McLellan Slams the Door on Five Families Seven Months After Prime Minister's Office Refused A Similar Request to Meet
Toronto Families Will Demonstrate Saturday, April 3 at Metro West Detention
Centre to Demand Bail, not Jail
PRESS RELEASE
1 April, Ottawa - Anne McLellan, Minister of Public Safety, refused today to
meet families of five Muslim men who are detained without charge, on the
basis of secret evidence, in Canadian prisons. The families had come from
Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto in the hope of meeting with her. Instead they
were told that no one from the Minister's office would be available to meet
with them.
About fifty people gathered in front of Parliament to support the families
and demand that the rights of the five men be respected. They were
accompanied, among others, by Kim Koyama of Project Threadbare, a group
working in solidarity with 21 Pakistani men who were arrested last year
in Toronto on grounds of national security. The allegations were later
revealed to be baseless, and many have bee deported despite fears for their
safety. Koyama's own parents were interned in Canada during the Second
World War because they were Japanese.
Also present at the rally was Monia Mazigh, the wife of Maher Arar, who was
deported to Syria where he was imprisoned and tortured. Deborah Bourque,
President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Roch Tassé, Coordinator
of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, representatives of
the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the National Council on
Canada-Arab Relations, as well as Murray Thomson, who has received the
Order of Canada for his work for peace and justice. All were united to
demonstrate their opposition to secret trials in Canada.
The families of the detained men - Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud Jaballah,
Hassan Almrei, Mohamed Harkat, and Adil Charkaoui - who have been
preventively imprisoned for a collective 134 months, were deeply
disappointed that the Minister refused to meet with them. They wondered
whether the questions they wanted to ask the Minister were deemed to pose a
risk to national security. Added to the injustice of the secret trials,
which is a matter of life and death for the detainees, is the silence of the
Minister who is supposed to represent the people. "National security" is
being used to silence people, even on questions of fundamental liberties and
freedoms - the very values which are supposed to differentiate our
democracies from dictatorial regimes.
Under a security certificate, a measure of the Immigration and Refugee
Protection Act, an individual can be arrested and detained indefinitely
without charge, and subject to a process where secret evidence, to which
neither the accused nor his lawyer have access, is used. The decision of the
Federal Court is without appeal and based not on facts, but whether there
are reasonable grounds to assume such facts. The detained face deportation
to countries where they risk being tortured and even executed.
It is worth noting that it is CSIS which supplies the secret evidence and
decides who to target as a threat to national security. Under a security
certificate process, this evidence is not challenged in open court. CSIS has
a track record of exaggerating threats and presenting facts from an angle
which will carry their case (see Security Intelligence Review Committee
reports, www.sirc-csars.gc.ca <http://www.sirc-csars.gc.ca>). In an era of
anti-terrorist paranoia and Islamophobia, its cooperation with American
security agencies and countries like Syria who use torture (in the case of
Maher Arar), is highly questionable. The secret trials are a way in which
Canada can prove to the government of the United States that it is doing its
part in the "war on terrorism."
For more information: 514 290 5589 or 613 276-9102 or 416 795 8206
www.adilinfo.org, www.geocities.com/mohamedharkat/, www.homesnotbombs.ca
The Coalition for Justice for Adil Charkaoui formed in Montreal in a matter
of days after his abrupt arrest. The Coalition - an alliance of Muslim
groups, refugee and immigrant rights organizations, anti-oppression groups
and the Charkaoui family - demands the immediate release of all Security
Certificate detainees, no deportations, a fair trial, an immediate end to
the "Security Certificate" system, an end to scape-goating in response to
American pressure, and an end to the harassment of Muslims and Arabs
Coalition Justice pour Adil Charkaoui
tel. 514 859 9023, justiceforadil@riseup.net, www.adilinfo.org