[Bloquez l'empire!] 21 October: The Other Arars Strategy Session against a new security certificate

[People's Commission]

THE OTHER ARARS: WHEN THE 'EXCEPTION' IS THE RULE
Panel, dinner and strategy session to oppose a new "security certificate"

Sunday, 21 October 2007

5pm Panel with Abdullah Almalki, Adil Charkaoui, Yavar Hameed, and Dominique
Peschard
7pm Free community supper
8pm Strategy session

at CÉDA, 2515 Délisle St., Lionel Groulx metro

!!!! Free and fun childcare onsite (Bring Your Kids!) !!!!
!!!! Translation between English, French, and Arabic !!!!

The state kidnap and torture of Maher Arar is viewed as exceptional in
Canada.

Unfortunately it isn't.

Other Canadians have undergone the same horrific treatment, including
Abullah Almalki. Refugee-claimant Benamar Benatta was illegally delivered to
the Americans in 2001, and spent the next five years in prison under
torture, without charge. And under such measures as the "security
certificate", non-citizens like Adil Charkaoui are subject to a different
process with the same outcome.

In February 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that this security
certificate process was illegal. But Charkaoui and the others under
"security certificates" remain in the same situation; in indefinite
detention or house arrest on the basis of secret suspicions and under threat
of deportation to torture.

The government has said that it will introduce new security certificate
legislation. If this legislation passes, what happened to Arar and others
will again be confirmed as the rule.

Come out to hear more and to strategize on how to oppose new
legislation, and all that lies behind it: a culture of secrecy and fear; a
hierarchy of rights; racism; expanding government powers of control and
surveillance; and more!

ABDULLAH ALMALKI is a Canadian engineer who lives in Ottawa with his wife
and six kids. On a visit to Syria in May 2003, he was abruptly arrested.
Although never charged, he spent almost two years in Syrian prisons, where
he was interrogated under physical and psychological torture with questions
sent to Syria by Canadian policing and security agencies (RCMP and CSIS) and
delivered to the Syrian torturers by the Canadian ambassador and consul in
Syria (see Arar Commission Report). Stephen Toope, fact-finder for the Arar
commission, wrote in his report, "Of all the testimony I heard, Mr.
Almalki's revealed the most intense pain and suffering." "Mr. Almalki was
especially badly treated, and for an extended period." Almalki was
eventually released and returned to Canada. In Canada, he fought for a
public inquiry into the role of Canadian authorities in his kidnap and
torture, along with Ahmad Abou Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin. This was
eventually granted, after both the UN Human Rights Committee and the Arar
Commission recommended it. The Iacobucci Inquiry is currently underway, but
is being conducted behind closed doors, without the presence of Almalki,
Elmaati, Nureddin, or their lawyers.

ADIL CHARKAOUI is a teacher who lives in Montreal with his wife and three
kids. Charkaoui immigrated to Canada with his parents and sister in 1995. In
May 2003 he was arrested under a "security certificate". He spent almost two
years in prison, on the basis of secret suspicions and under threat of
deportation to torture. Since being released from prison he has been subject
to severe, invasive control orders, which prevent him from leaving home
without supervision, from using the internet and much else. He still lives
under the uncertainty and threat of deportation. Charkaoui challenged the
security certificate legislation all the way up to the Supreme Court. In
February 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the "security certificate" was
indeed unconstitutional. However, Charkaoui, along with the other security
certificate victims, remains in the same situation, under a cloud of
suspicions he has been given no meaningful opportunity to refute.

YAVAR HAMEED is the lawyer-founder of Hameed Farrokhzad St-Pierre Chambers.
He workers primarily in the area of rights and liberties. His practice
responds to the many examples of direct and indirect profiling of
Arab-Muslim communities since 11 September. He works for the rights of the
non-status, homeless and low-income while representing them in the context
of civil recourse against police brutality. He was the Ottawa Agent of
Johanne Doyon, Charkaoui's lawyer, during the appeal to the Supreme Court on
the question of the constitutionality of the security certificate. He
teaches part-time at Carleton University's Law Department and is regularly
involved in public debate on the issues of racial profiling, the security
certificate, and the Anti Terrorism Act.

DOMINIQUE PESCHARD's concern for social justice and human rights has led him
to become active in the Ligue des droits et libertés, as Vice-President and
member of the board of directors since 2001. As a member of the Ligue's
civil rights committee, he has, among other things, drafted a position paper
on the proposed national identity card that was presented to the House of
Commons Select Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and a brief
on biometrics that was presented to the Commission de l'éthique de la
science et de la technologie du Québec.

----------------------------
Coalition Justice pour Adil Charkaoui
www.adilinfo.org
tel. 514 859 9023
justiceforadil at riseup.net

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