[Bloquez l'empire!] (fw) Tuesday: Charkaoui challenges deportation of non-citizens to torture

[Bloquez l'empire]

from: justiceforadil at riseup.net

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CHARKAOUI CHALLENGES DEPORTATION TO TORTURE FOR IMMIGRANTS
***COURT SOLIDARITY WITH ADIL CHARKAOUI***

Federal Court, 30 McGill, Montreal
4 to 6 October, normally from 9:30 to noon and 1:30 to 4:30 each day

Adil Charkaoui will be in court from Tuesday to Thursday to argue that the
parts of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) which allow the
government to threaten him with deportation to torture violate the UN
Convention against Torture and his Charter rights. The Immigration Act opens
the door to rendition of non-citizens to torture by explicitly excluding
people who have fallen under security suspicions from provisions designed to
ensure that no one is sent to torture.

Adil will argue that the government's actions in keeping him under this
threat have been prejudicial to his psychological health and violate his
Charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person, to protection
from cruel and unusual treatment, and to equal treatment under
the law. The threat of being sent to torture, under which he and his family
have been living for more than two years, is itself a very real form of
psychological torture. At the same time, Adil will ask the Judge to
recognise that the government's continued efforts to deport him are
unconstitutional, in violation of the absolute international ban on
deportation to torture.

Me. Johanne Doyon, one of Adil's lawyers, will ask to have the security
certificate against Adil thrown out. This is the first challenge to
deportation to torture under the 2002 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act
since the Supreme Court's Suresh decision.

Please come out to court to show your support for Adil's just demands!
Please spread the word and encourage others to come out to support this
important step.

BACKGROUND

The government has been relying on security exceptions in the Immigration
Act and citing the Supreme Court Suresh decision, in its efforts to deport
Charkaoui and others to torture. In May 2005, the UN Committee against
Torture called on Canada to respect article 3 of the Convention against
Torture and to revise IRPA to close the torture loop-holes (see below).
However, in defiance of the UN, the government has continued its efforts,
basing its
justification on uncontested, secret evidence gathered by the spy agency
CSIS. CSIS has been caught up in fresh scandals over error, abuse and
political interference in past weeks. Charkaoui and others remain under
the incessant threat of rendition to torture.

In the context of the "war on terror", the security certificate and the
accompanying mass media attention have made deportation a
life-threatening affair for Adil. This risk was recognised by Immigration
Canada, who assessed on 21 August 2003 that "there is a probability of
torture, of threat to life, and of being subjected to cruel and unusual
treatment or punishment ..." if he is deported.

The Immigration Canada risk assessment was actually hidden
from Adil and his family from August 2003 until April 2004, as the
government took steps to secure diplomatic assurances which would pave the
way for authorities to send him to the torture their own experts had said he
would face. In August 2004, the Minister's delegate issued a decision
denying Adil protection from deportation, largely on the basis of flimsy
assurances from his birth-country that they would not harm him. This
decision was withdrawn in embarassment by the Canadian government in March
2005, in circumstances that raised further serious questions about CSIS
activities. Adil's case has been in suspension ever since, waiting for the
government to come out with a new decision on the protection issue before
the court process can resume.

Adil was released under severe, "preventive" conditions in February 2005,
after almost two years in prison without charge. He is not allowed to leave
home without his mother or father, must wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all
times, must allow police 24-hour access to his home, cannot communicate
directly or indirectly with anyone who has a criminal record, must respect a
strict curfew, cannot leave the island of Montreal, and cannot use a
computer, cell phone, fax machine, nor any telephone except the one in his
home. These conditions and the stress of the continuing threat of rendition
to torture have severely hampered his and his family's ability to resume a
normal life.

The conditions have been imposed on him despite the fact that the security
certificate against him has not yet undergone any judicial review -
not even the cursory review which passes as a trial in security certificate
cases.

The movement to abolish security certificates, led by the families of the
detainees, is growing: from a week-long march from Montreal to Ottawa in
June organised by the Solidarity across
Borders network, to increasing numbers of organisations and individuals, in
Quebec, Canada and internationally, to UN committees. People are questioning
the fact that these cases are being heard under immigration law rather than
criminal law. Are non-citizens somehow more dangerous than citizens? If
there actually are cases against any of the five men now facing deportation
under security certificates (Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud
Jaballah, Hassan Almrei, Mohamed Harkat and Adil Charkaoui), why aren't they
charged and tried under criminal law, as any citizen suspect would be? Why
does
anyone have any confidence in a process that relies on uncontested
information gathered by CSIS, an agency that could hardly be more
discredited? Is indefinite imprisonment for two, three, four, even five
years - in the case of Mohammad Mahjoub - under threat of torture, without
charge or trial, deprived of basic amenities (proper medical care, an hour a
day outside solitary, and touch visits with your children) not itself a
form of torture? What would drive someone to the point where they go on 73-
or 79-day hunger-strikes to ask for very basic rights, as Hassan Almrei and
Mohammad Mahjoub have just done?

Security certificates are now being reviewed by a special Parliamentary
committee - last week, Amnesty International, Canadian Council for Refugee,
the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, the Campaign to Stop
Secret Trials in Canada, and the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee all
appeared before this Committee to argue against further use of security
certificates (their evidence is available at
http://www.parl.gc.ca/committee/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=128793).
A constitutional challenge to the security certificate process, launched by
Charkaoui, will also be heard by the Supreme Court within the year.

Below:

1. Relevant Charter articles
2. Extracts from UN Committee against Torture review of Canada, May 2005
3. Finding of Charkaoui's Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (Immigration Canada)

******************
1. CHARTER (extracts)
******************

7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and
the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the
principles of fundamental justice.

12. Everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual
treatment or punishment.

 15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the
right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without
discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race,
national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical
disability.

24. (1) Anyone whose rights or freedoms, as guaranteed by this Charter, have
been infringed or denied may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to
obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the
circumstances.

******************************************************
2. REPORT FROM UN COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE (extracts)
******************************************************

CAT/C/CO/34/CAN
Committee against Torture
34th session

CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES
UNDER ARTICLE 19 OF THE CONVENTION

Conclusions and recommendations of the Committee against Torture

Canada

1.         The Committee considered the fourth and fifth periodic reports of
Canada (CAT/C/55/Add.8 and CAT/C/81/Add.3, respectively) at its 643rd and
646th meetings, held on 4 and 6 May 2005 (CAT/C/SR.643 and 646) and adopted,
at its 658th meeting, the following conclusions and recommendations:
...

4.         The Committee expresses its concern at:

(a)        the failure of the Supreme Court of Canada in Suresh v Minister
of Citizenship and Immigration to recognise, at the level of domestic law,
the absolute nature of the protection of article 3 of the Convention that is
subject to no exceptions whatsoever;
 ...

(c)        the blanket exclusion by the Immigration and Refugee Protection
Act 2002 (section 97) of the status of refugee or person in need of
protection, for persons falling within the security exceptions set out in
the Convention on the Status of Refugees and its Protocols; as a result,
such persons' substantive claims are not considered by the Refugee
Protection Division or reviewed by the Refugee Appeal Division;
(d)       the explicit exception of certain categories of persons posing
security or criminal risks from the protection against refoulement provided
by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act 2002 (section 115, subsection
2, of the Act);
(e)        the State party's apparent willingness, in the light of the low
number of prosecutions for terrorism and torture offences, to resort in the
first instance to immigration processes to remove or expel individuals from
its territory, thus implicating issues of article 3 of the Convention more
readily, rather than subject him or her to the criminal process;
...

D.  Recommendations

5.         The Committee recommends that:

(a)        the State party should unconditionally undertake to respect the
absolute nature of article 3 in all circumstances and fully to incorporate
the provision of article 3 into the State party's domestic law;

(b)       the State party should remove the exclusions in the Immigration
and Refugee Protection Act 2002 described in paragraphs (d) and (e) above,
and thus extend to currently excluded persons entitlements of status as a
protected person and protection against refoulement on account of a danger
of torture;

*********************************
3. PRE-REMOVAL RISK ASSESSMENT
*********************************

Immigration Canada
21 August 2004

". there exists a probability of torture, of threat to life, and of being
subject to cruel and unusual treatment or sentence if he returns to
 Morocco." - Pre-removal risk assessment agent, Immigration Canada (21
August 2003 but withheld from Charkaoui until April 2004 (translation))

*******************

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