RSS FeedGoblins crave to eat the Charter
The Abdelrazik affair exposed some of Canada’s poorly known but in-your-face draconian laws. James Yap of Osgoode Hall Law School wrote a fantastic post about the federal United Nations Act and the United Nations Al-Qaida and Taliban Regulations on TheCourt.ca. Go read it.
Who pays when government wrongs
Abdelrazik sues Ottawa for $27-million
For every breach of right, there should be a remedy. When government officials taint themselves with torture, it is taxpayers who pay the remedy. But maybe not just taxpayers…
Paul Koring writes:
Abousfian Abdelrazik is suing the government – and Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon personally – for $27-million over Canada’s role in his arrest and alleged torture in Sudan and for violating his constitutional right to come home.
A Duty to Protect
Abousfian Abdelrazik, Omar Khadr and Suaad Hagi Mohamud all have something in common — they have faced, at one time or another, the federal government’s indifference to their intolerable circumstances.
Our national legal community is not keeping silent. The Canadian Bar Association recently called upon the Harper government to accept the August 14th decision of the Federal Court of Appeal that upheld the ruling of Justice James O’Reilly of the Federal Court of Canada. Justice O’Reilly had ordered the government to seek Omar Khadr’s repatriation from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
With an abundance of highly publicized cases of Canadian citizens detained abroad and subsequent government inaction on their plight, is it not time for Parliament to legislate a ‘duty to protect’ — a duty for government to protect the interests of Canadians detained in foreign jurisdictions?
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Abandoning duty in the name of security
By Ihsaan Gardee, The Ottawa Citizen
August 4, 2009
The lingering saga of Abousfian Abdelrazik almost seems too hard to believe — a Canadian citizen in virtual exile for six years in a distant land, shadowy involvement of intelligence services and a violation of the rights of a Canadian citizen under the Charter. Coupled with the recent announcement that the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) will conduct a probe into the role played by CSIS — Canada’s enigmatic intelligence service — in Mr. Abdelrazik’s arrest, imprisonment and alleged torture overseas raises, once again, the thorny issue of balancing civil liberties, human rights and due process with national security.
For many of us, knowing we hold the Canadian passport is more than enough to naively convince ourselves of our inalienable rights as citizens. Yet, for Abdelrazik and those who faced similar ordeals, that reliance was quickly betrayed by the reality that any sense of security conveyed by citizenship is imaginary.
Abdelrazik’s story now joins the ranks of the cautionary tales of Canadian citizens detained abroad and abandoned by their government. Maher Arar was one of them. His ordeal paved the way for a full public inquiry, and Canadians learned about his suffering and the acts and omissions that led to his detention and torture. Not long thereafter surfaced the accounts of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin that put into question the government’s claim that this was a one-off event and not part of a pattern of systemic failures by government officials and security agencies.
For Abdelrazik, it took a Federal Court order to finally compel the Harper government to bring him home. The government’s delays, obfuscations, and cruel games were finally put to an end.
Now, thanks to intrepid journalism, the commitment of social justice organizations such as those involved in Project Fly Home, and the decision of federal justice Russell Zinn, we know some of the frightening details of Abdelrazik’s ordeal.
We know Canadian security officials operated behind the scenes to have a citizen detained in Sudan without the knowledge of government ministers in Ottawa. Moreover, Canadian diplomats in Khartoum were kept in the dark about Abdelrazik’s detention until three months after his arrest. When Sudanese government representatives ominously warned in March 2006 that military intelligence would create a “permanent solution” for Abdelrazik if Canada did not act to bring him home, Ottawa remained shockingly indifferent.
These troubling revelations all point to a stark deficit in accountability and transparency, and a shirking of responsibility by government and security officials to uphold the rights and safety of a Canadian citizen. They also demonstrate the government’s misuse of the “national security” argument as a means to thwart a citizen’s right to return and right to due process.
The lack of definitive action by the Canadian government illustrates the crux of Abdelrazik’s case and those of other Canadians such as Omar Khadr or Huseyin Celil: the fundamental absence of a governmental duty to protect Canadian citizens detained in a foreign country. Unlike in the United States, a formal duty to protect has not been legislated or enshrined in Canada. It urgently needs to be.
Without such a duty, detained citizens are left at the mercy of foreign jurisdictions even when no evidence exists, as in Abdelrazik’s case, to justify their captivity. The government is then able to rationalize its unwillingness to take the necessary action on a citizen’s detention, as Crown lawyers aptly demonstrated in recently filed arguments with the federal appeals court on the Khadr case.
Similarly, in the case of Celil, a three-month window of opportunity to repatriate him when he was originally detained in March 2006 by Uzbek authorities — prior to being deported to a Chinese prison where he remains in solitary confinement — was ignored or missed by the government. To their credit on this particular file, the government has since been more active in raising the issue of Celil’s detention to their Chinese counterparts.
In 2006, Justice Dennis O’Connor’s report from the Maher Arar inquiry called for critical changes to the way our security agencies and government officials conduct themselves in the arena of national security. The demand for greater accountability and oversight was unmistakably clear. Yet, more than two years after the release of these reports, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars, we have only glib general assurances from government that these recommendations have been enacted without any reporting on specific implementations. Meanwhile, over the course of many months, Canadians watched with utter dismay at the treatment meted out to Abdelrazik.
As famed civil liberties advocate Clarence Darrow once said: “True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.” Indeed, Abdelrazik faced an unconscionable injustice at the hands of his own government that should never have been allowed to transpire.
Perhaps we may never be able to fully undo the damage, but Canada can act now to ensure these sordid events are never repeated again.
Ihsaan Gardee is executive director of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN).
Abdelrazik seeks justice
Spy watchdog to probe CSIS conduct in Abdelrazik case
The probe pulls the agency closer to the centre of the Abdelrazik controversy. A federal judge, in ordering Ottawa to bring Mr. Abdelrazik home from Sudan, concluded CSIS was “complicit” in his detention. Mr. Abdelrazik has offered chilling accounts of his treatment by CSIS agents in Canada and during his imprisonment in Sudan.
Abdelrazik reveals details
Canada ‘indifferent’ to Sudan’s threat to kill Abdelrazik, files show
CSIS Doesn’t Protect Canadians
CSIS doesn’t protect Canadians, it helps get them abandoned in foreign countries.
The Toronto Star revealed today that Justice Zinn’s judgment over CSIS complicity in Abousfian Abdelrazik being stranded in Sudan will not be challenged. The agency continues to deny any involvement.
That would just be the start of what should be an entire overhaul for an agency that has consistently and repeatedly engaged in misinformation, racial and religious profiling, and harassment of minority communities in Canada.
Worst of all, it lies to Canada with impunity.
Kenney’s Canada: Who’s in, who’s out and who is getting kicked out
By Krystalline Kraus
Published on rabble.ca (http://www.rabble.ca), reproduced here on author’s request
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney have the political power to decide who they want to let into Canada and who they want to keep out.
Standing up for the Rule of Law
Note: This piece was subsequently published on March 26, 2009 in the StarPhoenix. Available online here
Due process is a long-standing Canadian principle. It is enshrined in our legal tradition as a safeguard against the denial of liberty. It is a part of our liberal democracy that distinctly separates us from the dictatorships scattered around the world today. Yet, certain Canadians are being apparently denied their basic rights as citizens.
Consider the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik. Since 2003, Abdelrazik has languished in limbo in Khartoum, Sudan and currently lives in the lobby of the Canadian embassy. His ill-fated trip to Khartoum in 2003 to visit his ailing mother ended in secret detention under the country’s notorious domestic security agency, which newly de-classified documents show acted on the request of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
He was repeatedly detained for a total of nineteen months. No charges. No trial. No conviction. A Canadian citizen – arbitrarily detained at the behest of Canada, by a disreputable foreign regime whose president was indicted this month by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Abdelrazik says he was tortured by his Sudanese captors, and has the scars to show it.
Sudan’s dismal human rights record speaks for itself. CSIS agents visited and interrogated Abdelrazik during his imprisonment. Documents reveal that Canadian diplomats in Khartoum were told to not provide him with his right to consular support during interrogations by Sudanese and American officials.
Today, Abdelrazik lives in virtual exile – denied the right to come back to Canada and to his family. Sudan says it has no reason to hold him and has cleared him of the suspicions laid out by CSIS. It even offered to fly him back to Canada.
Although the federal government has tried to get Abdelrazik removed from an international no-fly list, it has still raised road-blocks to prevent his return. When he did find ways to return, like arranging a flight out of Sudan, he was refused a passport. Why?
It is alarming to see Sudan more committed to releasing a Canadian than us. When we unlawfully outsource the detention and interrogation of one of our own to an authoritarian state, then we are going down a frightening path of injustice.
Another troubling case is that of Canadian Omar Khadr – a story well known to many of us. Captured as a child soldier in Afghanistan at the age of 15 and held for more than six years at the Guantanamo detention facility without conviction, Omar is the last Western citizen languishing in a place that exists outside the norms of law. His Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney, has said Omar is a broken person.
Although U.S. president Barack Obama has frozen “trial” proceedings at Guantanamo and is slated to shut the facility down, we have yet to intervene and repatriate this young citizen. This stands in stark contrast to other Western nations like the United Kingdom and France, which have already repatriated their nationals.
For ourselves and our country, some important questions need to be asked. What has happened to the value of Canadian citizenship? Are we being parochial and selective in upholding the rights of our citizens?
And, perhaps most importantly, have we learned from the perilous mistakes that were brought to light during the Arar Inquiry? At this point, it does not seem like we have.
Our government must provide answers and address the unjust plight of Abdelrazik. Indeed, his case and that of Khadr demonstrate a harmful and dangerous erosion of fundamental justice and must not be taken lightly.
At the same time, our courts exist for a reason and they constitute the proper forum to mete out justice with transparency and due process. Canadian courts have successfully convicted those charged with terrorism under the Criminal Code. For example, Momin Khawaja of Ottawa was found guilty of such offences in October 2008 and and was recently sentenced to 10.5 years of jail time.
Yet, for over five years, no grounds or evidence have been offered regarding Abdelrazik. And for six years, the Americans have failed to create a just process for Khadr that is consistent with legal norms and international law.
There is no doubt that national security and collective safety are critical in times like these. But the inalienable rights and citizenship of every Canadian must be upheld and respected.
Let us stand by the timeless Canadian edifice that defines our values and separates us from the agents of chaos and the regimes of repression: the rule of law. In our cherished democracy, real security is the preservation of not only human life, but also of human dignity.
Kashif Ahmed of Law is Cool is a Board Member of CAIR-CAN. Note that this piece is provided for interest alone.
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