[van-announce] Canada wide Actions against Security Certificates: Dec 10

[No One is Illegal-Vancouver]

CANADA WIDE DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SECURITY CERTIFICATES
please post widely


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IN VANCOUVER:

DECEMBER 10 FRIDAY
AT 4 PM- 6 PM
CIC OFFICES 300 WEST GEORGIA

Contact No One is Illegal
noii-van at resist.ca
(604)682-3269 x 7149

please bring banners and placards
and noisemakers.
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As you read this, five Muslim men remain detained without charge or bail on
secret evidence neither they nor their lawyers are allowed to see, in
Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. They have been behind bars anywhere from 18
months to over four years, denied a fair trial, and are at risk of
deportation to torture.

These men are not some shadowy figures in a passport photo. They are
teachers, students, poets, artists, parents, husbands, friends and workers.
Their names are: Mohammad Mahjoub (detained, June 2000); Mahmoud Jaballah
(August 2001); Hassan Almrei (October, 2001); Mohamed Harkat (December,
2002); and Adil Charkaoui (May, 2003).

The families of these men and their supporters are calling for a
CROSS-CANADA DAY OF ACTION on FRIDAY 10 DECEMBER to demand FOUR things:

1. That the five men be released immediately; or, if any case against them
actually exists, that they be allowed to defend themselves in open, fair
and independent trials with full disclosure of the case against them.
2. That they not be deported.
3. That the federal government abolish the secret trial security
certificate process.
4. That CSIS, RCMP, and CIC end its ongoing harassment and intimidation of
individuals and communities of Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian
heritage and/or Muslim faith.

On International Human Rights Day, December 10, which is also the second
anniversary of the detention of one of the Secret Trial Five, individuals
and groups concerned about secret trials and deportation to will be
protesting across Canada.

These are small signs of progress- CSIS has not issued a security
certificate in 18 months- but they are certainly not enough. The
men and their families have been subject to years of imprisonment, solitary
confinement, loss of friends, poverty, confusion about WHY they are
detained, and daily uncertainty about whether they will be removed in the
night to face torture overseas in the morning. And this is continuing.

The attacks on the dignity and rights of these men is part of a much
broader attack  on refugees and immigrants, and very specifically Muslim,
Arab, and South Asian communities. Standing up for the rights of the
Secret Trial Five is a concrete way to confront the politics of racist
fear, which is being used to justify expanding governmental powers and war
policies.


More background information is available at

Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada (Toronto)
www.homesnotbombs.ca

Coalition for Justice for Adil (Montreal)
www.adilinfo.org

Committee for Justice for Mohamed Harkat (Ottawa)
www.zerra.net/freemohamed



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No One is Illegal- Vancouver
noii-van at resist.ca
(604)682-3269 x 7149

The No One is Illegal campaign is in full confrontation with Canadian
colonial border policies, denouncing and taking action to combat racial
profiling of immigrants and refugees, detention and deportation policies,
and wage-slave conditions of migrant workers and non-status people.

We struggle for the right for our communities to maintain their
livelihoods and resist war, occupation and displacement, while building
alliances and supporting indigenous sisters and brothers also fighting
theft of land and displacement.