VIDEO: Stop the deportation to torture of Mohamed Harkat, Ottawa vigil, June 2018
posted on July 04, 2018 | in Category Mohamed Harkat | PermaLinkURL: [link] Date: June 28, 2018 In this video of the event held in Ottawa on June 25, 2018 you will hear from the following speakers on why Canada must stop Moe's deportation now! - Matthew Behrens, Coordinator of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture and Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada - Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada - Joel Harden, MPP for Ottawa Centre - Jo & Ria from the Ottawa Raging Grannies, the Justice for Harkat Support Committee - Tim McSorley, National Coordinator for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG - CSILC) - Sophie Lamarche Harkat, Moe's wife and activist Here is the video of the whole rally on Youtube [link]
Thank you so much Anne for shooting and live streaming this event!
Migration policies can amount to ill-treatment and torture, UN rights expert warns
posted on March 05, 2018 | in Category International | PermaLinkJudge loosens some of terror suspect Mohamed Harkat’s release conditions
posted on February 08, 2018 | in Category Mohamed Harkat | PermaLinkLes conditions de libération de Mohamed Harkat sont assouplies, mais pas suffisamment à son goût
posted on February 08, 2018 | in Category Mohamed Harkat | PermaLinkUn texte d'Angie Bonenfant Mohamed Harkat, 49 ans, fait l'objet d'un certificat de sécurité depuis 2002. Il est soupçonné d'être un agent dormant du réseau terroriste Al-Quaïda. Il est soumis à une surveillance étroite de l'Agence des services frontaliers du Canada (ASFC). Il doit, entre autres, se rapporter aux agents du ministère toutes les deux semaines. M. Harkat demandait à la cour de lui accorder une liberté de déplacement totale au Canada sans devoir avertir l'AFSC. Il souhaitait également se rapporter aux agents seulement une fois par mois, par téléphone. Dans un jugement de 55 pages, obtenu par Radio-Canada, la cour fédérale a rejeté la demande de Mohamed Harkat de se déplacer partout au Canada sans restriction. Cependant, elle lui a permis de voyager n'importe où au Québec et en Ontario pour une période de 72 heures sans devoir avertir les autorités. La cour lui accorde également la permission de se rapporter une fois par mois à l'AFSC, mais il devra le faire en personne. En plus d'une liberté complète de déplacement au Canada, M. Harkat qui réside dans la région de l'Outaouais demandait un accès plus large à l'internet. Présentement, M. Harkat a la permission d'utiliser à la maison un ordinateur ayant accès à internet, mais il aurait également voulu utiliser un ordinateur portable ou une tablette à l'extérieur de sa résidence. Sa demande a été rejetée. Toutefois, la cour serait encline à lui permettre l'utilisation d'une tablette ou d'un ordinateur portable en dehors de sa maison pour des motifs d'employabilité. Une déception
L'épouse de Mohamed Harkat, Sophie, s'est dite très déçue du jugement. « Au fil des années, mon mari a eu un comportement exemplaire. Le gouvernent n'a présenté aucune preuve prouvant la nécessité des conditions qui sont encore en place », a-t-elle déploré. « C'est une déception, mais nous n'avons pas le choix de vivre avec ça jusqu'à notre prochaine évaluation. » Même si la juge a assoupli certaines conditions de libération, son mari aura toujours de la difficulté à se trouver un bon emploi, plaide-t-elle. Elle aurait aimé, au moins, qu'il puisse utiliser un portable à l'extérieur de la maison. « C'est possible pour lui de se trouver un emploi même s'il n'a pas accès à un téléphone cellulaire et à l'internet, mais ça le limite énormément et ça le limite au niveau du salaire aussi », soutient-elle. M. Harkat a été arrêté en 2002 à Ottawa. Depuis, le gouvernement canadien cherche à le renvoyer dans son pays d'origine, l'Algérie. Les autorités croient qu'il représente une menace à la sécurité nationale. M. Harkat nie être un agent terroriste et prétend qu'il sera torturé s'il est déporté en Algérie. Mohamed Harkat, quelques dates clés
2002- Mohammed Harkat est arrêté le 10 décembre, à Ottawa, en vertu d'un certificat de sécurité. Les autorités canadiennes le soupçonnent d'être un agent dormant du réseau terroriste al-Qaïda.
2006- Mohammed Harkat, qui est en détention depuis son arrestation, est remis en liberté sous des conditions très strictes. Il doit porter un bracelet qui surveille tous ses déplacements 24 heures sur 24.
2010- En Cour fédérale, Mohammed Harkat remet en question la validité du certificat dont il fait l'objet. Toutefois, le 9 décembre, la cour juge que le gouvernement a de bonnes raisons de croire qu'il est une menace pour la sécurité nationale et confirme la validité du certificat.
2013- Après l'avoir porté pendant sept ans, Mohammed Harkat se fait retirer son bracelet GPS. Le 7 juillet, la Cour fédérale considère que le danger initial associé au résident d'Ottawa est assez faible pour lui accorder cette faveur. Le certificat de sécurité est maintenu.
2017- Mohammed Harkat souhaite qu'on assouplisse ses conditions de détention. Il aimerait, en autres, avoir une liberté de mouvement totale au Canada et un accès plus large à l'internet. La Cour fédérale refuse sa demande.
Tous droits réservés © Société Radio-Canada 2018.
CSIS and the RCMP accused of neglecting far-right threat
posted on February 08, 2018 | in Category CSIS | PermaLink
At around 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 29, at the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec on the outskirts of Quebec City, the mosque’s parking lot was filling up for evening prayers. The centre is housed in a modern glass and steel office building, located on the corner of a busy thoroughfare.
At 7:50, a commotion was heard outside one of the entrances to the prayer room. There, two distant cousins, Mamadou Tanou Barry and Ibrahima Barry, were the first to be shot by a gunman, who then walked inside the room and continued his killing spree. It was all over in a few minutes - with six men dead and 19 wounded.
The suspect arrested was 27-year-old Université Laval student Alexandre Bissonnette, who is alleged to have been influenced by far-right and perhaps alt-right ideas.
In the minds of some, this deadly attack raised a question: while CSIS and the RCMP have spent years and vast sums spying on (and often harassing) Muslims, environmentalists, Indigenous and social justice activists, have they been overlooking a far more dangerous threat from the extreme right? After all, prior to the attack, Bissonnette was not even on the police’s radar.
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CSIS and RCMP accused of entrapping terrorism suspects
posted on February 08, 2018 | in Category CSIS | PermaLink
On July 2, 2013, the RCMP held a press conference in Surrey, B.C. Standing against a bright-blue backdrop, grim-looking senior RCMP officers, dressed in full regalia, displayed photos of pressure cookers said to have contained explosives. They then solemnly announced the arrest of two people, which had occurred the previous day, for “terrorism-related activities.”
John Nuttall, 38, and his common-law wife, Amanda Korody, 29, had placed what they thought were three bombs on the grounds of the B.C. legislature in Victoria, designed to kill dozens of people. The case, which the RCMP called “Project Souvenir,” made for sensational headlines and the couple was soon labelled the “Canada Day bombers.”
In 2015, Nuttall and Korody, who live in Surrey, B.C., were convicted by a jury and facing stiff sentences. But immediately after the verdict, the couple's lawyers applied for a stay of proceedings over how the RCMP had conducted their sting operation. Before the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and over weeks of hearings that stretched from the summer of 2015 until the summer of last year, the Mounties' methods of investigating Nuttall and Korody were placed under a microscope in the main courthouse in Vancouver.
Finally, when the court made its ruling a year ago, it was a stunner: the judge accused the RCMP of entrapment – of basically fabricating most of the terrorist plot.
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Torture and interrogation the CSIS and RCMP way
posted on February 08, 2018 | in Category CSIS | PermaLink
On May 24, 2016, Abderrahmane Ghanem and his parents flew to Algiers, the capital of Algeria, from the Arabian Peninsula country of Oman. After landing and clearing customs, they were met at the airport’s exit by three men in civilian clothes who asked to speak to Ghanem. Privately and briefly. The former Calgary resident, a handsome 29-year-old Canadian with close-cropped dark hair, was led away. He did not return.
Ghanem was now in the hands of the DSS, Algeria’s state security agency – notorious for its use of torture and secret detention. He was about to spend more than a year in an Algerian prison, where he says he was tortured.
Why and how did Ghanem end up incarcerated in Algeria?
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Is bigotry blinding CSIS and the RCMP - to disastrous effect?
posted on February 08, 2018 | in Category CSIS | PermaLink
“Rumours were spread, suggesting Emran (a CSIS analyst, who is Muslim) was a mole in the organization and not to be trusted. The comments, insults and innuendo were intentionally hurtful and designed to isolate and undermine Emran among his colleagues. This was not mere misguided office banter, but rather hatred based upon religious, ethnic, national and racial identity.” – from the lawsuit of five CSIS staffers against their employer, filed on July 13, 2017.
As John Phillips bustles into the beige-coloured boardroom clutching a thick wad of papers under his arm, he apologizes for the half-assembled state of his law firm’s new offices. Phillips is a burly 56-year-old litigator who – with his bushy, snow-white beard, suspenders and steel-rimmed eyeglasses – bears a certain resemblance to Saint Nicolas. He also wears the pleased-as-punch expression of someone who’s been taking victory laps of late.
As he plunks the documents down on the boardroom table, Phillips has good reason to be in high spirits: he’s one of Omar Khadr’s lawyers who negotiated the reported $10.5-million settlement over CSIS and the federal government’s Charter of Rights-abusing actions towards the youth, who spent 10 years in Guantánamo Bay where he was frequently and brutally tortured. This past winter, Phillips also won a $141,000-judgment against the government and two senior RCMP officers over the harassment of Mountie Peter Merrifield (the Department of Justice even agreed to fork over more than $800,000 to cover Merrifield’s legal bills).
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VIDEO: 15th Anniversary Press Conference
posted on January 16, 2018 | in Category Mohamed Harkat | PermaLink
ICLMG's National Coordinator, Tim McSorley, Amnesty International Canada's Program Manager, Hilary Homes, National Council of Canadian Muslims' Executive Director, Ihsaan Gardee, author and human rights activist (and wife of torture survivor Maher Arar) Monia Mazigh, and Coordinator of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture and Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada and writer, Matthew Behrens, spoke at the press conference on Parliament Hill, Ottawa.
PHOTOS: 15th Anniversary Rally and Press conference
posted on December 11, 2017 | in Category Mohamed Harkat | PermaLink
Matthew Behrens shares a quote from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Mohamed Harkat and wife Sophie Harkat look on. Ottawa. December 8, 2017.
See more photos of the event.
All photos by Anne Dagenais Guertin and used with permission. I hope people remember to demand of governments - this one and all future governments - that nobody ever has their fundamental rights violated either through inaction or deliberate action by Canadian governments. Nobody ever deserves to be tortured. And when a Canadian government is either complicit in that or was not active enough in preventing it there needs to be a responsibility taken. --Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, October 26, 2017