[antiwar-van] UPDATED! Fri: Adil Charkaoui speaks in Vancouver!

[Harsha W.]

- please forward widely -

THE OTHER ARARS: WHERE THE EXCEPTION IS THE RULE

* ADIL CHARKAOUI * speaks in Vancouver on Security Certificates and Secret
Trials, along with:

* JASON GRATL: was counsel to the BC Civil Liberties Association in
Charkaoui v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Jason has also
assisted in preventing Shell Canada Energy from engaging in Coal Bed
Methane extraction in the Sacred Headwaters (Tahltan) territory. He
currently serves as BCCLA Vice-President and is on the Board of Directors
of Pivot Legal Society.

* PROMA TAGORE: an independent writer and poet, as well as a cultural and
community organizer on anti-racist, feminist and queer issues. Her
writings have appeared in various magazines, journals, and anthologies and
she is the editor of "In Our Own Voices: Teaching and Learning and Toward
Decolonisation." She was formerly an Assistant Professor in the Department
of English at the University of Victoria.

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Friday June 26th @ 6:30 PM
Rooms 1420-1430
SFU Harbour Centre
515 West Hastings

Limited seating, please arrive early to guarantee seating.
Sliding scale $0-20 (pay what you can)
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The Canadian state's complicity in the torture of Maher Arar is viewed as
exceptional in Canada. Unfortunately it isn't.

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=82354121297&ref=ts

" What is a security certificate?
A security certificate,
It's the right to be treated outside the law
It's two-speed justice
It's precedent for secret trials...
It's contact visits with no contact
It's the glass that separates you from loved ones,
It's deadlock, solitude; it's breathing corruption...
It's the guilt of being born elsewhere...
It's human folly clothed as wisdom.
It's me today, maybe you tomorrow! "
-  Excerpt of poem by Adil Charkaoui, translated from French


Adil Charkaoui is a Morocco-born permanent resident of Canada who was
arrested by the Canadian government under a security certificate in May
2003 in Montreal. Along with four other Muslim men, he constitutes the
“Secret Trial Five” held under a measure of the Immigration and Refugee
Protection Act that allows for the preventive arrest and detention of
non-citizens, without charge, under secret evidence that can lead to
indefinite detention and possible deportation to torture.

>From the beginning of his ordeal, Charkaoui challenged the legitimacy of
the entire security certificate regime. In 2007, after years of grassroots
campaigning at the national and international level and condemnations of
Canada from Amnesty International and two United Nations Committees, the
Supreme Court of Canada finally ruled that the security certificate
process is unconstitutional. However, rather than abolishing security
certificates, the government legislated a new "special advocate" model in
2008 which simply provides a veneer of legality to a fundamentally unjust
process that allows for state secrecy in matters of "national security"
that disproportionately affects racialized non-citizens.

Come hear directly from Adil Charkaoui about his struggle against this
regime of secrecy, injustice, racism, abuse of civil liberties, and
expanding state control.

Hosted by No One Is Illegal-Vancouver, BC Civil Liberties Association,
Canadian Muslim Union, Council of Canadians - BC / Yukon Region, Canadian
Islamic Congress, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Vancouver
District Labour Council.

For information, contact 604 630 9754 or 778 552 2099 or info at bccla.org

Justice for Adil Charkaoui Campaign: http://www.adilinfo.org