by Robert Fisk Source: The Independent (UK) URL: [link] Date: April 5, 2008 Westerners assume that anyone with a Canadian passport is safe

I was given the chance to talk to 600 Muslim Canadians a few days ago. The dinner was in an Ottawa banqueting room and the guests also included the imam of the Ottawa mosque, the Ottawa chief of police and sundry uniformed Canadian army officers. The imam sat between me and the Canadian capital's top cop – a genuinely decent guy who wanted Muslim Canadians to regard him as a friend – and we were even able to joke about the reality of those "random checks" which Muslims of Middle Eastern origin and a certain R Fisk seem to receive at North American airports. All well and good, then, until I got up to speak. I warned the audience they might not like all they heard from me. And sure enough, when I told the audience that they were perfectly at liberty to condemn Israel and America – indeed, that they should condemn both when they abuse human rights, occupy other people's countries and shoot innocent civilians – but that I wanted to know why I so rarely heard them condemn the vicious police states in the Middle East and other areas of south-west Asia from which they originally came, I was greeted with silence. A smattering of Muslim diplomats sat like statues, thus identifying the cruelty of their regimes. The only immediate applause came when I remarked that the moment Western soldiers started shooting at Muslims in Muslim lands, it was time for the soldiers to withdraw.

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par Alexandre Popovic Source: CMAQ URL: [link] Date: 1 septembre 2007 Le SCRS et l'art de la manipulation médiatique (1er d'une série de 5) Comment des informateurs du SCRS se sont fait passés pour des leaders de la communauté musulmane canadienne

Les cas de Youssef Mouammar et de Mubin Shaikh Par Alexandre Popovic MONTRÉAL, 1er septembre 2007. Ici comme ailleurs, la paranoïa collective du grand public est garante de l'épanouissement des services secrets. Plus la population devient craintive et peureuse, plus elle ressentira le besoin d'être protégée contre les diverses menaces, réelles ou fictives, qui planent sur sa sécurité. Et parmi ces organismes publics qui sont mandatés pour jouer ce rôle de protecteur, l'on retrouve les obscurs et énigmatiques, mais ô combien influents et puissants services secrets, dont la raison d'être consiste justement à identifier ces menaces qui pèsent contre la sécurité nationale. Plus la peur se répand parmi le grand public, moins les autorités gouvernementales se montrent hésitantes à donner carte blanche aux services secrets. Après tout, rien de mieux qu'une populace effrayée pour que les services secrets deviennent les enfants gâtés de l'État, de véritables chouchoux à qui l'on ne peut rien refuser. Les services secrets ont donc tout intérêt à veiller à ce que le climat de peur ne cesse jamais d'être alimenté.

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Source: The Canadian Press URL: [link] Date: April 9, 2008

OTTAWA — The federal government says it can't help a lawyer for Canadian terror suspect Mohamed Harkat get access to an al-Qaida operative held by the Americans. Paul Copeland has been trying for months to make contact with Abu Zubaydah, a key lieutenant of Osama bin Laden imprisoned at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba. Copeland wants information to help clear Harkat's name. So far, he has been rebuffed by U.S. authorities and has appealed to the Canadian Justice Department for help. But federal lawyer David Tyndale, in a letter dated April 7, indicated that Ottawa isn't prepared to help referee the dispute. "As I am sure you appreciate, the conditions under which counsel may communicate with Mr. Zubaydah at Guantanamo Bay is a matter to be determined by American authorities," Tyndale wrote. He also rejected a claim by Copeland that Canada, by refusing to get involved, is denying Harkat the fundamental justice guaranteed to him under the Charter of Rights.

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Source: The Canadian Press
URL: N/A
Date: April 3 2008


OTTAWA -- The Supreme Court of Canada has turned down an effort by accused terrorist Momin Khawaja to challenge federal secrecy law.

In a ruling released without comment, the court refused to hear Khawaja's claim that the legislation violates his right to fundamental justice and a fair trial.

At issue is a portion of the Canada Evidence Act, under which the government can refuse to disclose sensitive intelligence to an accused person on national security grounds.

The law provides for review of the disputed material by a judge, but only at a close-door hearing the defendant can't attend.

Khawaja was the first person charged under the federal Anti-Terrorist Act passed in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. He has spent four years in jail but has yet to face trial because of preliminary wrangling over various points of law.

The Crown says he was part of an al-Qaida-inspired cell that plotted bombings in Britain in 2004. Six other men were convicted last year in London, but the charges against Khawaja were laid in Canada rather than the U.K.

By "TASC" - [email]
Source: Secrettrials-org Email List
URL: N/A
Date: April 2, 2008

As if special advocates needing special advocates in secret hearings were not enough, next week the Senate is convening a secret hearing to discuss secret hearings as well. Deeper and deeper into the ditch we go..... -TASC (Matthew Behrens)

- - - - - - - - -

French text follows / Le texte français suit)

Sent: Wednesday, April 2, 2008 2:38 p.m.
Subject: ANTI-TERRORISM (SPECIAL) - Notice of Meeting for Monday,
April 7, 2008 / ANTITERRORISME (SPÉCIAL) - Avis de convocation pour
le lundi 7 avril 2008

ANTI-TERRORISM (SPECIAL)

NOTICE OF MEETING
Monday, April 7, 2008 1:30 p.m.
Room 160-S, Centre Block
IN CAMERA

AGENDA Study on the provisions governing the security certificate process set out in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, S.C. 2001, c. 27, as recently modified by An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (certificate and special advocate) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, S.C. 2008, c. 3, as well as conduct a review of the operation of that process in the context of Canada's anti-terrorism framework.

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by Cristin Schmitz
Source: The Lawyers Weekly
URL: [link]
Date: March 28, 2008


A longtime military lawyer, and a civil litigator whose major client is the federal Department of Public Works, are among the latest lawyers with links to the government of Canada who have been appointed as independent special advocates for those held under security certificates.

Lieutenant-Colonel Denis Couture of Ashton, Ont., who retired in 2003 after 27 years in the Office of the Judge Advocate General and who continues to work as a lawyer in the Canadian Forces (CF) reserves, and Sylvain Lussier, a Montreal civil litigator who was lead counsel for the federal government at the Gomery Commission of Inquiry into the sponsorship scandal from 2004 to 2006, were among the six new special advocates named by Justice Minister Rob Nicholson March 4.

They join a roster of 13 other security-cleared special advocates appointed Feb. 22 to protect the interests of persons named in security certificates during closed-door judicial reviews of the certificates based on secret government evidence.

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Source: The Canadian Press
URL: [link]
Date: March 27, 2008


MONTREAL — A French legal expert is warning Canada it will break international law if evidence obtained through torture is used to deport a suspected Basque terrorist.

Didier Rouget, a lawyer who has represented several torture victims, suggested Thursday that Canada is walking a dangerous line if it returns Ivan Apaolaza Sancho to Spain.

Sancho was arrested on a Quebec City ferry last summer and is wanted by Spain for a series of car bombings tied to the violent Basque separatist group ETA.

Sancho's legal team says his arrest warrant in Spain contains declarations from a woman who alleges she was tortured into making the statements.

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by Press Rlease Source: Canadian Arab Federation Website URL: [link] (link to PDF file) Date: March 27, 2008 NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 27, 2008 Common Security Agenda threatens Canada’s Human Rights

Toronto – the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) decries the Conservative government’s negotiation and signing of a public safety treaty with Israel , a country which is continually cited by human rights agencies to be a repeat violator of international law and one which does not even share a common border with Canada . This discomforting development serves to further undermine the civil liberties of all Canadians. “Sharing security information with a country that is accused of practicing apartheid in the occupied territories and torture against prisoners sends a dangerous signal to Canadians, particularly human rights and peace activists and those of Arab descent, that their legitimate concerns about Canada’s relationship with Israel will be disregarded and ignored”, said Khaled Mouammar, CAF National President.

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Source: The Canadian Press
URL: N/A
Date: March 24, 2008


Canadian immigration officials partially relied on evidence gathered under torture in their attempt to deport a suspected Basque terrorist, the suspect claims.

Ivan Apaolaza Sancho said Ottawa's case against him includes information gleaned from an interrogation where Spanish police allegedly roughed up a female suspect in 2001. Sancho claims Ottawa has not been up front about this fact.

"She made some declarations to the police … after this woman said she was tortured," Sancho told the Canadian Press in a telephone interview from a Montreal detention centre. "But the Canadian government didn't show it like that."

Sancho was arrested by the RCMP in June 2007 on an immigration warrant. The Canadian government is seeking to deport him to Spain, where he is thought to be linked to the violent Basque separatist group ETA.

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By Colin Perkel (CP)
Source: The Toronto Sun
URL: [link]
Date: March 23, 2008


TORONTO - Lawyers tasked under Canada's newly rewritten national security law with testing top secret evidence against alleged terrorists say they fear a lack of resources, including things as simple as an office with a secretary to type letters, could damage their ability to do the job.

As a result, several of the 19 special advocates are pressing the government to provide the help they say will be critical to their ability to function.

"Something like an office of the special advocate is going to be essential," said Gordon Cameron, a special advocate who was outside counsel to the committee that oversees the country's spy service.

"There's nothing in place right now. The special advocates wish things were further advanced."

Under the legislation passed last month, the elite group of lawyers will gain access to top secret information Canada's spy agency, CSIS, has against a suspected terrorist so they can challenge its validity in front of a judge in closed hearings.

Five men with alleged terrorism links have spent years in Canadian legal limbo based on such unseen evidence.


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