Maclean's 19/08/2014 -  Khurram Syed Sher, a medical doctor who once performed on TV's "Canadian Idol," was found not guilty Tuesday of conspiring to facilitate terrorism - the first acquittal at trial of someone charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Sher, a doctor of pathology from London, Ont., had pleaded not guilty after he was charged along with two other men in August 2010. In his decision, Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland said that while Sher, 32, probably harboured some jihadist sympathies, he was not convinced the doctor genuinely intended to join a conspiracy. As a result, the Crown had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, Hackland said. Speaking outside the courthouse, defence lawyer Michael Edelson said Sher will now focus on rebuilding his life, which has been in limbo the last four years. "His career has been ended, he's lost over a million dollars in income, prestige in the community, and it's been a very, very tough four years," Edelson said. "His family has left, he's had reduced access to his children - it's been tragic." Sher stood quietly behind his lawyer and demurred when asked for his reaction to the decision, saying only, "It feels great."

The Globe and Mail 23/07/2014 - Former Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr is fighting the federal government and the Canadian corrections system for a chance to speak to the news media for the first time. In a letter that provides the first public indication directly from Mr. Khadr that he blames his father and that he would like to speak to Canadians about himself, he expresses worries about misinformation "about me, whether from family members or others." "Much of the Canadian Public's impression of me comes from certain comments made by members of my family, which are untrue," he wrote. "I was a child when I was placed in harm's way by my father." Ahmed Said Khadr, his father, is believed to have been a senior al-Qaeda member. He was killed in Pakistan in 2003. The letter, addressed last summer to warden Kelly Hartle of Edmonton Institution, where Mr. Khadr was then being held, was in protest against its refusal to allow him to be interviewed. It was contained in a Federal Court filing on Tuesday. "I believe it is in everyone's interest, including the public, Edmonton Institution and my own interest that I be heard and seen on a one time basis," he wrote. the first place. It is true that Khadr pleaded guilty to five war crimes in 2010, including murder in violation of the law of war and attempted murder in violation of the law of war. The reality is that there was a plea bargain: Khadr was desperate to escape the hell-hole that is Guantánamo Bay; the U.S. government was anxious to get rid of the last Western, and youngest, detainee, whose imprisonment and treatment there had long been a flashpoint for international opprobrium.

Le Devoir 26/07/2014 - Adil Charkaoui est officiellement devenu citoyen canadien jeudi, la première de trois étapes dans son combat pour laver son honneur. M. Charkaoui n'y croyait presque plus, surtout avec le durcissement du gouvernement Harper, qui ne voulait même pas reprendre Omar Khadr de la prison de Guantánamo. « Je suis agréablement surpris, surtout que ça ne vient pas d'un gouvernement modéré », dit-il. Sa mère, son père, sa femme et ses enfants étaient tous citoyens canadiens. Adil Charkaoui a dû patienter 19 ans avant de pouvoir en dire autant. M. Charkaoui a fait l'histoire du droit canadien. Il a combattu avec succès deux certificats de sécurité lancés contre lui par le ministre de l'Immigration, afin de le renvoyer dans son pays d'origine, le Maroc. Les autorités le soupçonnaient d'être un « agent dormant » du réseau terroriste al-Qaïda. M. Charkaoui et son avocate de la première heure, Johanne Doyon, ont réussi à faire invalider les deux certificats de sécurité en 2007 et en 2009. Selon la Coalition justice pour Adil Charkaoui, l'octroi de la citoyenneté canadienne par Ottawa est «une admission définitive par le Canada que les deux certificats de sécurité [...] furent des erreurs monumentales d'utilisation d'un processus fondamentalement injuste, raciste et islamophobe».

The Globe and Mail 04/09/2014 - There is no good reason to conceal the number of people - and in particular the number of Canadian citizens - on Canada's "no-fly list." Suzanne Legault, the Information Commissioner of Canada, is right to have initiated a lawsuit against the Minister of Transport, after the government refused to provide those numbers to Daphné Cameron, a reporter for La Presse, who had filed two access-to-information requests, simply asking for raw numbers between 2006 and 2010. The government's non-response invites notions that the number of terrorists in Canada is terrifyingly vast, in the hundreds of thousands, or else so few as to suggest that CSIS and the RCMP have identified only a few dozen risks - or that we Canadians are quite a tame lot, in spite of Canada's disturbing contribution to the foreign-fighter phenomenon abroad. [...] In Canada, the courts haven't yet given the no-fly list any comparable scrutiny. It's overdue. In the meantime, Canadians should know the numbers.

 

Khaled Al-Qazzaz has been detained without charge for almost a year in Egypt. Download and print the postcards below asking John Baird, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to call the President of Egypt and demand that Khaled Al-Qazzaz be immediately released and reunited with his family.

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