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By Monia Mazigh, National Coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Florence, Italy – What is the impact of fundamentalism on the freedom of association and peaceful assembly? That is the question that the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Association and Peaceful Assembly is trying to answer in his next report. Mr. Maina Kiai organized an expert meeting in Florence, Italy to reflect on that particular issue and suggest some answers. The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group is the organization representing Canada.

The discussion will start around the word “fundamentalism”. Even if the intent of the discussion isn’t to coin a definition of the word, it is important to examine it from different perspectives. Are we talking about religious fundamentalism? Political fundamentalism? Racial? Nationalistic? Certainly all of these forms are to be considered.

But beyond the type of fundamentalism, we will be more interested in the “perpetrators” side rather than the victims’ side of the question. It is the actions of the groups who are espousing and practicing the ideology of fundamentalism that will require our attention.

It should be mentioned that two stakeholders of fundamentalism will be examined:

• The State
• The non-state actors.

So as far as we are concerned in Canada, does the State practice or practiced any form of fundamentalism and if yes, what was its impact on the freedom of association and peaceful assembly?

In Canada and for the past decade, the former Harper government played a main and predominant role in violating and abusing rights of individuals and civil society groups basing its approach mainly on neoconservative neoliberal economic views and thus targeting environmental activists, anti-petroleum protesters, union activists, pro-Palestinian activists and anti-austerity groups, combined with a xenophobic ideology where Muslims, refugees and immigrants have been demonized.

Non-state actors:

Non-state groups have also been flourishing and thriving in this context of normalization and institutionalization of attacks on the rights of association and peaceful assembly.

These non-state actors can be divided in two categories. The lines between the two categories cannot always be easily drawn.

• Right wing extremists
• Anti-Muslim groups or websites

Just remember, last September 19, 2015 the first protest of PEGIDA held in Canada (in front of the Ontario legislature). Even if the protest was not a huge success, as the Anti-Racism protesters outnumbered the PEGIDA protesters, we saw in that event a troubling incident. The movement was encouraged in its fundamentalist rhetoric by the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean that has brought hundreds of thousands of Syrians and other refugees into the European Union and by the xenophobic discourse increasingly adopted by the Harper government in the last past years, which culminated during the election.

As for the State actions, we just need to look at all the systematic criminalization of dissent that occurred since 2006 and that took multiple forms: intimidation, harassment by spying and surveillance, verbal attacks on Indigenous groups, environmentalist activists and trade union activists, political profiling, student arrests, demonization of Muslims groups and individuals, etc.

Freedom of association and freedom of assembly are pillars of a democratic society. Attacking them or trying to restrict them or limit them can have a counterproductive effect on individual rights but also on the civil society as a whole. Many studies suggest that criminalizing the “promotion of terrorism”, for instance as it is included in Bill C-51, is not the right direction to take to fight fundamentalism. By allowing, these “fundamentalist groups” to operate in the light, while having them under control, is crucial to detect what are the messages being circulated among the actors, as long as the messages are not explicitly calling for hate or violence. Governments can’t allow some groups to express themselves, such as right wing extremists, and still criminalize individuals or groups who are opposing the Western policies in the Middle East. Freedom of expression should be for all.

Internet and the social media play a huge role in spreading all sorts of messages: recruiting new members for fundamentalists groups, spreading hateful and xenophobic messages, but also disseminating useful information to dissuade young people from joining the fundamentalist groups, educating people, calling and informing people about peaceful gathering, public campaigns, etc.

Keeping the good side of the Internet and social media without allowing some hateful and fundamental groups to use it for their own purpose is extremely hard if not impossible.

It is not by banning the Internet or limiting the freedom of expression that we will get rid of fundamentalist ideas or ideology. Fundamentalism always existed and we can’t eliminate it. However, we can be more vigilant. The government has a role here to play in the education system. Kids should learn about the Internet from kindergarten: what is appropriate, what is not. What is violent, what is not. What is respectful, what is not. The work should definitely start there.

By Monia Mazigh – So it is official: the emails of Hilary Clinton started flowing in the public arena. Today, the Globe and Mail reported the content of some of these emails and the discovery is shocking. Well not really! Shameful to be accurate!

Many human rights groups and activists knew that the Canadian government was preventing Omar Khadr from being repatriated to Canada but it was not known that the Americans at some point were very enthusiastic and excited about his return to Canada. One of the US officials, the State Department legal adviser, Harod Koh, exclaimed:

“So glad we got this done”. “After spending the last 10 years on GTMO (Guantanamo), at least this young man finally has another chance.”

This is in total contradiction with what Canadian officials tried so hard to make us believe. For instance compare that American reaction to the Canadian Justice Minister Vic Toews’s at the time Omar Khadr was brought back to Canada:

“I don’t agree he was a child soldier in the sense that he was somehow misled… the evidence is very clear. He was a convicted murderer, he’s a terrorist and that’s the basis I brought him back on.”

Even if it was the US officials who, at first instance, arrested Omar Khadr in Afghanistan, kept him in Bagram Base and later transferred him to Guantanamo, the Canadian position was never clear or principled. First the Canadian officials went to interrogate him, trying to “bribe” him to speak out with a burger in a Guantanamo room. Then the politicians, first under the liberal government and later under the conservative, have refused flatly to repatriate him. Canada became the only western country that didn’t repatriate its own citizen.

On March 24, 2012, The New York Times reported on the continued delays in Khadr’s repatriation, attributing them to the Canadian government. The petition initiated by Senator Dallaire gathered 35,000 signatures. Khadr was transferred into Canadian custody on September 29, 2012 to serve the remainder of his sentence in Canada. Corrections Canada repeatedly refused to let journalists interview Khadr in prison. Toews justified this by claiming an interview could interfere with Khadr’s treatment plan, pose a security risk, or be otherwise disruptive.

Then former Prime Minister Stephen Harper kept launching one legal battle after another trying to keep Omar Khadr in prison and wishing him to be tried as an adult as opposed to a teenager, which he was at the time of his arrest.

So the question today is: why this vindictive attitude to prevent a child soldier from getting a “second chance”? Was Canada trying to please its US ally, even though they didn’t want Omar Khadr in Guantanamo prison anymore, or were they rather trying to please their political base and reinforcing their law and order agenda at the expense of Omar Khadr?

Today, Omar Khadr is a free man studying at university and trying to get that “second chance”. Meanwhile Vic Toews and Stephen Harper were never held accountable for their actions of political interference and perhaps obstructing or delaying the process of Khadr’s repatriation.

They should be held accountable. Canadians have the right to get answers!

By Monia Mazigh – The recent appeal by Bob Paulson the RCMP commissioner to the Canadian public about the urgent need to have warrantless access to our communication is worrisome for multiple reasons.

Fighting cybercrime is crucial as well as fighting all other forms of crimes but that never be done at the expense of our privacy rights. The excuses of fighting the horrible perpetrators of child pornography for instance cannot be used as a pretext, no matter how noble and genuine the reason is, to collect data on Internet users.

The climate of fear and uncertainty that followed the Paris attack shouldn’t be used as a carte blanche to ask the population for a warrantless access to their phones.

Most importantly, we have to refresh our memories here and remember that Canada has already many legal (frankly controversial) tools to fight what Mr. Paulson seems to be incapable of fighting.

Indeed since 2009, the Canadian government paired Bills C-46 and C-47 (two bills that previously didn’t pass) and tried to introduce them in Parliament. Both bills were intended to extend lawful access provisions and create warrantless police access to many aspects of Internet communications such as subscriber data. But that attempt failed.

In 2012, the government tried another time with Bill C-30. It claimed that this bill was intended to fight child pornographers. In reality, this bill again would allow Internet companies to give your name, Internet protocol address and a few other identifiers if the police asked for them, even without a warrant. Also this legislation would allow the government to facilitate centralized, wiretap-style surveillance.

At that time, Canada Justice Minister, Vic Toews, sparked a huge outcry with Bill C-30. In fact, he tried to use the controversial argument of: “you are either with us or with the child pornography supporters”. A huge public backlash ensued and the bill failed.

Finally, in 2014, the government came with Bill C-13: Protecting Canadians from Online Crime. The government introduced this legislation to fight cyberbullying. However, this new legislation does include provisions that permit an increased warrantless access to personal information and increase police spying power for our online activities. The official opposition at that time moved to split the Conservative cyberbullying bill (C-13) in order to put the focus squarely on legislative reform to make the distribution of intimate images without consent illegal. This would have ensured that other unrelated provisions were dealt with separately. But that last proposal didn’t pass and Bill C-13 became law with the support of the Liberals.

Mr. Paulson appeared to wonder why the public doesn’t trust the police. An easy answer is to look at all the errors the police committed in the past and the lack of accountability.

A way to increase or re-establish the trust with the police forces is to implement strong accountability mechanisms and not by asking for more warrantless additional powers that would open the door wide open to likely abuses and less trust.