[van-announce] Update: Abolish Security Certificates June 8

[No One is Illegal-Vancouver]

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SECURITY CERTIFICATES!
WEDNESDAY JUNE 8


PRESS CONFERENCE AT 10 AM AT CIC OFFICES (300 WEST GEORGIA)
Zool Suleman (Immigration Lawyer); Representatives of BC Civil Liberties
Association, No One is Illegal, Amnesty International, International Civil
Liberties Monitoring Group, and others.


FOLLOWED BY
Street theater event by B.C Civil Liberties Assocation at 300 W. Georgia
during lunch hour, outside the offices of local offices of the Federal
Refugee Board. A symbolic jail cell will be erected and a shackled and
hooded prisoner will be on public display. The issues that prompt this
street level public action include civil liberties abuses created by
Canadian security legislation, the danger Canada may deport prisoners to
face death or torture abroad, and the veil of secrecy being drawn over
these questions at the ongoing Arar Inquiry.

Jason Gratl, BCCLA president:  604 694 1919 or
Tom Sandborn, BCCLA board member, at 604 224 1182


RALLY AND MARCH @ 4:30 PM
GATHER AT VANCOUVER ART GALLERY (ROBSON SIDE)

*** WITH SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCES ***

This action is part of a pan-Canadian day to Stop Secret Trials in Canada.
Canada’s Secret Trial Five are five Muslim men whose lives have been torn
apart by accusations that they are not allowed to fight in a fair and
independent trial. All five men were arrested under "Security
Certificates," a measure of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act
(IRPA) that has been described by Amnesty International as "fundamentally
flawed and unfair". Security certificates and secret evidence reverse the
fundamental rule of innocent until proven guilty. Neither the detainee nor
his lawyer are informed of the precise allegations or provided with the
full information against him. They are imprisoned indefinitely without
charges on secret evidence and face deportation to their countries of
origin, even if there is a substantial risk of torture or death.

June 8 is the anniversary of the day on which Canada signed the Convention
against torture. It is an appropriate day to bring attention to the fact
that the Canadian government, using security certificates, is trying to
deport five men although the Immigration department recognises they are at
risk of torture if forced out. It is also a good opportunity to highlight
the numerous other ways in which Canada, using other anti-migrant tools,
is engaging in forcing people into situations where they will be tortured;
is using information extracted under torture in security certificate
cases; is exchanging information with secret services recognised as
complicit in physical and psychological torture; is failing to criticise
the use of torture by its allies in Iraq, Guantanomo, Palestine,
Afghanistan and Europe; is enabling the use of torture facilities in
Afghanistan; and is itself using police tactics and prison conditions of
physical and psychological torture.

It is no coincidence, in a situation like the present, where the "war on
terror" is being used to advance an agenda of economic and political
domination, that norms against torture are coming under deliberate and
concerted pressure. Security Certificates are a tool that has been put to
use in the post-9/11 climate of racist hysteria around "national security"
to attack the Muslim and Arab communities, migrants and broader civil
liberties. The historical parallels are clear:
Japanese-Canadians interned and deported from Canada during World War II
and the "red scare" of the McCarthy era. These should stand as warnings to
us.

For more information: http://noii-van.resist.ca

ABOLISH SECURITY CERTIFICATES NOW!
NO ONE IS ILLEGAL!


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No One is Illegal- Vancouver
web: http://noii-van.resist.ca
email: 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.