2019 has been very busy, and we are looking at a busy year 2020!

• We will continue to call for a public inquiry into Dr. Hassan Diab’s case and for the reform of the Extradition Act.
• We will continue to fight to stop Mohamed Harkat’s deportation to torture and for the Public Safety minister to allow him to stay in Canada.
• We will monitor the implementation of the National Security Act, 2017 (formerly Bill C-59), especially around mass surveillance and immunity for CSIS employees, in order to protect our civil liberties.
• We will continue to push for a strong and effective review mechanism for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
• We will continue advocating for the repeal of the Canadian No Fly List, as it violates mobility rights and due process, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada for flights that do not land in or fly over the US, as it violates both our rights and Canada’s sovereignty.

HELP US ACHIEVE THESE GOALS!

Here’s what we’ve been up to from June to December 2019!

Open Letter to the PM: Minority Government Must Act to Promote, Defend Civil Liberties	Justice for Hassan Diab: New Campaign & Press Release on Segal Report
We sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau to remind him of the urgent need for action on several fronts, including: Growing state surveillance; Ongoing complicity in torture; Secret evidence undermining the right to a fair trial and due process; The continued use of the secret and rights-violating No Fly List; The refusal to reform Canada’s flawed Extradition Act; and Countering racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and all other forms of hate. Read + Share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram	We continue to advocate for a public inquiry into Hassan Diab’s case and the reform of the Extradition Act: We launched a new letter-writing campaign to call for a public inquiry & the reform of the Extradition Act. We published a press release denouncing the report of the external review into Hassan Diab’s case, led by Murray Segal: Government Review of Hassan Diab Extradition Offers Few Answers, No Solutions: Civil Liberties Coalition We co-hosted a Memorial for victims of the Extradition Act, including Michele Messina and Hassan Diab.

Justice for Hassan Diab: A Webcomic	Justice for Hassan Diab: An Animated Video Narrated by Hassan
Read it and Take action + Share it on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram	Watch it + Share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

Our Top 10 Election Asks on National Security	2019 Election: National Security Info Card
Civil liberties and national security were nowhere to be seen during the 2019 electoral campaign so we got to work: We put together our Top 10 Asks for the 2019 Election We created an email-writing campaign so voters could push their candidates to commit to protecting civil liberties We published a press release and sent a letter urging party leaders to commit to protecting human rights and civil liberties in the context of national security.	As we did for the 2015 election, we’ve put together a page detailing: How the federal parties have voted on national security legislation in the last 4 years What non-legislative positions and actions federal parties have taken in the past What are the federal parties’ platform promises on national security, and if and how the parties have responded to ICLMG’s top 10 election asks on national security.

Stop the deportation to torture of Moe Harkat!	Contribution to CCIC’s Policy Brief on Charities
We continue our advocacy for Mohamed Harkat’s rights and life: We worked with partners, including the NDP, to pressure former Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale into action. We attended federal court hearings in support of Moe Harkat. We wrote a letter co-signed by NCCM and Amnesty International Canada, and endorsed by numerous groups and individuals, calling on the new Public Safety Minister Bill Blair to stop Moe Harkat’s deportation to torture and abolish security certificates. It will be sent on December 10, marking 17 year of injustice for Moe Harkat and his family.	The Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC) released a policy brief showing that Canadian charities working internationally are governed by a set of provisions that restrict their ability to partner effectively in the delivery of their charitable mandate. Titled “Directed Charities and Controlled Partnerships,” the brief examines two regulatory and legislative elements: “direction and control” provisions and anti-terror legislation. It includes input from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group which collaborated on the section concerning anti-terrorism legislation.

We published several opinion pieces	We published the weekly News Digest
In June, our National Coordinator Tim McSorley wrote Who reviews cyber attacks in Canada? We need answers. In September, he wrote: Border guards without boundaries: Why CBSA needs a watchdog, in the CCPA’s blog Behind the numbers. And in November, Tim wrote: Eight Steps the Liberal Government Must Take to Protect and Promote Civil Liberties and Spy Agency’s Failure to Inform Minister of “High Risk” Ops Raises Troubling Questions.	We continue to publish our weekly News Digest, which all of you receive and is distributed to thousands of people every week. If you know anyone interested in national security and/or human rights, send them an invite to sign up!

Our work on the Hill	… and more!
We continue our work on Parliament Hill: We reached out to some new MPs and staffers, and contacted Justice department officials to talk about the Liberal campaign promise of a Director of Terrorism Prosecutions. We met with a member of the new National Security and Intelligence Review Agency and with a couple members of the new National Security Transparency Advisory Group.	We finalized our chapter on opposition to surveillance in the Big Data Surveillance Project book. We have been working with other groups for the return of Canadians detained in North-East Syria. We presented on civil liberties at the Confederation of Canadian Unions’ 50thanniversary convention Our social media accounts and live-streams reach tens of thousands. We gave several media interviews.

Dec. 10, 2019, OTTAWA – The Liberal government must live up to its word to end all complicity in torture, starting by putting an end to the deportation proceedings against Mohamed Harkat, writes a group of leading human rights and civil society organizations in a new letter to Public Safety Minister Bill Blair.

The letter is co-signed by the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG), Amnesty International Canada and the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM). Nineteen other organizations and individuals from across the country have endorsed the letter.

The letter is being released on International Human Rights Day. The day also marks the 17th anniversary of Mr. Harkat being placed under a security certificate, and the beginning of the ordeal which has continuously undermined his fundamental rights.

The full letter is below, and available as a PDF here. To send your own message asking the government to stop Mohamed Harkat’s deportation, click here.

The groups are calling on Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair to use powers granted to him under section 42.1(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow Mr. Harkat, who Canada recognizes as a refugee, to remain in Canada. They are also asking for an end to the security certificate regime overall.

“Allowing Mr. Harkat to remain in Canada would send a clear message, at the very start of this new parliament, that defending human rights and eliminating mistreatment and torture go hand in hand with protecting the safety of people in Canada,” said Tim McSorley, National Coordinator of the ICLMG.

“It is beyond cruel irony that Mohamed Harkat’s journey through so many years of injustice began on International Human Rights Day. As he marks the 17th anniversary of being subject to an immigration security certificate and facing the prospect of deportation to human rights violations, it is time – far past time – for the government to relent, lift the certificate, and let Mohamed get on with his life in Canada,” said Alex Neve, Secretary-General of Amnesty International Canada.

“It is disgraceful that Mohamed Harkat has been under a security certificate for close to two decades. No one in Canada should be subject to what he has had to go through. When one of us can be detained without the kind of trial any Canadian would receive for 17 years, it affects our entire conception of our rights and freedoms,” said Mustafa Farooq, Executive Director of the NCCM.

Full letter:

December 10, 2019

The Honourable Bill Blair, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Public Safety
269 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Canada
K1A 0P8

Dear Minister Blair,

Today is December 10, International Human Rights Day. Ironically, it also marks the 17th anniversary of Mohamed Harkat being placed under a security certificate, and the beginning of the ordeal which has continuously undermined his fundamental rights.

We believe it is urgent that you act on Mr. Harkat’s case. Having been recognized as a refugee in Canada, Mr. Harkat has lived here for 24 years without ever being charged or convicted of a crime. Yet, because of the security certificate based on secretive information of questionable origin, Mr. Harkat continues to face deportation to Algeria where he will be at risk of prolonged solitary confinement, forms of treatment that constitute torture or other ill treatment, and unfair trial based on the fact that he has been publicly identified and described by Canadian officials as a terrorism suspect and security threat.

Our organizations have long decried the use of security certificates, which undermine the rights of the targeted individual by allowing information not normally considered “evidence” to be used against them, and preventing them or their counsel from accessing the whole case brought against them – essentially eliminating any hope of mounting an adequate and full defense.

We believe that security certificates should ultimately be eradicated from Canada’s legal system, and that instead the government should focus on prosecutions under the Criminal Code, which would serve to protect the rights of the accused as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international covenants, and in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. Despite this, security certificates were in fact significantly worsened through changes brought about with the adoption of the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015. Disappointingly, your government declined to address these issues in the recently passed National Security Act, 2017.

More immediately, we are writing because, as the new Minister of Public Safety, Mr. Harkat’s fate is in your hands. Under section 42.1(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Minister of Public Safety is granted the power to allow Mr. Harkat to stay in Canada where it is not contrary to the national interest. The courts have consistently relaxed Mr. Harkat’s bail conditions over the years, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service did not deem it necessary to file a risk assessment at Mr. Harkat’s bail hearing in the fall of 2017. As his work colleagues and supporters have attested, and as court assessments and psychiatrists have demonstrated, Mr. Harkat is committed to leading a peaceful life and letting him stay would not be contrary to Canada’s interests. Moreover, deporting a man to a risk of imprisonment and torture is clearly against Canada’s national interest, as well as its international obligations.

We have closely followed the case of Mohamed Harkat since it came to the public eye in 2002. Under the very problematic security certificate regime, Mr. Harkat was imprisoned in maximum security for 43 months, spent years under house arrest, and faced some of the strictest bail conditions in Canadian history.¹ The original “evidence” against Mr. Harkat was destroyed and the allegations against him are based on the testimony of an informant who failed a lie detector test and was never cross-examined in court. Mr. Harkat has never been charged with, let alone convicted, of a crime.

Life under a security certificate has also had a profoundly negative impact on Mr. Harkat’s well-being. His arrest and time in solitary confinement, the severe conditions of his release and the threat of deportation to torture have resulted in chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and insomnia. Sophie Lamarche-Harkat, Mr. Harkat’s wife, has also spoken of the stress upon her, their household and their family of living with constant Canada Border Services Agency surveillance and the threat of losing a loved one. Throughout all this, Mr. Harkat has gained a community that cares about him deeply. For them, he is simply “Moe,” a loving and soft-spoken man who is always ready to help those around him. They have been living in constant fear since deportation proceedings began four years ago.

Beyond the current impacts of living under a security certificate on Mr. Harkat’s well-being, he faces a credible threat of imprisonment, abuse and torture if, as your government is seeking, he is deported to Algeria.

Amnesty International has noted that the Algerian Code of Criminal Procedure allows those charged under anti-terrorism laws to be detained for up to 12 days without access to legal counsel or charge, and does not prohibit the use of confessions obtained under torture. Amnesty International has also reported on a case as recent as 2018, wherein a journalist was reportedly beaten and waterboarded, held in solitary confinement for over one month.

It is also important to note that courts in other countries, such as the UK in 2016² and Ireland in 2017,³ have recognized these concerns and barred their governments from deporting individuals to Algeria as the individuals concerned faced a substantial risk of torture.

On October 26, 2017, Prime Minister Trudeau clearly stated: “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 responsibility taken.”

Consequently, we urge you, Minister Blair, to use this unique position and the discretion afforded under the law to exempt Mr. Harkat from deportation, end this 17-year ordeal and allow him to stay with his wife and community in Canada. Doing so would send a clear message, at the very start of your mandate, that defending human rights and eliminating mistreatment and torture go hand in hand with protecting the safety of people in Canada. It would also ensure that Canada upholds its commitments as a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture. We do not want this government, or its successors, to have to once again apologize and pay compensation because your government refused to take the right action today.

We would appreciate a timely response to our letter, and if you would like more information or have any questions, we would be happy to meet with you to discuss it further.

Sincerely,

Tim McSorley
National Coordinator
International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Alex Neve
Secretary-General
Amnesty International Canada

Mustafa Farooq
Executive Director
National Council of Canadian Muslims

Endorsed by:

• Canadian Arab Federation
• Canadian Association of University Teachers
• Sofia Descalzi, National Chairperson
  Canadian Federation of Students
• Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice
• Canadian Union of Postal Workers
• Council of Canadians
• Fred Hahn, President
  CUPE Ontario
• Corey Balsam, National Coordinator
  Independent Jewish Voices – Canada
• Inter Pares
• Gail Davidson, Executive Director
  Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada
• Monia Mazigh
• National Union of Public and General Employees
• NoWar-Paix
• Ottawa Raging Grannies
• Peggy Mason, President
  Rideau Institute on International Affairs
• Sharry Aiken, Associate Professor
  Faculty of Law Queen’s University
• Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action socialiste
• Matthew Behrens, Coordinator
  Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture
• Vancouver and District Labour Council

TAKE ACTION:
TELL THE GOVERNMENT TO STOP MOHAMED HARKAT’S DEPORTATION TO TORTURE!

¹Duffy, A. (2007, Apr 21). Harkat’s bid for more freedom denied; judge rejects terror suspect’s request for less supervision, more outings: Final edition]. The Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved from http://biblioottawalibrary.ca.ezproxy.biblioottawalibrary.ca/ezproxylogin?url=/docview/241055941?accountid=46526
²Parsons, V. (2016, Apr 18). Bid to Deport Six Terror Suspects Blocked After UK Judges Cite Torture Fears in Algeria. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Retrieved from: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-04-18/bid-to-deport-six-terror-suspects-blocked-after-uk-judges-cite-torture-fears-in-algeria
³O’Faolain, A. (2018, Aug 1). High Court quashes refusal by Minister of Justice to revoke deportation of Algerian. The Irish Times. Retrieved from: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/high-court-quashes-refusal-by-minister-of-justice-to-revoke-deportation-of-algerian-1.3583222

– Anne & Tim