As United Nations officials and many legal experts have alarmingly stated: There is a genocide underway in Gaza. A “humanitarian pause” was not enough. As of December 6, Israel has killed more than 21,731 Gazans, including 8,697 children and shows no intention of stopping until Gaza is “erased.”

Genocide is never justified, including in the “fight against terrorism.”

The UN Genocide Convention – which Canada has ratified – stipulates that “states that have the capacity to influence others have a duty to employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide.” Therefore, Canada has the obligation to not only call for a permanent and immediate ceasefire, but to immediately halt all arm sales, transfers and military aid to Israel.

Furthermore, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG) is deeply alarmed by the overwhelming reports of incidents of Islamophobia and antisemitism, the fact that people are being investigated, suspended and/or fired by their employer for expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people and/or calling for a ceasefire, as well as the growing instances of criminalization of dissent.

Support for the human rights and lives of Palestinians must not be conflated with support for hate or terrorism. Already, governments internationally have moved to criminalize or outright ban protests and restrict speech in support of Palestinian lives and against the decades-long Israeli occupation and the ongoing genocide. In Canada, the arrest of eleven people for engaging in a political protest against the head of a charity that supports IDF soldiers raises serious concerns about the policing of political speech.

It is necessary that you publicly, clearly and without delay, reassert the importance of upholding freedom of expression and the right to dissent – in Canada and elsewhere.

These actions and sentiments are disturbingly similar to those we saw in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and in response to the protests against the so-called “War on Terror” that followed. Governments – including the Canadian government – used a climate of fear and division to justify limits on freedom of expression and assembly, to drastically increase surveillance, and to undermine the civil liberties of vast swaths of the population, particularly Muslims and Arabs.

We thus urge Canadian officials to defend the freedom of expression and other human rights of all people in Canada and to support human rights, respect for international law, and justice globally.

– The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Click below to send this statement to the Prime Minister, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Public Safety, as well as your MP. And please share widely. Thank you!

TAKE ACTION

It’s Giving Tuesday again! This year, we hope that, in the context of this generosity movement, you’ll want to support ICLMG’s work of defending civil liberties from the negative impact of national security and anti-terrorism laws and activities, including surveillance, racial and political profiling, and complicity in torture abroad.

We do not receive any support from governments and rely on people like you to continue our work.

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This year, we were able to secure important wins!

• The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency is conducting a review of CRA audits of Muslim charities – a key recommendation of our 2021 report.
• We sent an urgent letter to the Minister of Immigration, urging him to stop the deportation of Dr. Ezzat Gouda to a death sentence in Egypt after a political and unfair trial in abstentia. We were relieved to learn that he was not deported.
• We were able to obtain, alongside several partners, important amendments to Bill C-20, which aims to create a long overdue independent review body for the CBSA.
• We were part of efforts to secure a crucial exemption to Bill C-41 – allowing humanitarian aid to populations in need in areas controlled by groups considered terrorist by the Canadian government; for example, in Afghanistan.
• We received the Muslim Association of Canada’s “Friend of the Community” award for our work against Islamophobia and fighting for justice.

Canadians are still facing many challenges and we need your support to fight for our rights!

• We see more and more threats to free speech and dissent, as well as instances of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism, in Canada and abroad – including the wrongful conflation of calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the protection of Palestinian rights and lives with support for terrorism.
• There are still at least 25 Canadians, including a majority of children, detained arbitrarily in conditions akin to torture in North East Syria.
• Intelligence agencies are pushing for more surveillance powers.
• Proposed new federal rules won’t rein in dangerous AI systems.

I’ll donate to protect civil liberties!

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Thank you so much for your support!

Xan & Tim