[news] UN Condemns Secret Trials in Canada

[Resist!ca]

(Note: The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has been in Canada the past few weeks exploring the detention of immigrants and refugees. They have visited the Secret Trial Five in prison and Mr. Charkaoui (under draconian bail) as well as met with individuals working on the issue. In the first sentence of this Canadian Press story it is important to note the ongoing misconception that those held on security certificates (no charge, usually no bail, case based on secret "evidence" neither the detainee nor their lawyer ever sees) are NOT "terror suspects" but rather people that the government has "reasonable grounds to believe" may be inadmissable on undisclosed security grounds. None has actually been accused of doing anything. All face deportation to torture, a fact which drew the ire of another UN Committee, the Committee Against Torture, on May 20.) Human Rights Watch earlier this year called for the abolition of the secret trial security certificate process. On June 27 in Toronto, secret trial detainee Hassan Almrei, who has spent almost four years in solitary confinement in Toronto, without charge, seeks release on bail.

URL: http://resist.ca/story/2005/6/16/164850/621