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05 June 2010 By Stephen Lendman
Like in America post-9/11,
Canadian Muslims have been victimized, vilified, and
persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence, and
activism. They've been targeted, hunted down, rounded
up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail,
restricted in their right to counsel, tried on secret
evidence, convicted or incriminated on bogus charges,
given long sentences and incarcerated as political
prisoners or deported to certain torture, imprisonment
or death by so-called democratic countries that, in
fact, mock the rule of law and judicial fairness.
Victims are pawns in the war on
terror - how rogue states intimidate populations to
accept foreign wars and homeland repression to mask
their more sinister agenda. Today, it reflects
unbridled militarism, permanent wars, imperial
conquest, and planned economic crises causing lost
jobs, homes, benefits, futures, and the greatest ever
wealth transfer to the rich, largely below the radar.
In her 2005 paper, "Securing
Canada: Muslims and the Myth of Multiculturalism in
the post-911 World," Samantha Arnold discussed the
environment as defined by Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act
and the Canadian-US Smart Border Declaration, saying:
"....Arab and Muslim Canadians
have been 'painted with the bin Laden brush,' cast as
terrorists, interrogated and detained on the basis of
secret evidence, subjected to hate crimes, denied
passage across international borders, represented in
racist and demeaning ways in the media, and
constructed as 'aliens' in Canada notwithstanding
their citizenship (or legal residency) status."
It flies in the face of the
country's image as a tolerant, compassionate society,
embracing diversity and multiculturalism - the very
"foundational myth of this country, a mythical
heritage of tolerance that turns on the historical
reconciliation of French, English, and Aboriginal
peoples." In fact, the reality unmasks the mythology,
Mohamed Harkat one of many prime examples, an innocent
man victimized for political advantage, so far denied
due process and judicial fairness.
Detailed information about him
can be found at justiceforharkat.com.
Algerian born, he emigrated to
Canada in 1995 at age 28, settled in Ottawa, worked as
a gas station attendant and pizza delivery man, met
his future wife, and now together seek justice and an
end to their ordeal.
In 1997, he got refugee status
after successfully arguing that Algerian authorities
would persecute him. Could he have imagined in Canada
as well - nominally democratic with its Charter of
Rights and Freedoms stating:
"Everyone has the following
freedoms:
a. freedom of conscience and
religion;
b. freedom of thought, belief,
opinion and expression, including freedom of the press
and other media of communication;
c. freedom of peaceful assembly;
and
d. freedom of association."
Its Article 7 assures everyone
"the right to life, liberty and security of person and
the right not to be deprived thereof in accordance
with the principles of fundamental justice."
By persecuting the innocent,
Canada like America, defiles its principles, laws, and
fundamental human rights and values - a clear sign of
emerging fascism under which all rights are lost. No
one is safe when state power goes unchallenged, the
fast track both countries now pursue, inventing
threats to advance it while destroying civil liberties
and freedom.
Harkat was victimized, his
nightmare beginning on December 10, 2002 - Human
Rights Day worldwide to commemorate the 1948 UN
General Assembly's adoption of Universe Declaration of
Human Rights adoption, 48 - 0 with eight abstentions,
from Stalinist Russia, Eastern bloc states he
controlled, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.
Based on alleged terrorist links
to Al Qaeda and the Armed Sayyaf Group (GIA), Harkat
was arrested and imprisoned for the next four and a
half years under Canada's Immigration and Refugee
Protection Act provision pertaining to the "security
certificate" process. It lets authorities detain
and/or deport foreign nationals and other non-citizens
suspected of human rights violations, alleged threats
to national security, or claimed affiliation with
organized crime, using secret evidence withheld from
defense counsel.
In place since 1978, the process
is secretive and disturbing in cases where alleged
charges are determined too sensitive to disclose.
Since 1991, 27 residents have been affected. In
February 2007, Canada's Supreme Court ruled it
unconstitutional in Charkaoui v. Canada.
Then in October 2007, the
Canadian House of Commons passed Bill C-3 (a so-called
anti-terror measure), amending the Immigration and
Refugee Protection Act by introducing a special
advocate into the certificate process on the pretext
of protecting subjects during secret proceedings.
That and other provisions are
troubling, including indefinite detentions, whether or
not charged, draconian house arrest with continuous
monitoring and surveillance, and deportations to
despotic states, ensuring torture, imprisonment or
death, the reason subjects fled to Canada in the first
place, believing they'd be safe.
The special advocate provision is
reprehensible, providing legal cover for a
fundamentally unjust process designed to stigmatize,
vilify, convict or deport targets to oblivion - at the
same time pretending it protects national and public
security.
The bill mocks the rule of law
and judicial fairness, yet got Royal Assent on
February 13, 2008. It targets human and civil rights
advocates, anyone against illegal wars and homeland
repression, and creeping fascist governance. It denies
their presumption of innocence and right to judicial
fairness in open proceedings with full disclosure of
the facts.
Once issued, Federal Courts
conduct secret proceedings, subjecting victims to
draconian injustice. Later they're given unclassified
summaries of whatever the presiding judge considers
appropriate, another fundamentally troubling procedure
to withhold vital facts from the defense.
During proceedings, special
advocates represent authority, not subjects. They may
examine government claims, cross-examine witnesses,
call their own, make submissions to the Court, and
communicate with and hear testimony from named
subjects until they see the Court-opproved information
and can rely on counsel.
The government claims it's to
defend national and public security, as well as core
principles under the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, international law, and fundamental human
rights precepts. Victims like Harkat disagree, saying
it persecutes innocent residents like himself, for his
religion and ethnicity, the common American practice
supplemented by racist media-hyped fear.
Harkat is one of Canada's Secret
Trial Five - five Muslim men, bogusly arrested, then
shamelessly persecuted for political advantage. He
wasn't charged, was imprisoned on secret evidence,
denied bail, held mostly in solitary confinement,
prevented from contacting family or friends, and under
Canadian law can't appeal a judge's ruling by order of
the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Yet
he was never before charged, convicted of a crime, or
even suspected of one.
On March 31, 2004, Amnesty
International (AI) directed an open letter to Deputy
Prime Minister Anne McLellan, expressing grave
"concerns with respect to the security certificate
provisions that have been part of Canada's immigration
legislation for a number of years" - a process
"resulting in violations of a number of fundamental
human rights."
AI urged that "immediate steps
(be taken) to bring (the process) into full compliance
with Canada's international human rights obligations."
It cited Canada's responsibilities under its
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in s. 3(3)(f),
requiring the law to be "construed and applied in a
manner that complies with international human rights
instruments to which Canada is a signatory."
No action was taken. Harkat and
others remain vulnerable.
On May 23, 2006, he was granted
bail, transferred to house arrest under electronic
monitoring and round-the-clock supervision, but faces
deportation he's struggling to prevent.
Last September, Justice Simon
Noel eased his bail conditions, ending his phone
monitoring, mail, curfew, in-and-outside home video
surveillance, and requirement that visitors need
official approval. He must still wear a GPS monitor,
report in weekly, and travel unsupervised only in the
Ottawa area.
Two Hopeful
Signs
In October, the Federal Court of
Canada annulled Adil Charkaoui's security certificate,
another bogusly targeted victim. Arrested but not
charged in 2003, he was kept under draconian house
arrest for nearly two years, then very restrictive
bail conditions until February 20, 2009. On March 24,
2010, he sued the federal government for $24.5 million
in damages to restore his lost reputation. The case
against him was never disclosed.
In December 2009, the Federal
Court voided Hassan Almrei's security certificate,
Justice Richard Mosley stating:
"Having considered all the
information and other evidence presented to the Court,
I am satisfied that Hassan Almrei has not engaged in
terrorism and is not and was not a member of an
organization that there are reasonable grounds to
believe has, does or will engage in terrorism. I find
that there are no reasonable grounds to believe that
(he's) a danger to the security of Canada (so) find
the the certificate is not reasonable and must be
quashed."
Final Comments
On April 1, the Ottawa Citizen's
Mohammed Adam headlined, "Harkat terror case takes a
serious hit," saying:
"US report says his reputed al-Qaeda
associate (Abu Zubaydah) actually had no ties to the
terrorist group."
Writing in the Los Angeles Times
on April 30, his co-counsel, Joseph Margulies,
assistant director of Northwestern School of Law's
Roderick MacArthur Justice Center, detailed what he
endured, appalling torture from the time of his 2002
arrest in Pakistan - how America treats alleged
terrorists, inflicting enough pain to force
confessions, then saying they came voluntarily to
convict.
The Bush administration called
him a senior Al Qaeda figure, George Bush saying he
was one of their "top three leaders (and) chief of
operations."
"First, they beat him. As
authorized by the Justice
Department and confirmed by the
Red Cross, they wrapped a collar around his neck and
smashed him over and over against a wall. They forced
his body into a tiny, pitch-dark box and left him for
hours. They stripped him naked and suspended him from
hooks in the ceiling. They kept him awake for days."
Then they waterboarded him 83
times - the procedure inducing suffocation and panic.
CIA torturers ordered him wrung dry, perhaps taking
him to the brink of death and back, what was done
repeatedly to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Afghanistan
and at Guantanamo, the bogusly charged 9/11 mastermind
who endured intense torture over an extended period,
effectively turning him to mush and getting him to say
anything to stop the pain.
In Zubaydah's case, he "was
nothing like what the president believed. He was never
Al Qaeda," journalist Ron Suskind asserted in his 2006
book, "The One Percent Doctrine", the first to
describe him as "a minor logistics man, a travel
agent," a man the Justice Department later admitted in
an April 2010 court filing had no "direct role in or
advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001," nor was he an Al Qaeda member or
"formally" identified with the organization.
Yet the Obama administration
still detains him, claiming he "supported enemy forces
and participated in hostilities (and) facilitat(ed)
the retreat and escape of enemy forces" after
America's 2001 Afghanistan invasion, charges as bogus
as about Al Qaeda and his involvement in 9/11.
Detained or free, he sustained
permanent damage. "Abu Zubaydah paid with his mind"
and more. "Today, he suffers blinding headaches and
has permanent brain damage. He has an excruciating
sensitivity to sounds, hearing what others do not. The
slightest noise drives him nearly insane. In the last
two years alone, he has experienced about 200
seizures."
He can't remember his mother's
face or father's name. His humanity was willfully
destroyed, the same fate many others endured - Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, Jose Padilla, and Aafia Siddiqui
three of the most prominent.
One of Harkat's lawyers, Norm
Boxall, called the new Zubaydah information
significant, saying it destroys a key part of the
government's case. Zubayah's attorney, Brent Mickum,
said the:
"government's accounts frequently
have been at variance with the actual facts, and the
government has been loath to provide the facts until
forced to do so." Then after gotten through discovery,
"it realized that the game was over and there was no
way it could support the Bush administration's
baseless allegations."
Canadian government lawyers have
the information, but so far haven't commented on how
it impacts their case or what's next.
Harkat's lawyers called it
another plus for their client, saying it "follow(ed)
the February release from US custody of Hadje Wazir, a
Harkat associate whom CSIS has characterized as Osama
bin Laden's 'money handler.' Last year, the case was
rocked by the revelation that three CSIS witnesses
failed to reveal that a key informant failed a
lie-detector test."
Yet CSIS claims Harkat was a
Zubayah "intermediary," even though it's untrue, and
he denied in federal court in 2004 that he ever met or
knew him.
"The new information came to
light in court the same day that defence (sic) lawyer
Matt Webber blasted the credibility of CSIS, accusing
it of 'egregious breaches' of Harkat's rights that
bring into question the administration of justice,"
citing numerous abuses including:
-- "violation of solicitor-client
privilege;
-- unlawful detention;
-- destruction of documents and
unlawful search; and
-- seizure of documents," calling
all of them "profound," showing Canadian justice is
just as tainted, shameful, odious, and reprehensible
as America's.
Nonetheless, Harkat's struggle
continues. Closing arguments in his security
certificate hearing are scheduled from May 31 - June 3
at the Supreme Court of Canada Building, 301
Wellington Street, East Courtroom in Ottawa, beginning
at 10AM. It may be months before a final decision is
announced.
Stephen Lendman lives in
Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished
guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the
Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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