is taking place in the context of an AI-focused bubble-like investment craze, even as a growing number of experts question its long-term reliability. These experts point to generative AI’s penchant for generating errors (or “hallucinations”) and its negative environmental impact. Generative AI is poorly understood by policymakers, the public and experts themselves. Invitation-only consultations are not the way to set government policy in such an area.

Unfortunately, the federal government has developed bad public-consultation habits on digital-policy issues. The government’s 2018 “national consultations on digital and data transformation” were unduly limited to the economic effects of data collection, not its broader social consequences, and problematically excluded governmental use of data. The generative AI consultation followed the government’s broader efforts to regulate AI in C-27, The Digital Charter Implementation Act, a bill that academics have sharply critiqued for lacking effective consultation.

Even worse has been the government’s nominal consultations toward an online harms bill. On July 29, 2021 — again, in the depths of summer — the government released a discussion guide that presented Canadians with a legislative agenda, rather than surveying them about the issue and highlighting potential options. At the time, we argued that the consultations narrowly conceptualized both the problem of online harms caused by social media companies and potential remedies. Neither the proposal nor the faux consultations satisfied anyone, and the government withdrew its paper. However, the government’s response showed that it had failed to learn its lesson. Instead of engaging in public consultations, the government held a series of “roundtables” with — again — a number of hand-picked representatives of Canadian society. [...]

Crucially, throughout this process, industry organizations that operate these technologies should not, as they have been in these stakeholder consultations, be the primary actors shaping the parameters of regulation. Government regulation is both legitimate and necessary to address issues like online harms, data protection and preserving Canadian culture. But the Canadian government’s deliberate hobbling of its consultation processes is hurting its regulatory agenda and its ability to give Canadians the regulatory framework we need. The federal government needs to engage in substantive consultations to help Canadians understand and regulate artificial intelligence, and the digital sphere in general, in the public interest. Read more - Lire plus

Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty Threatens to be an Expansive Global Surveillance Pact

Human Rights Watch: Media briefing: critical human rights issues at stake in the draft UN Cybercrime Treaty (video)

Joint statement: EU legislators must close dangerous loophole in AI Act

Exclusive: Biden pressured to make AI Bill of Rights binding policy

The A.I. Surveillance Tool DHS Uses to Detect ‘Sentiment and Emotion’

Washington’s AI Summit Gathers Half a Trillion Dollars of Wealth in One Room

The 'war on terror' lives on 22 years after 9/11

Responsible Statecraft 11/09/23 - More than two decades after 9/11, with a staggering price tag of $8 trillion and the tragic loss of nearly 5 million lives, the horror of the events and its aftermath continue to haunt. While the overt conflicts of the “Global War on Terror” have receded with the U.S.'s departure from Iraq and Afghanistan, many of today's tensions and political unrest can be directly traced to the forces set in motion during the NATO-led global war.

Anti-terror funding continues to flow with few checks and balances, supercharging security forces and the global military industry. West Africa’s ongoing surge in coups highlight the pitfall of Western aid bolstering military institutions at the expense of civil governance. In the Global North, anti-terrorism experts, having rebranded themselves as holistic security pundits, advocate a more hawkish confrontational approach toward China and Russia. Similarly, in Central Asia, global networks and organizations have concocted a developmental aid industry not always in line with the needs of people on the ground, but the buzzwords of “terrorism” and “security” are music to international donors’ ears.

Meanwhile, in places as varied as Nepal, the ripples of the GWOT can be felt first-hand with the revival of Gurkha training institutes, once used by coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now at the disposal of the private security industry. The vast resources and networks mobilized by war do not simply dissipate, but forge new channels, continually reshaping the global landscape. Beyond its military footprint, the GWOT has spawned a draconian wave of securitized logics and invasive legal frameworks. From the United Kingdom and France to India and Indonesia, nations have invoked their own "9/11 moments" in the wake of domestic terror incidents, unrolling a cascade of repressive laws still in operation. These edicts have authorized prolonged detentions without trial, and wide-ranging privacy infringements demanding compromise on liberty for security.

Leaders in Central Asia and the Middle East, despite their authoritarian credentials, have reinvented themselves as indispensable to a U.S.-led security architecture, leveraging the GWOT's prevailing ethos to quell internal opposition. Even in Latin America, seemingly distant from the 9/11 epicenter, governments have weaponized these legal tools against a broader spectrum of perceived adversaries, including civil society and grassroots organizations. A hyper-securitized world is now our new normal. Muslims worldwide remain in the crosshairs, even as the echoes of 9/11 grow fainter. In China, age-old frictions between the central authority and its peripheries have been repackaged, using the GWOT narrative to amplify oppression against the Uyghur minority. Muslims in the diaspora, especially in the West, find themselves walking a tightrope — compelled to constantly justify their “anti-Taliban” convictions and reassert their fidelity to liberal ideals.

Across media platforms, hackneyed stereotypes of Muslims persist. Even well-intentioned gestures, like the CBS sitcom about an Afghan interpreter for the U.S. military and Marvel's recent embrace of Muslim characters, can end up ensnared in the familiar and limiting motifs of the GWOT. But many Muslim communities refuse to be silent. In Northwest Pakistan, for example, opposition to drone bombing sparked a grassroots political movement that has united people against both imperialism and extremism.



Young adults today may view 9/11 as distant history. The COVID pandemic, climate disasters, and the war in Ukraine dominate their global purview, not the drone-strikes, surveillance apparatus, and aftershocks of the Global War on Terror. But just as the repercussions of World War II dictated the contours of global dynamics for decades, the ongoing legacies of the GWOT continue to sculpt our world in both overt and insidious ways. They demand remembering, archiving, and vigilant attention. Read more - Lire plus

Spencer Ackerman: St. Augustine's 9/11 Anniversary: Lord, implored President Biden, let us "turn the page" on the War on Terror. Just not yet.

Norman Solomon: Time to reassess the war on terror

Human Rights and Security Coalition Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee Review of the United States of America

Human Rights Watch 14/09/23 - The United States’ Use of Lethal Force Outside Armed Conflict Violates the ICCPR’s Protection of the Right to Life and Fair Trial

I. The Scale of the US Use of Lethal Force Taken Outside Armed Conflict

Despite repeated concerns raised by the Committee and civil society, US authorities continue to claim the unilateral authority to conduct secretive, extrajudicial lethal strikes outside of recognized armed conflict.[4] According to independent monitoring groups, the US has carried out hundreds of lethal strikes since 2002 outside of armed conflict,[5] including in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.[6] Independent reporting shows that such strikes have killed thousands of people.[7] 

This remains an urgent issue as the Biden administration continues the program of lethal strikes outside of armed conflict. In June 2023, President Biden’s administration released its policy on the use of lethal force outside of armed conflict, known as the Presidential Policy Memorandum Governing Direct Action Counterterrorism Operations Outside Areas of Active Hostilities (PPM).

These lethal strikes continue under the new policy. In Somalia, the Biden administration has conducted at least 56 known strikes since January 2021, killing at least 1505 people.[8] According to investigations by Airwars and Reprieve, there have been at least 12 strikes in Yemen believed to have been carried out by the US under the Biden administration.[9] A drone strike conducted by the CIA in July 2022 targeting Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan shows a willingness by the US to continue to use lethal force in Afghanistan,[10] even though the US is no longer engaged in armed conflict there.

The public version of the PPM does not reference the United States’ international human rights obligations and further entrenches the US approach of using lethal force against terrorism suspects outside of armed conflict in a violation of the right to life and fair trial rights. The policy also permits US agencies to propose variations to the policy through classified country-specific plans, raising both legal and transparency concerns.[11] 

Finally, the policy contains exceptions to certain safeguards in cases of self defense and “collective self defense,” which includes many of the strikes taken under the Biden administration in Somalia.[12] Under the UN Charter’s provisions and customary international law, nations may not use defensive force without UN Security Council authorization, unless in response to an armed attack or an imminent armed attack.[13] Yet successive US administrations have adopted expansive interpretations of these limited exceptions, using force that violated or undermined the Charter.[14]

Legal experts, legislators, and former US government officials have also asserted that the US abuses or exceeds domestic law when it conducts strikes and raids outside of Afghanistan and Iraq, the two countries in which the US Congress has clearly authorized the use of lethal force.[15] To the extent that such strikes and raids are internationally or domestically unlawful, they are a per se violation of Article 6.[16] (Note that some of the undersigned groups do not, as an institutional matter, take a position on decisions to engage in armed conflict or US domestic law.)

The US program of lethal strikes outside armed conflict has led to devastating and long-lasting impacts for individuals and their families. This includes civilian deaths and injuries; the destruction of homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure; long-lasting psychological trauma;[17] displacement; and the loss of means of survival. For example, investigations by groups including Reprieve, Human Rights Watch, Mwatana for Human Rights, Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Clinic, and the BBC documented how the Al Ameri and Al Taisy family in Yemen lost 34 civilian family members, including nine children, due to US drone strikes over a five-year period. The families reported living in fear of the next strike and suffering life-altering psychological and physical injuries, as well as destruction of their property and loss of their livelihoods.[18] [...]

III. International Humanitarian Law is Not Applicable

Under the past three US administrations, the government has adopted policies on the use of lethal force “outside areas of active hostilities,” signifying tacit acknowledgment that strikes are being conducted outside of an armed conflict to which the US is a party.[25] Nevertheless, US policy indicates that the US considers IHL to apply. This aligns with US claims that it is engaged in a global, geographically and temporally limitless non-international armed conflict (NIAC) with Al Qaeda and associated groups.[26] 

This framing has no legal basis. UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston reported that the nature of the US conflict with Al Qaeda does not meet the definition of a NIAC. In particular, Alston highlights that Al Qaeda and associated groups are too “loosely linked” to constitute a distinct and identifiable “party.” Often, the link between Al Qaeda and its “associated” groups is tenuous, if not non-existent, and many attacks are conducted by individuals merely inspired by Al Qaeda. Further, the sporadic nature of violence by these groups does not meet IHL’s intensity and duration requirements to establish an armed conflict.[27] 

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the concept of a ‘global war on terror’ does not exist in international law. Rather, each individual instance of armed force would need to be legally defined based on the particular facts of that action. Al Qaeda and its “associated” forces do not constitute a “unitary” party. As such, international law cannot conceive of a singular conflict against the separate forces of Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab, AQAP, and the Islamic State in different conflicts in different countries.[28] Read more - Lire plus

Pentagon Misled Congress About U.S. Bases in Africa: A general failed to mention six U.S. outposts and described a quarter-billion dollar drone hub as “low-cost.”

Judge throws out confession of bombing suspect as derived from torture

The NY Times 18/08/23 - The military judge in the U.S.S. Cole bombing case on Friday threw out confessions the Saudi defendant had made to federal agents at Guantánamo Bay after years of secret imprisonment by the C.I.A., declaring the statements the product of torture.

The decision deprives prosecutors of a key piece of evidence against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 58, in the longest-running death-penalty case at Guantánamo Bay. He is accused of orchestrating Al Qaeda’s suicide bombing of the warship on Oct. 12, 2000, in Yemen’s Aden Harbor that killed 17 U.S. sailors.

“Exclusion of such evidence is not without societal costs,” the judge, Col. Lanny J. Acosta Jr., wrote in a 50-page decision. “However, permitting the admission of evidence obtained by or derived from torture by the same government that seeks to prosecute and execute the accused may have even greater societal costs.”

The question of whether the confessions were admissible had been seen as a crucial test of a more than decade-long joint effort by the Justice and Defense Departments to prosecute accused architects of Qaeda attacks. The special Guantánamo court is designed to grapple with the impact of earlier, violent C.I.A. interrogations on war crimes trial, including death-penalty cases.

Similar efforts to suppress confessions as tainted by torture are being made in the case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other prisoners who are accused of conspiring in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. Nashiri, like Mr. Mohammed, was waterboarded and subjected to other forms of torture in 2002 by C.I.A. interrogators, including contract psychologists, through a program of “enhanced interrogation.”

Testimony showed that the psychologists took part in a yearslong program that, even after the violent interrogation techniques ended, used isolation, sleep deprivation, punishment for defiance and implied threats of more violence to keep the prisoners cooperative and speaking to interrogators. Read more - Lire plus

Accused 9/11 plotter Ramzi bin al-Shibh isn’t fit for Guantanamo trial because of mental illness, board finds

Military Judge Rejects CIA's 'Rectal Feeding' Narrative for Post-9/11 Sexual Assault

New book: “Doing Harm”: Roy Eidelson on the American Psychological Association’s Embrace of U.S. Torture Program

Former Prisoners Reveal Horrific Torture in Guantanamo Bay Detention Center

What prison? Censorship Has Never Been Worse at Guantánamo Bay

9/11 Families Like Mine Want Plea Agreements to End Indefinite Detention at Guantanamo

Teen Vogue 28/08/23 - My father, Douglas C. Miller, would have turned 56 on July 11. He was a New York City firefighter who gave his life on September 11, 2001, at just 34 years old. His life and so many others were violently taken that day — and far too soon.

I am among the many loved ones who were left behind. I was only six years old on 9/11, the day my world turned upside down. Many of the other 2,976 victims also had young loved ones — children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren. In the wake of that tragic experience, many of us have dedicated our time to advocating for a more peaceful and just world. Amid our grieving process, many 9/11 families, like mine, have asked for answers — and we want a resolution. Twenty-two years later, it seems clear that plea agreements in the case against the 9/11 accused are our only chance.

At age 11, I wrote to President George W. Bush, begging him to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We should be the good country, the peaceful country, but we’re not,” I wrote. Even then I knew that meeting violence with more violence would never bring back our loved ones, and I felt that our leaders wrongly believed that a violent fight against the concept of “terror” would help address our collective grief. It only brought more death, destruction, and civilian casualties. My entire sixth-grade class cosigned my letters to the president, but no reply ever came.

Growing up as a 9/11 kid, I was often asked to participate in patriotic remembrance events around the anniversary of the attacks. My high school made announcements and celebrated my father’s heroism. In college, I spoke at a local 9/11 anniversary event, calling for peace and forgiveness, reminding attendees that the attacks were the actions of the few, not the many. My family was never invited back. Though we laugh about it now, it hurts to feel as if my lived reality is not what people want to hear about.

For years I felt different. Sure, I was one of many children who lost a parent that day, but I never felt people understood my response to the tragedy. I was desperate for answers; to intimately understand the who, what, where, and why of 9/11. I studied the culture, religion, and politics of the Middle East and North Africa, conducting research on terrorism and the radicalization of Osama bin Laden. That led me to study the US response to the 9/11 attacks.

What I learned was deeply upsetting. I read about how hundreds of Muslim men were rounded up and sent to Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, where they were detained without charges or access to lawyers. I learned how others, including the five men who would later be charged with planning and supporting the 9/11 attacks, were tortured at CIA black sites in foreign countries. All of this was done in the name of justice for victims like my father. But I felt the United States had abandoned its commitment to human rights and the rule of law. I was ashamed.

In 2020, I joined a 9/11 family-member organization, September 11^th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, full of people like me who wanted to turn their grief into calls for peace. Since its formation, in 2002, the organization has advocated for peace, justice, and the rule of law. After meeting other 9/11 kids, many of whom studied the same things I did, finally I didn’t feel so different. I also learned about the legal proceedings against the five men accused of planning and supporting the 9/11 attacks. After all these years, the case is still in “pretrial hearings,” largely because the US government classified all the information about the defendants’ torture at CIA black sites prior to their being sent to Guantánamo.

In my desperation to learn more, I have traveled to Guantánamo three times. I looked into the eyes of 9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It was shocking. Despite how he's been labeled, he looked like a fragile, weathered old man. As everyone in the observer gallery stared at him, he stared back. I sat with my loss and pain while listening to oral arguments, and couldn’t help thinking that I did not, could not, stand for the cruelty and torture these men had experienced. [...]

In May, some of us got together to write a letter to President Biden, urging him to remain committed to plea agreements so that 9/11 families can see some level of justice. Our letter was addressed on the Senate floor by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), where he noted that “these families were robbed of true justice when the administration at the time decided to torture and abuse detainees in our nation’s custody, and throw them into an untested legal black hole rather than trusting America’s time-tested system of justice.” Read more - Lire plus

Biden Rejects Proposed Conditions for Plea Deals in Sept. 11 Case: Five Guantánamo detainees accused of aiding the attacks wanted a promise of care for torture-related trauma and to avoid solitary confinement

UAE and USA: UN experts warn against refoulement of ex-Guantánamo detainee and urge his immediate release

MPs call for former Guantanamo detainee Ravil Mingazov to be reunited with his family in the UK

Potential accountability for British intelligence’s involvement in CIA torture

Former Afghan Guantanamo Prisoner Calls for Compensation

“A Political Prosecution”: 61 Cop City Opponents Hit with RICO Charges by Georgia’s Republican Attorney General

DemocracyNow! 06/09/23 - Georgia is intensifying its crackdown against opponents of Cop City, with the state’s Republican attorney general announcing sweeping indictments of 61 people on racketeering charges over protests and other activism related to the $90 million police training facility planned to be built in Atlanta.

The RICO charges were approved by the same grand jury that indicted former President Trump and 18 others on RICO charges in the same county by the Democratic district attorney, and come after many of the same people were earlier charged with domestic terrorism and money laundering as part of the Stop Cop City movement, which is still seeking to block construction of the new police complex. “They are choosing to use the legal process in an essentially violent way to target protesters,” says attorney Devin Franklin with the Southern Center for Human Rights, which is organizing legal representation for the defendants in the case.

We also speak with Keyanna Jones, a Stop Cop City organizer with Community Movement Builders, who notes the indictments are dated from May 25, 2020, the day Minneapolis police killed George Floyd. “Since that date, this country has been upended by governments across the nation trying to build Cop Cities in order to quell protest,” says Jones. “The government is simply upset that people seek to … use their First Amendment right to protest when we see injustice coming from those in authority.” Read more - Lire plus

Cop City Indictments Threaten Press Freedom Too

EFF: End unconstitutional government spying on Americans

The Mercury News 22/08/2023 - Intelligence agencies and the Justice Department have gone to Congress this summer, hats in hand, promising it will all be different this time if lawmakers just reauthorize their massive power to spy on Americans without warrants. “We are committed to addressing mistakes, being transparent with you and the American people, and continually reinforcing a system and culture that protects Americans’ privacy and civil liberties,” read a joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice.

That would be quite a turnaround after cycles of abuses, warnings and further abuses of Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, which authorizes spying on foreign actors in ways that sweep in millions of Americans’ online communications. A document declassified in May revealed that the FBI abused this law more than 278,000 times just from 2020 to early 2021, using it to spy on crime victims, Jan. 6 riot suspects, people arrested at protests after the police killing of George Floyd, and congressional campaign donors. The law will sunset this year unless it’s reauthorized. Congress must either curtail it severely or let it die in ignominy.

This mess has been decades in the making. Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 after a special investigative committee uncovered illegal and unconstitutional spying of Americans by the NSA, CIA, FBI, and IRS. This law created a secret FISA Court to oversee the targeted spying on specific and identified agents of foreign powers. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President George W. Bush bypassed the FISA Court and began illegally spying on domestic communications en masse. Journalists and whistleblowers exposed the illegal surveillance years later. But, rather than stopping it, Congress passed the 2008 FISA Amendments Act to justify more spying.

Section 702 prohibits intentionally targeting Americans, yet the NSA “incidentally” acquires a vast number of innocent Americans’ communications without warrants regularly. FISA Court judges never learn about, let alone approve, surveillance targets under Section 702; they know only what the NSA chooses to tell them. Although the law requires “minimizing” sharing and retention of Americans’ data, rules still let the NSA share a lot of this data with the FBI, CIA and National Counterterrorism Center, all of which retain it for at least five years. Since Section 702 last was reauthorized in 2018, it has become even clearer that it’s a rich source of unconstitutional backdoor access to Americans’ private phone calls, texts and emails.

As early as 2011, the FISA Court held that the NSA’s collection of internet communications violated the Fourth Amendment. Congress in 2018 added a provision requiring the FBI to get a warrant before accessing Americans’ communications in a small subset of criminal investigations — but the government admits the FBI has never adhered to that requirement. In fact, despite Congress’s clear instructions that the agencies minimize the sharing, use and retention of the “incidentally” collected data, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s latest Annual Statistical Transparency Report showed the FBI in 2021 queried the Section 702 data of potentially more than 3 million “U.S. persons” without warrants. They’re asking for trust that they simply haven’t earned.

Congress should require agencies to get a warrant in criminal investigations, or a FISA order in foreign intelligence investigations, before searching Section 702-acquired information for Americans’ communications. It should ensure that the FISA Court can hear from well-informed advisers when reviewing the government’s claims and requests. And it should set limits to shield ordinary private citizens who are unlikely to be communicating information about foreign threats. The Constitution doesn’t allow this kind of dragnet surveillance of Americans. Congress must act decisively to stop it once and for all. Read more - Lire plus

NSA orders employees to spy on the world "with dignity and respect"

U.S. Spy Agency Dreams of Surveillance Underwear It's Calling "Smart ePANTS"

The FBI has amassed 21.7 million DNA profiles — equivalent to about 7 percent of the U.S. population

Documents Reveal Widespread Use of Fake Social Media Accounts by DHS

Brennan Center for Justice 05/09/2023 - The Department of Homeland Security routinely uses fake social media accounts to collect information about people, according to over 3,000 pages of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Brennan Center. The internal records include guidance for agency personnel and emails — but there is little or no evidence of adequate rules to protect Americans’ privacy rights.

For years, we have raised concerns about DHS’s collection and use of social media data, which is used for purposes ranging from visa application screening to monitoring First Amendment–protected activity to automated (and unproven) programs that purport to predict whether travelers pose a risk of engaging in criminal or terrorist activity. Information about the scope of social media data collection and monitoring is sorely lacking, making it impossible for the public to adequately evaluate the risks or sufficiency of any privacy safeguards that might be in place.

The Brennan Center sued the department in 2020 to force the release of relevant records covering DHS headquarters, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The documents we ultimately obtained paint a picture of a department focused heavily on enabling its agents to hide their identities while using platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, despite the intrusiveness of the practice. The tactic also violates Facebook’s user policy, which requires people to use their real names, as the platform has told law enforcement agencies on multiple occasions.

We obtained 35 Social Media Operational Use Templates, which are forms that DHS agencies submit to the department’s privacy office to obtain approval for proposed uses of social media. Of these, at least 14 allow officers to use accounts that do not “indicate an official DHS affiliation” or are not registered using a DHS email. Twelve of these explicitly permit the use of fake accounts, primarily by ICE and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate. (This number may be higher, since CBP redacted this information in seven of its nine templates.)

One template permits CBP personnel to undertake “masked monitoring,” which involves using a fake account to access information on social media for general research or “operational awareness.” According to a separate directive, there need only be a “nexus” to the employee’s assigned duties, a weak standard. Other details from this directive are redacted, and CBP’s Rules of Behavior, which officers must acknowledge before using social media, also do little to constrain officers’ online activities. It is unclear whether CBP has additional, more robust policies.

ICE also permits the use of fake accounts in four of the five templates it handed over, covering immigration and criminal law enforcement activities, internal investigations of employees, and undercover activities. As with CBP, it is unclear whether internal ICE guidance adequately constrains when and how its officers use these accounts. We also obtained internal emails regarding the proposed purchase of a browser anonymization tool called Silo. An ICE division called Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which primarily focuses on deporting undocumented immigrants, wanted to get Silo licenses to anonymize the browsers through which its field operations officers conduct research using “program” (i.e., fake) accounts before and after they interview detainees. Read more - Lire plus

Saudi Arabia: Man Sentenced to Death for Tweets

HRW 29/08/2023 - A Saudi court has sentenced a man to death based solely on his Twitter, and YouTube activity, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities should quash the verdict, which is an escalation of the Saudi government’s crackdown on freedom of expression and peaceful political dissent in the country. On July 10, 2023, the Specialized Criminal Court, Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism tribunal, convicted Muhammad al-Ghamdi, 54, a retired Saudi teacher, of several criminal offenses related solely to his peaceful expression online. The court sentenced him to death, using his tweets, retweets, and YouTube activity as the evidence against him.

“Repression in Saudi Arabia has reached a terrifying new stage when a court can hand down the death penalty for nothing more than peaceful tweets,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Saudi authorities have escalated their campaign against all dissent to mind-boggling levels and should reject this travesty of justice.” Saudi security forces arrested al-Ghamdi in front of his wife and children on June 11, 2022, outside his home in the al-Nawwariyyah neighborhood of Mecca, people with knowledge of the case told Human Rights Watch. They took him to al-Dhahban Prison, north of Jeddah, where he was held in solitary confinement for four months. His family was unable to contact him during this period and he did not have access to a lawyer. The authorities later transferred al-Ghamdi to the al-Ha’ir Prison in Riyadh.

Saudi interrogators questioned him about tweets and political opinions and asked his opinions about individuals imprisoned for exercising their right to free expression. Al-Ghamdi did not have a lawyer for nearly a year and once he finally did obtain legal representation, he was only able to speak with the lawyer immediately in advance of court sessions. Al-Ghamdi’s brother, Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, is a well-known Saudi Islamic scholar and government critic living in exile in the United Kingdom. In a tweet on August 24, Saeed wrote that the “false ruling aims to spite me personally after failed attempts by the investigations to return me to the country.” Saudi authorities in recent years have increasingly retaliated against the family members of critics and dissidents abroad in an effort to coerce them to return to the country, Human Rights Watch said.

Court documents Human Rights Watch reviewed show that the Specialized Criminal Court sentenced al-Ghamdi to death on July 10 under article 30 of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism law for “describing the King or the Crown Prince in a way that undermines religion or justice,” article 34 for “supporting a terrorist ideology,” article 43 for “communication with a terrorist entity,” and article 44 for publishing false news “with the intention of executing a terrorist crime.” Al-Ghamdi’s trial judgment states that he used his accounts on the X, formally Twitter, platform and YouTube to commit his “crimes.” Read more - Lire plus

Russian Journalist Jailed 17.5 Years for 'Financing Terrorism'

The Moscow Times 12/09/2023 - A Russian court on Tuesday sentenced independent journalist Abdulmumin Gadzhiev to 17.5 years in prison on charges of participating in and financing a terrorist organization, Mediazona reported Tuesday. The former editor of Chernovik, a leading independent news outlet in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, was arrested in June 2019 and has since remained in pre-trial detention. 

Russian authorities accused Gadzhiev of helping to raise funds for the militant Islamic group ISIS on the orders of the Islamic preacher Abu Umar Sasitlinsky and disguising his activities as charitable work. Prosecutors also claimed that the journalist's reporting contained evidence of his involvement in terrorist activities. However, independent experts were unable to find any traces of criminal activity in Gadzhiev's work.

Gadzhiev faced trial together with his alleged accomplices, lawyer Abubakar Rizvanov and businessman Kemal Tambiev, who were sentenced to 18 and 17.5 years in prison respectively. Chernovik’s editorial board and other independent journalists believe the charges against Gadzhiev are retaliation for his professional activities and have repeatedly likened his case to that of Russian investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, who was arrested on fabricated drug charges in 2019 but released a few days later following a widespread public outcry. Gadzhiev has denied all charges, calling the case against him "fake from start to finish" in court last week. Read more - Lire plus

Explainer: Hong Kong’s national security crackdown – month 38

HKFP 02/09/2023 - Hong Kong authorities continued their campaign against those with links to eight wanted overseas activists, with their family members and associates “taken” from their homes for offices for questioning. Additionally, 12 people with connections to a defunct 2019 protester relief fund were arrested almost two years after it ceased operations.

Landmark national security cases have been progressing slowly. The trial involving 47 high-profile democrats was adjourned to November to allow both sides to prepare closing arguments, while the trial against pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai was postponed once again and is now set to resume in December. Also, a Cantonese-language advocacy group closed after it received a warning from the national security police, and taxi drivers were called upon to join the city’s fight against terrorism. Read more - Lire plus

Hong Kong security chief slams ‘artistic creations’ used as guise to endanger national security, does not confirm if Pillar of Shame sculptor is wanted

Hong Kong: Cantonese language group shuts down after targeting by national security police

Pakistani rights activist Ali Wazir and lawyer Imaan Mazari jailed on terror charges

People's Dispatch 21/08/2023 - Former member of Pakistan’s parliament and Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) leader Ali Wazir and human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari were remanded to three days in detention by the country’s anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Monday, August 21.



Wazir and Mazari were arrested by security forces on Sunday for participating in a rally organized by the PTM on Friday demanding immediate action against extrajudicial killings and the enforced disappearance of thousands of innocent people from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province in the military’s so-called anti-terror operations.

According to a report in Dawn, two FIRs were registered against both of them on Saturday at Tarnol police station (near Islamabad). The first FIR charges Mazari and Wazir, along with dozens of other activists of PTM who participated in the rally on Friday, under different sections of the Pakistan Penal Code related to rioting, unlawful gathering, obstruction of public duty, wrongful restraint, and criminal intimidation, among other charges.

The second FIR accuses the PTM leadership of attacking state institutions in an attempt to weaken them and create rebellion against them and charged Imaan and Ali Wazir under anti-terrorism act. At the PTM rally, Mazari demanded an end to war in the country, the release of all the people arrested by the army from the KP province, and the court martial of all army officials involved in creating troubles in the country.  Ali Wazir has been arrested on several occasions in the past as well for speaking against the army’s atrocities. He was briefly arrested in June this year after being released on bail in February after spending nearly 26 months behind bars on charges of sedition and criticism of the army. Read more - Lire plus

Imran Khan's party leader Asad Umar discharged in five terror cases

Philippine intelligence agency links gay-rights, youth groups in anti-communist campaign

Benar News 24/08/2023 - The state intelligence agency has accused a gay rights group and some youth organizations in the southern Philippines of being fronts for communist insurgents, the Commission on Human Rights said on Thursday. The commission, an independent quasi-government agency, confirmed that the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) had made the allegation against several groups, including the Mujer LGBTQ+. 

Mujer has been providing relief assistance to war-ravaged and disaster-prone communities in the Muslim-dominated south. It along with several organizations, including Akbayan Youth Zamboanga and the Crimson Youth Network, were labeled as front organizations for the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) during a recent NICA lecture in Zamboanga City, the rights commission said. “The commission considers red-tagging as an arbitrary attack against persons that has the effect of violating their freedom of speech and association,” Judelyn Macapili, the commission’s regional director, said in a statement.

Red-tagging refers to baselessly accusing someone of being a communist sympathizer. 

Macapili said the confirmation stemmed from the lecture by the NICA to officials of a local village, during which the speakers urged citizens to “report all the monitored youth organizations affiliated and personalities with the CTG [communist terrorist group) Front Organizations.” NICA, an agency under the office of the president, did not immediately respond to multiple BenarNews requests for comment on Thursday. In Manila, the press office for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declined comment. Mujer has no political affiliations and carries out medical services as well as paralegal services to victims of gender-based violence, its leaders said. 

The group said it relied on donations and grants for funding and has helped educate communities in the south about LGBTQ+ issues. While the Philippines is a fairly open-minded country when it comes to sexuality, it still is the bastion of Catholicism in Asia and certain quarters remain highly conservative. One of Mujer’s leaders, Rhadem Musawah, said homosexuality in the Muslim south, meanwhile, could have deadly consequences. 

“We have assisted and engaged with over 20 municipalities and cities all over Mindanao. That is why being a part of this list has really put down the morale of the entire group,” Musawah told BenarNews on Thursday. “This is a challenging job, an advocacy that constantly puts our lives at risk,” he said. “But we do it because we believe that we cannot attain peace without tolerance, co-existence and respect.” Musawah said he feared that being red-tagged could set back Mujer’s inroads in the region. Read more - Lire plus

Faith group slam use of anti-terrorism financing law against human rights defenders

International arrest warrant issued for former Tunisian officials on terrorism charges

La prensa latina 12/09/2023 - The Tunisian anti-terrorist justice system issued on Tuesday an international arrest warrant for a dozen former officials and political leaders, including former Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and the president’s former chief of staff, Nadia Akacha, as part of a case opened for “plotting against the security of the State.”

Among the accused are the former director general of National Security, Kamel Guizani; the former director of the Judicial Police, Abdelkader Farhat; the journalist Chahradez Akacha and several leaders of the Islamist party Ennahda, the main political force in Tunisia during the last decade, such as Lotfi Zitoun and Adel Daadaa. Also under investigation is the son of the historic leader of this party and former president of the Parliament, Rached Ghannouchi – sentenced to twelve months in prison for “apology of terrorism” -Mouadh Kheriji.

President Kaïs Saied, who assumed full powers in July 2021, ordered days earlier to reinforce security against pressure groups allegedly seeking to divide citizens and deteriorate the social situation through food speculation and the embezzlement of electoral campaign money. Since the beginning of the year, authorities have arrested some twenty prominent political figures, businessmen, judges, and journalists for the alleged crime of “plotting against state security,” a charge for which they could face the death penalty.

The leader accuses them of being “traitors and terrorists” and has warned that any judge who frees them should be considered their accomplice. At the same time, the Association of Tunisian Magistrates denounces pressure to impose sentences. For its part, the opposition warns of judicial persecution against dissidents in an attempt to divert public attention from the economic and social crisis the country is going through and to prevent its organization in view of the 2024 presidential elections still in the air. Read more - Lire plus

Senior Ennahdha Opposition Official Has Been Placed Under House Arrest in Tunisia

UK: Criminalising dissent: how the police label political protest as a “threat”

NetPol 24/08/2023 - The ongoing Undercover Policing Public Inquiry has provided ample evidence that for more than fifty years, political policing units in Britain gathering intelligence on protest have been monitoring social movements. The police seem to have decided that anyone choosing to take part in a demonstration has also chosen to accept surveillance and a denial of their privacy.

The inquiry focuses on covert activities but mostly, data on campaigners is gathered by overt methods – from social media and other public sources. The National Police Coordination Centre’s Strategic Intelligence and Briefing (SIB) team, which now coordinates much of this surveillance, insists their sole purpose is police preparedness for protests.

However, we now know the SIB is building profiles on so-called “aggravated activists”, although the difficulty is understanding the true extent of this intelligence gathering. We understand how aggravated activism is defined (broadly, as protests involving the breaking of any laws) but not the individuals or groups who are targeted.

The police have refused to say how many fall under this classification and other scraps of information have emerged randomly.

“Curious outlook”

Take, for example, a recruitment advertisement that appeared recently for an “Intelligence Researcher” at the SIB. It seeks candidates who “realise not everything is what it seems” inside protest movements – it almost certainly is what it seems, but never mind – and who are interested in research on protests that “could lead or pose a threat to national security”. As none of the prominent groups currently using direct action or civil disobedience tactics represent anything like that high level of threat, it is hard to know whom precisely this refers to.

The advert also says the SIB is looking for people who know that “facilitating lawful [our emphasis] protest is enshrined in UK legislation” although, in reality, human rights protections apply to ‘peaceful protests’ not just “lawful” ones. It is probable, therefore, that targets include non-violent campaigners engaged in disruption such as blocking roads, blocking immigration raids and setting up protest camps.

The SIB job itself involves research on protest groups and individuals “to develop and maintain intelligence profiles” that include “as much information about the topic… including what protests groups aims and drivers are, what tactics they use, what’s the cause etc”. This sounds like its intended use involves a great deal more than deciding how many officers to deploy at a demonstration.

This is exactly the kind of personal data containing political opinions that the European Court of Human Rights, in the case brought by Bright campaigner John Catt, said deserves a “heightened level of protection”. The court recognised that knowing the police can retain such data, potentially indefinitely, must inevitably have a ‘chilling effect’ on whether people participate in protests.

“Passionate about research”

For decades there have been repeated scandals involving police surveillance on campaigners – not least the labelling of hundreds of people, including MPs and members of the House of Lords, as “domestic extremists” by the SIB’s predecessor, the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit. This activity was driven by an almost paranoid obsession with the supposed “threat” posed by campaigning organisations demanding political and social change. Police surveillance of our movements is unacceptable. Netpol will be monitoring the use of “aggravated activism” and the associated police intelligence operations, and reporting on the emerging picture. If you’re involved in campaigning or attending a demonstration, Netpol’s guide to dealing with police surveillance can be found here. Read more - Lire plus

UK: Papers, please: how one man’s academic research turned him into a terrorism suspect (book review)

UK Police tried to gather information on protesters ahead of arms fair

Australia: Labor’s counter-terror laws may stifle ‘political dissent’, Law Council warns

The Guardian 24/08/2023 - Australia’s peak body for lawyers has joined civil liberty groups, journalists and advocacy groups to sound the alarm on proposed laws to criminalise the accessing of violent extremist material, saying the new powers are unnecessary and may inadvertently interfere with “legitimate matters of political dissent or struggle”. The federal government is seeking to expand counter-terror powers by introducing new offences for possessing or controlling violent extremist material using a carriage service.

The government’s examples of the type of material that would be covered include images and videos depicting terrorist incidents, manifestos and propaganda, instructional material on how to build a bomb, launch attacks, or manufacture harmful chemicals. But the Law Council of Australia has warned the new offences are unnecessary and should be scrapped or changed significantly. It said the commonwealth already has laws covering extremist material that “are sufficient to capture the type of conduct against which the bill seeks to introduce new offences”. The council warned the government of the “need to proceed with caution” in creating offences for simply accessing or possessing material, pointing to changing trends on social media, where “scrolling” through digital platforms made unwitting consumption more common.

The bill’s explanatory memorandum says only individuals who were reckless to the nature of such material will have committed an offence, something it says will protect anyone who “accidentally comes across violent extremist material on the internet without any warning from the context”. The council said that, despite this, the laws should have greater regard to “the intent of the person to access or possess violent extremist material”. “Such offences, without requiring proof that a person viewed or accessed content for nefarious purposes, are highly extraordinary measures, normally reserved for material that has a very low likelihood of being accessed unwittingly, and involves the infliction of significant harm upon vulnerable persons,” the council said in a submission to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security.

The council also warned the broad definition of “violent extremism material” also risked criminalising the access of material related to “legitimate matters of political dissent or struggle”. “The Law Council expresses concern that the broad definition of violent extremist material may inadvertently capture persons who access or view so-called ‘manifestos’ which are directed to legitimate matters of political dissent or struggle,” it said. “This might include, for example, writings which call for the overthrow of oppressive governmental regimes in foreign countries; or the efforts of particular groups or regions in foreign countries to achieve independence as sovereign nations.” Liberty Victoria also said new offences were unnecessary while the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network said the bill went further than similar laws in the UK. Those laws require authorities to show material was accessed to “intentionally or recklessly encourage or assist in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism”. Read more - Lire plus

ICLMG ACTIONS & EVENTS

Canada: Do not purchase armed drones

The ICLMG is a member of the No Armed Drones campaign

In the government's proposal seeking bids for its drone program it laid out disturbing scenarios for Canadian military drone use: One scenario described drones being used to surveil activists protesting a (theoretical) G20 Summit in Quebec, helping the security team intercept and identify the occupants of a vehicle, who are “anti-capitalist radicals” intending to “hang a banner concerning global warming.” Another scenario modeled after US drone strike programs features a drone bombing “Fighting Age Males” in the Middle East after spotting one of them “holding a small radio or cell phone." The initial cost estimate is $5 billion with billions more to operate the drones over their 25-year lifespan.

CSIS isn't above the law!

In recent years, at least three court decisions revealed the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) engaged in potentially illegal activities and lied to the courts. This is utterly unacceptable, especially given that this is not the first time these serious problems have been raised. CSIS cannot be allowed to act as though they are above the law.



Send a message to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino demanding that he take immediate action to put an end to this abuse of power and hold those CSIS officers involved accountable, and for parliament to support Bill C-331, An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (duty of candour). Your message will also be sent to your MP and to Minister of Justice David Lametti.

Canada must protect Hassan Diab!

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

Letter in English + Lettre en français

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

Petition in English + Pétition en français

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

Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now!

On January 20, 2023, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown ruled that Canada must repatriate Canadians illegally and arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria. On February 6, 2023, the Canadian government filed an appeal and asked that the Brown ruling be set aside and placed on hold while the appeal plays out. This is unacceptable. 

Every day the government fails to bring these Canadians home, it places their lives at risk from disease, malnutrition, violence, and ongoing military conflicts, including bombing by Turkey’s military. United Nations officials have even found that the conditions faced by Canadians in prison are akin to torture. Please click below to urge the federal government to repatriate all Canadians illegally & arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria without delay.

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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

Access to information

Accès à l'information

Ottawa rejected independent study of access to information system in favour of internal review, documents reveal

Accountability

Reddition de comptes

Prime Minister announces changes to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency

Freedom of expression

Liberté d'expression

19 civil society organizations call on US administration to press the UAE to release Ahmed Mansoor ahead of COP 28

In an internal update obtained by The Intercept, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta admits its rules stifled legitimate political speech

ACTION: Freedom for Boris Kagarlitsky!

ACTION: Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko

Migrant and refugee rights

Droits des migrant.es et réfugié.es

Biden Administration Sued as Thousands of Afghan Evacuees Are Detained Overseas Waiting for U.S. Entry

Border Patrol Cages for Migrants in Arizona Violate Court Order

Migrant children are drowning at the border. Their deaths are met with indifference. Rescue workers call these bodies “floaters.”

Rights groups slam “nonsensical priorities” of EU Commission €15bn border wall boost following hottest month on record

Police

New York police will use drones to monitor backyard parties this weekend, spurring privacy concerns

Firestorm Coop: Statement on Police Surveillance at Our Grand Opening

Privacy and surveillance

Vie privée et surveillance

UPDATE YOUR iPHONE NOW: NSO Group iPhone Zero-Click, Zero-Day Exploit Captured in the Wild

Exiled Russian journalist hacked using NSO Group spyware

Revealed: Israeli Cyber Firms Have Developed an 'Insane' New Spyware Tool. No Defense Exists

International police data-sharing: what are the UK and EU cooking up?

EU and USA plough ahead with secret discussions on biometric data exchange scheme

IBM promised to back off facial recognition — then it signed a $69.8 million contract to provide it

UK pulls back from clash with Big Tech over private messaging

Stop mass surveillance in India: the government must be held accountable

Cellebrite asks cops to keep its phone hacking tech ‘hush hush’

Miscellaneous

Divers

Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada: The Right to Freedom from Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Liberty: A guidebook on international human rights law protections

Sri Lanka will investigate allegations of intelligence complicity in 2019 Easter bombings

January to June 2023 - Janvier à juin 2023

Here is what we worked on so far this year thanks to the support of our members and donors:

• Bill C-20, Public Complaints and Review Commission Act
• Bill C-26, An Act respecting cyber security and amending the Telecommunications Act
• Bill C-27, Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022
• Bill C-41: International assistance and anti-terrorism laws
• Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria
• Justice for Dr Hassan Diab & reform of the Extradition Act
• Combatting Islamophobia
• Countering terrorist financing & prejudiced audits of Muslim charities
• National Security and Intelligence Review Agency
• CSIS accountability and duty of candour
• CSE, surveillance and cyberwarfare
• Facial Recognition Technology (FRT)
• “Online harms” proposal
• Canada’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR)
• Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism
• UN Counterterrorism Executive Directorate Canada assessment
• UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights global survey on counterterrorism and civic space

For more details on each item and to see all the media articles we were mentioned in or were interviewed for, click here.

What we have planned for the rest of 2023!

• Ensuring that the Canadian government’s proposals on “online harms” do not violate fundamental freedoms, or exacerbate the silencing of racialized and marginalized voices
• Protecting our privacy from government surveillance, including facial recognition, and from attempts to weaken encryption, along with advocating for good privacy law reform
• Addressing the lack of regulation on the use of AI in national security, including proposed exemptions for national security agencies
• Fighting for Justice for Mohamed Harkat, an end to security certificates, and addressing problems in security inadmissibility
• Ensuring Justice for Hassan Diab and reforming Canada’s extradition law
• The return of the rest of the Canadian citizens and the non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children indefinitely detained in Syrian camps
• The end to the CRA’s prejudiced audits of Muslim-led charities
• Greater accountability and transparency for the Canada Border Services Agency
• Greater 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
• Publishing a collection of essays written by amazing partners on the work of the ICLMG for our 20th anniversary
• And much more!

Version française: Ce que nous avons fait jusqu'à présent en 2023

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