Hassan Diab (centre left) is joined outside parliament by (left to right) lawyer Don Bayne; Rania Tfaily, professor and spouse of Hassan Diab; Alex Neve, then Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada; Hassan Diab Support Committee member Roger Clark; and ICLMG national coordinator Tim McSorley. Credit: Alex Neve.

By Roger Clark

We tend to see the ‘War on Terror’ largely as a 21st-century phenomenon, inextricably linked to 9/11 and the consequent war in Afghanistan. However, I want to reflect on this in light of a deadly bombing outside a synagogue that took place in Paris some 20 years earlier. Following this attack, Hassan Diab became a convenient target and a timely personification of the terrorist threat, particularly as defined by the West. This resulted in the outrageous miscarriage of justice of which Hassan Diab remains the victim today. France decided to initiate a trial driven by political convenience in April 2023, and shockingly – despite evidence to the contrary – convicted Hassan Diab in absentia that month.

On August 4, 1978, the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism entered into force. Essentially, in so doing, the member countries of the Council of Europe strived to reinforce cooperation both internally – through national prevention policies – and internationally – by modifying existing extradition and mutual assistance arrangements. Specifically, member countries declared themselves:

Aware of the growing concern caused by the increase in acts of terrorism; wishing to take effective measures to ensure that the perpetrators of such acts do not escape prosecution and punishment; convinced that extradition is a particularly effective measure for achieving this result (emphasis added).

Unsurprisingly, Canada was already actively bringing its old and outdated extradition legislation into line with that of its European allies. The resulting Extradition Act came into force in June 1999. Its flaws and failings are now obvious to all, largely as a result of the experience of those who have been caught up in its ‘rubber-stamping’ mechanisms.

A bright light in this judicial darkness is the decision in September 2022 by the parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to “undertake a comprehensive study on Extradition Law reform,” seeking recommendations on “how to overhaul thecurrent system.”[1] To coin a phrase, “if it’s broke, you’d better fix it.”

I see as no coincidence that the investigation into the deadly bombing of October 3, 1980, outside the synagogue on rue Copernic in Paris, was suddenly reactivated in 1999. It had lain dormant for almost twenty years. Unsourced and unverified secret intelligence mentioned the name ‘Hassan Diab’. Eight years went by before France requested Hassan’s arrest and extradition.

Now is neither the time nor place to analyze the five-year legal struggle which ended with Hassan Diab being put on a plane to Paris on November 14, 2014. He spent thirty-eight months in the Fleury-Mérogis prison, mostly in solitary confinement. The two anti-terrorist investigating judges in charge of the case concluded that there was no evidence to justify bringing Hassan to trial. He was unconditionally released and returned to Canada on January 15, 2018. Throughout all this, he was never charged and he was never tried. 15 years later, the nightmare continues with his conviction in France.

I’ll close with a brief quote from Justice Robert Maranger’s 2011 decision approving Hassan’s extradition: “…the case presented by the Republic of France against Mr. Diab is a weak case; the prospects of conviction in the context of a fair trial seem unlikely.”

That says it all.

I’d like to thank the ICLMG for its outstanding work over so many years. Tim and Xan continually earn our collective gratitude for building and growing this essential space where collaboration, partnerships and courage in the defence of human rights can thrive and become more effective.

More information & ways to take action at justiceforhassandiab.org & iclmg.ca/diab-letter 

Roger Clark is the former director of Amnesty International (Canada), a longtime activist working for the promotion, protection, and observation of international human rights.

Footnote

[1] The study report has since been published: Randeep Sarai, Reforming Canada’s Extradition System: Report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, Parliament of Canada, June 2023: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/JUST/report-13/

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Jack Letts’ mother, Sally Lane, and social justice advocate Matthew Behrens at the Supreme Court of Canada. Credit: Free Jack Letts

By Justin Mohammed

For the past four years, dozens of Canadian citizens – about half of whom are children – have been arbitrarily detained in Northeast Syria. Most have been living in squalid camps, in conditions that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism has found to constitute torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment. Their plight has, until very recently, gone under the radar of the Canadian public, media and political leaders. In stark contrast to others, such as Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor who have become household names due to the laudable efforts of the Government of Canada to bring them home from China, the Canadians detained in Northeast Syria have been stonewalled with a multitude of justifications about why Canada cannot repatriate them.

From the moment that the ICLMG became aware of this situation, it has steadfastly stood up for the human rights of these citizens. In 2019, a coalition of academics, civil society organizations, and lawyers were convened to discuss how this situation could be addressed, with the ICLMG playing an active role in those conversations. After a year of government advocacy, gathering information from the detainees’ relatives, and strategizing on ways to pressure the government into action, this coalition pushed the issue squarely into the public arena in January 2020, writing to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and demanding that he take action on behalf of these citizens. Human Rights Watch followed up with a landmark report on the Canadian detainees in June 2020, providing a springboard for the ICLMG and others to continue advocacy on these cases. In the first half of 2021, both the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on International Human Rights held hearings on the topic, during which Amnesty International, Save the Children, Human Rights Watch and others testified about the pressing need for action.

The first breakthrough came in October 2020, when a five- year-old orphaned girl was finally repatriated to Canada, and since then the ICLMG has played a leading role in sustaining the pressure on the Government of Canada. It spoke out against the secretive consular policy created by Global Affairs Canada that established an entirely separate framework for Canadians detained in Northeast Syria, and in June 2022, the ICLMG hosted a webinar highlighting the parallels of the Canadian detainees’ situation with the unlawful detention carried out by the United States at Guantanamo Bay. Since then, a number of the Canadian detainees have been able to return but many remain trapped in Northeast Syria.

With limited action from the Canadian government, in December 2022, lawyers Lawrence Greenspon and Barbara Jackman took the case of the Canadian detainees to the Federal Court of Canada, seeking to force the government into action. Regrettably, the Government of Canada continues to deny that it has any legal responsibility towards this group of Canadians, despite holding the very keys that would put an end to the human rights violations they are suffering on a daily basis. This intransigence indicates that the lessons of commissions and reports of the past, such as the Arar Inquiry, the Iacobucci Inquiry, and the 2018 Auditor General’s report on consular services, have not yet been learned. The scandalous treatment of the Canadians detained in Syria is sadly destined to be the next chapter in this shameful history.

Justin Mohammed is the former Program Manager (Campaigns & Advocacy) at Amnesty International Canada, and a former representative for Amnesty on the ICLMG steering committee.

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By Tim McSorley

The ICLMG was among the first to denounce the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act (adopted in June 2014, formerly Bill C-24) as unconstitutional and anti-Canadian for discriminating against dual nationals by allowing the removal of citizenship for national security reasons. This law effectively created a two-tiered citizenship regime that discriminated against dual nationals, whether born abroad or in Canada, and naturalized citizens. These Canadians had more limited citizenship rights compared to other Canadians, simply because they or their parents or ancestors were born in another country. ICLMG supported a legal challenge against the law, writing:

The ICLMG opposed Bill C-24 since it was tabled in Parliament. The Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act is a step backward for our democracy and rule of law principle. With this new Citizenship Act, Canadians are divided into two classes: those who will keep their Canadian citizenship no matter what and those who can be stripped of their Canadian citizenship if some federal bureaucrats decide so. Thus, if you are born in Canada but you have parents or ancestors from another country, your Canadian citizenship is worth less. It can be revoked not by the court but by the government and this is unacceptable by any democratic standards.^[1]

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act (formerly Bill C-6) was adopted in June 2017 and removed the grounds for the revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security, effectively killing that two-tier citizenship regime.^[2]

Tim McSorley is the National Coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Footnotes

^[1] ICLMG, “Press release: ICLMG joins other rights groups to denounce the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act as discriminatory and anti-Canadian,” ICLMG, August 20, 2015.

^[2] For more information on the fight against citizenship revocation, see: Macklin, Audrey. “A Brief History of the Brief History of Citizenship Revocation in Canada,” in « Canadian Terror: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives on the Toronto 18 Terrorism Trials », Manitoba Law Journal, vol. 44, n^o 1 (2021), pp. 425-455.

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