RSS FeedSeven Years of Imprisonment and Zero Charges Later, Canada Frees Syrian Terror Suspect
Syrian terror suspect Hassan Almrei was released Friday by Canadian authorities after spending seven years in custody without being formally charged.
Justice Richard Mosley of federal court said in a written statement that the continued detention of Almrei, accused of being a threat to national security, can no longer be justified. “It is difficult to find any cases in the common-law world where a person detained on security grounds has been held for so long,” Mosley J. said.
Almrei was arrested in October 2001 for being connected to an individual suspected by U.S. officials of being linked to the September 11 attacks. That individual was never convicted of terrorism but was convicted of an immigration violation and deported to Syria.
According to the Associated Press,
Almrei was the last remaining terror suspect being held under Canada’s national security certificate law, which allows the government to detain and deport immigrants without charges if they are deemed a threat to national security. The law was enacted shortly after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Almrei’s counsel argued that indefinite detention without charge or trial amounted to cruelty.
The judge said that Almrei should be released but closely monitored by authorities until it can be determined whether the security certificate is reasonable and whether he can be deported to Syria or another country.
Follow-up: Reply Letter from Foreign Affairs Minister regarding Omar Khadr
On July 15, I posted a letter that I had written to Prime Minister Stephen Harper regarding Omar Khadr’s continued detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The letter was signed by myself and 10 other law students.
On September 16, 2008, I received a reply letter from the Prime Minister’s Office indicating that the letter would be passed along to the Minister of Foreign Affairs who would “certainly be interested in [our] views” regarding Omar Khadr.
I looked upon that letter as a Prime Ministerial brush off. I thought it would be the end of the matter.
To the government’s credit, I today received a follow-up letter from The Honorable David Emerson, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The entire text of the letter is reproduced below:
September 24, 2008.
Dear Mr. Gridin and Co-signatories:
The office of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister, has forwarded to me on September 16, 2008, a copy of your letter (Folder: 664583) concerning the case of Mr. Omar Khadr, Canadian citizen detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
I understand your concerns and I can assure you that the Government of Canada has an interest in Mr. Khadr’s case and in his treatment. Canadian observers have been present at his hearings before the Military Commission in Guantanamo Bay and the Court of Military Commission Review in Washington D.C. Furthermore, officials of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada have carried out several visits with Mr. Khadr and will continue to do so. The visits allow access to Mr. Khadr to assess his welfare and treatment, and to obtain information about his mental and physical condition.
Although Mr. Khadr is no longer a juvenile, he was 15 years old when he was alleged to have committed crimes in Afhanistan. Canada has sought to ensure that the treatment of Mr. Khadr is consistent with internationally recognized norms and standards for the treatment of juvenile offenders, and that his age at the time the alleged events occurred is considered in all parts of the process. Canada has also consistently sought to ensure that Mr. Khadr receives the benefits of due process, including access to Canadian counsel of his choice. The Canadian government has received unequivocal assurances from U.S. authorities that Mr. Khadr will not be subject to the death penalty, and indeed the charges against him were referred to the Military Commission on a non-capital basis.
In keeping with Canada’s long-standing policy, the Canadian government strongly believes that the fight against terrorism must be carried out in compliance with international law, including established standards of human rights and due process.
With respect to Mr. Khard’s repatriation to Canada, it is premature to discuss this issue since his case is still before the courts.
Thank you for taking the time to write and share your concerns.
Sincerely,
[sgd]
The Honourable David L. Emerson, P.C., M.P.
While I do appreciate the reply from Mr. Emerson, I do not accept that the government is doing enough.
Omar Khadr has been in detention for 6 years. The “several visits” during this period to check up on his well being are virtually meaningless. He has been the victim of serious psychological and possibly physical abuse at the hands of his captors.
The extreme isolation of growing up inside a military prison is unimaginable. Omar Khadr’s development from a child to an adult has been stifled, and at this point, it is unlikely that he will ever be a normal, adjusted individual.
The assurances of due process are also hollow. Omar Khadr is being tried by a kangaroo court, in proceedings that have been the subject of problems and numerous complaints. Most recently, a military prosecutor at the Guantanamo Bay tribunals resigned over “ethical qualms.”
Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld quit, allegedly after the government withheld exculpatory evidence from the defence.
The U.S. government denies this allegation. But internal documents obtained by the Associated Press indicate that Col Vandeveld declared to the tribunal that that “potentially exculpatory evidence has not been provided.”
He is the fourth prosecutor to quit.
In the Khadr case specifically, there have been claims that the government “manufactured evidence” against the accused.
The culture of secrecy and political implications of this case are reasons why ultimately, the military tribunal is not the appropriate forum to hear Omar Khadr’s case. Mr. Khadr needs to be repatriated to Canada immediately to face trial at home. This should be a trial subject to Canadian legal protocols and consistent with the values that we hold dear, including those enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Law students across the country are organizing to put further pressure on the government on this issue. Stay tuned for more.
Fear of Global Warming Provides “Lawful Excuse”
Six Greenpeace activists were cleared of charges today for intentionally damaging a coal plant in the U.K.
The Independent reports,
The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.
Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a “lawful excuse” to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of “lawful excuse” under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.
Greenpeace UK states,
During the trial, the world’s leading climate scientist came to court and challenged the government’s plans for new coal, calling for Gordon Brown to announce a moratorium on all new coal-fired power plants without carbon capture and storage. Cameron’s environmental policy adviser said there was “a staggering mismatch between what we’ve heard from government and what we’ve seen from government in terms of policy”. An expert on climate change impacts in the UK said some of the property in immediate need of protection from sea level rises included parts of Kent (Kingsnorth being “extremely vulnerable”) and that “it behoves us to act with urgency”. And an Inuit leader told of his first hand experiences of the impacts of climate change.
After hearing all of the evidence, the jurors (representatives of ordinary British people) supported the right to take direct action to protect the climate from the burning of coal.
Implications for “eco-terrorists” in the U.K. and abroad, who still constitute the largest global terrorist threat, could be significant.
Biggest Terrorists are Still the Elves
The FBI reported earlier this year that while America and the world were diverted by other political issues, eco-terrorism continues to be the biggest domestic threat.
Bron Taylor, a professor of religion and nature at the University of Florida describes the Earth Liberation Front (ELF or Elves), who are considered the largest of these groups,
Generally speaking, the Earth Liberation folks are motivated by a deep kind of affective connection to nature that many of them would characterize as spiritual or religious. They believe that the human species is perpetrating a war on nature and that those who are connected to nature and belong to it have a right to defend themselves.
Their success is attributed to their large and diversely spread membership, but their exact numbers or full capabilities continue to be unknown
Bob Holland, a retired arson investigator said,
Every time a fire breaks out and somebody takes a spray ocan and writes ‘ELF’ or ‘ALF’ on there, then everybody gets all excited that ‘Oh this movement has started back up. The movement never really left.
However, fighting environmentalists at home is not nearly as an attractive political agenda in Canada or the U.S.
And there are little oil revenues to be obtained from it either.
Recent Syncrude Case
On July 24, 2008, protesters entered a Syncrude mine in Alberta and put up signs.
Syncrude issued a lawsuit on Aug. 15, 2008 for $120,000 and an injunction to keep Greenpeace members off its property. No property damage or disruption of operations were alleged.
Prof. Moin Yahya of the University of Alberta Faculty of Law said in the Calgary Herald,
It’s a strategic lawsuit.
This is very common in the United States where you have all the anti-abortion protesters who stand outside clinics saying ‘save lives.’ They’ve been sued in the past under a similar type (of suit).
Telling the protesters to stop coming on the property is even more powerful than seeking money.
If the court grants the injunction and the group defies it, they’re no longer at war with Syncrude — now they’re at war with the judge and in contempt of court.
Omar Khadr: A Hero of Canadian Values?
by Hicham Safieddine and Diana Younes
Development of violence among the colonized people will be proportionate to the violence exercised by the threatened colonial regime
Frantz Fannon
A lot of ink has and is being spilled on upholding the legal rights of Omar Khadr in the face of the American extra-legal war on terror. Khadr has to come home to save and serve our Canadian values the argument goes. In essence, this discourse seems to be not about Omar Khadr, but about Canadian values.
It is the country’s conscience that is hurting, not the body of the accused. It is the Canadian government’s authority and international reputation that is being violated, not the humanity of the accused.
It is our sensibilities for due process and fair trial that are under attack, not the sanity and dignity of the accused. For supporters and opponents alike, bringing Khadr back or keeping him at Guantanamo is about one thing: saving our values, not his life.
We talk about what these values are, but we leave out the values of those we constantly claim to empathize with, values ascribed today to the realm of radical or imagined politics but that are in fact enshrined in international law[1], which we uphold in the highest regard: the right of all peoples to fight for self-determination against colonial domination and alien occupation and to carve out their own path to economic, social and cultural development; the moral duty of all nations to eradicate the evil of colonization and alien subjugation.
If we really support those universal values, then we need to possess the moral courage to accept the cost in practical terms- a cost that Canada was more than willing to pay when its own or its allies’ rights were threatened.
A right to self defense means in practical terms a right to carry arms and a right to counter violence with violence. For the same violence inflicted by occupying powers (invited by colonially-instituted puppet regimes or not) will be claimed by the occupied. From the legitimacy of the law of war that endows people to put trust in their armed forces and the necessity at times of armed conflicts, Canadians should understand if not accept the violence inflicted against their or their allied troops at war. Canadian troops do what they are told, we are constantly reminded. “Enemy” troops are no different.
Omar Khadr, 15 years old or 45, was doing what he was told and possibly what he believed to be defending an occupied land. And yet, he is denied Prisoner of War status, something even Nazi foot soldiers were not. He is charged with murder; a crime constantly committed by American and Canadian troops in Afghanistan[2]. Under The Hague Regulations and Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts,
Khadr is entitled to POW status for a reason, he is classified as a soldier or belligerent. But we do not want to think of Khadr as a soldier (let alone a child), and all the universal values attached to that label regardless of the side one is fighting against. The same way we would rather stick to a debate about some values and not others, and ultimately in isolation of the person in question or his alleged actions.
This is how drastic the debate has shifted in Canada away from what this war is all about and into the abstract sanitized space of moral values and legal rights. And that should not come as a surprise; given that the debate is not about Khadr, but rather about our ….values.
[1] United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 1514 adopted in 1960, which all countries are obliged to respect.
[2] Human Rights estimates dozens of children killed by ISAF since the invasion of Afghanistan.
Is this Person a Terrorist?
See what The Stormy Days of March thinks.
The Khadr Conundrum Raised at UofO
“Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen who was captured by U.S. forces in July 2002 when he was 15 years of age after allegedly throwing a grenade that fatally wounded a U.S. soldier. He is currently being detained and prosecuted by the U.S. at Guantánamo Bay.”
On May 28, 2008, six common law students from the University of Ottawa appeared before the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, to testify that there are a number of legal avenues that may be taken if Khadr is returned to Canada and the evidence against him is found to be admissible.
“Canadian courts are fully able to administer justice in the Omar Khadr matter in a manner that complies with international law and the rule of law.” said the group.
Catherine Archibald, Clare Crummey, Andrew Harrington, Miguel Mendes, Ajmal Pashtoonyar, and Sean Richmond based their argument on a 150 page brief prepared for the Foreign Policy Practicum class of Prof. Craig Forcese.
The complete report is available here: 150-page brief.
Click here to see the team’s testimony before the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights.
Torwoli S. Dzuali
Global Terrorist Threat “Overblown”
Don’t believe the hype
Twenty years ago the classic Hip Hop group, Public Enemy, said in their hit song,
Some media is the whack
You believe it’s true, it blows me through the roof
Suckers, liars get me a shovel
Some writers I know are damn devils
For them I say don’t believe the hype
Yo Chuck, they must be on a pipe, right?
Their pens and pads I’ll snatch
‘Cause I’ve had it
I’m not an addict fiendin’ for static
I’ll see their tape recorder and grab it
No, you can’t have it back silly rabbit
I’m going’ to my media assassin
Harry Allen, I gotta ask him
Yo Harry, you’re a writer, are we that type?
Don’t believe the hype
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVk2jmz__XA[/youtube]
It seems we’re facing a similar hype in our generation, but one of a different enemy of the public, the terrorist threat.
At least that’s what John Mueller, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, would argue.
Dispelling Terrorist Myths
It started with a piece in 2006 in Foreign Affairs, entitled, Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?: The Myth of the Omnipresent Enemy, published by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mueller is the author of a 2004 book called The Remnants of War, which claimed since the fall of the Soviet Union warfare is actually obsolete. He argues that problems such as terrorism that the world currently faces are actually forms of civil disorder best dealt with by policing methods.
Mueller attributes in Foreign Affairs a lot of the panic around terrorism to baseless hype,
[I]f it is so easy to pull off an attack and if terrorists are so demonically competent, why have they not done it?…
…One reasonable explanation is that almost no terrorists exist in the United States and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad. But this explanation is rarely offered….
…If al Qaeda operatives are as determined and inventive as assumed, they should be here by now. If they are not yet here, they must not be trying very hard or must be far less dedicated, diabolical, and competent than the common image would suggest.
Mueller confirms what rarely heard experts have always been saying – Al Qaeda represents not a specific terrorist entity engaging in direct operational planning, but rather an ideological basis and “support group” for copycats that it would otherwise spawn.
Loren Colemen, author of The Copycat Effect, said,
…research shows potential terrorists become aroused by media presentations of terrorism, accept the violence as justified, and become tomorrow�s suicide bombers.
Contagion terrorism, unfortunately, makes compelling sense when we understand the simple but deadly psychology of the copycat effect. The global attention and blanket media coverage given the 7/7 London terrorist attacks will actually help create tomorrow�s suicide bombers who will feel fully legitimized in their future murder-suicides.
But even the fear of copycats, here at home or abroad, seems disproportionate to the actual threat.
Counting Down Those Freed
Earlier this month, charges were stayed against more of the accused Toronto 18.
Tony Carson of Carsons Posts said,
And that�s the problem: we get the great fanfare of the arrest and nothing much else � except the slow dribble of release announcements. The Toronto 18, at the time, sounded like they needed medical help more than they needed incarceration but we have been simply left to ponder what they were really thinking � and a year later we still don�t know, only that the Toronto 18 are now the Toronto 15 soon to be what? the Toronto 12 � 7� 3� 0?
Actually, we’re already down to 11.
Thomas Walkom of The Star explains the implications,
Seven of the original 18 have had their charges stayed � which, in simple English, means the government now admits it never had any real evidence against them.
Those remaining in jail are hoping, at the very least, to get out on bail.
One of the lawyers, Anser Farooq, is calling for a public inquiry as to why an innocent person was kept behind bars for 18 months in solitary confinement.
Terrorism Will Just Fade Away, Unless…
Even if we concede that any of the remaining 11 are guilty of some crime, Mueller provides some important context in an article yesterday in the Ottawa Citizen, Terror Without the Terrorists,
All of these rather hapless, even pathetic, people, should of course be considered to be potentially dangerous. From time to time they may be able to coalesce enough to carry out acts of terrorist violence, and policing efforts to stop them before they can do so are fully justified. But the notion that they present an existential threat to just about anybody seems at least as fanciful as some of their schemes, and any notion that these characters could come up with nuclear weapons seems far fetched in the extreme.
Mueller bases his conclusions on Marc Sageman (we’ve quoted him before), author of Leaderless Jihad, and a former intelligence officer with access to classified materials,
The threat presented by these individuals is likely, concludes Sageman, simply to fade away in time. Unless, of course, the United States overreacts and does something to enhance their numbers, prestige, and determination — something that is, needless to say, entirely possible.
This overreaction may have already occurred. But if has not, a drastic shift in policy is needed immediately.
The Best Choice is Proportionality
Proportionality is also required for domestic operations, and community agencies are now calling that the remaining 11 of the Toronto 18 be reevaluated for reasonable bail terms and conditions of solitary confinement.
Mueller is author of his own new book on the subject, Overblown, which argues that the terrorist threat is deliberately exaggerated by politicians and the military industry, who in turn fuel the fear that spreads terrorism.
And this might be why the Sageman solution, which “offers a ray of hope,” may be ignored by politicians to instead economically support the dominant military industry in Canada, a sector that admittedly does add thousands of jobs and millions of dollars to the Canadian economy.
But is that a choice that Canadians, if informed on the subject, are really willing to pay?
