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Monia Mazigh
How will 'responsible conviction' help Canadians detained abroad?
The Huffington Post 06/04/2016 - One thousand four hundred. This is the approximate number of Canadians detained abroad. Some of them have been tortured, detained for months without charges, kept in solitary confinement, threatened to be killed or waiting to be killed. This is almost the same numbers I heard over and over since 2002 when my husband Maher Arar was one of those Canadians detained abroad. The response I got then from  Foreign Affairs officials was that "Canada uses quiet diplomacy." I didn't understand what "quiet diplomacy" means when your loved one has been in a dungeon beaten with electrical cables and the dictator safe in his palace surrounded by his guards. Fourteen years, two changes of governments later, it seems that there has been a change in vocabulary used by Foreign Affairs but yet not in attitudes or in actions.
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When Canadian police can't charge people for terrorism, they use peace bonds
Vice News 02/04/2016 - The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which has been highly critical of Bill C-51 since its inception, maintains that limiting one's civil liberties using a peace bond is the wrong way to go about terrorism investigations. "It's better to charge a person or to release them," said Sukanya Pillay of the CCLA. "The problem with having peace bonds with terrorism is you can limit an individual's liberty on a very low threshold." The progressively "weakening" standards "take us down a problematic road," Pillay added, referencing the more stringent legal requirements for peace bonds that existed prior to Bill C-51. "Our concern is that we shouldn't  weaken the standard so that it becomes normal to interfere with someone's liberties." On his blog, Craig Forcese, who teaches national security law at the University of Ottawa, agrees we need to be "clear-eyed" on the risks. "Whenever standards of evidence are this relaxed, the chance of false positives increases," he writes. "Therefore, peace bonds are vulnerable to overreach. In that respect, they may prove too strong, wrapping the wrong people into their stifling embrace." Forcese also discusses how easy it could be to breach the "onerous" conditions of a peace bond, which could mean going to jail for behavior that wouldn't be considered criminal in any other context. Simply walking into a room with a computer when one is not supposed to be in a room with computers, for example, would be considered a breach, he writes. Read more - Lire plusBill C-51 anti-terror arrests without a crime concern legal expertsICLMG's explainer on peace bonds and preventive detention |
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G20 class-action lawsuits against Toronto police over 'kettling' get go-ahead
CBC news 06/04/2016 - More than 1,000 people arrested in large groups and held in "inhumane conditions" at a makeshift detention centre during the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto won the right to proceed with two class-action lawsuits against police authorities Wednesday. [...] The court's decision emphasizes that police cannot arrest a group of civilians "as a way of 'fishing' for particular  individuals." It also highlights the role these class actions would play in forcing police behaviour to change. [...] Tommy Taylor, the other lead plaintiff representing those sent to the east-end Toronto detention centre, likened the arrests and conditions as being "treated worse than animals in a zoo. We want justice to be served. We don't want this to happen to any other Canadian, ever again," he said. Taylor was held for 24 hours and released without charge. "I actually passed out begging for water," he said. "For Canada, it was a pretty big failure, pretty dehumanizing experience." Read more - Lire plusPrivate security firm GardaWorld, Canada's Blackwater, is a danger to democracy
rabble.ca 06/04/2016 - Last week students at L'Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) disrupted a board meeting after learning administrators planned to sign a $50 million, seven-year, contract with security giant GardaWorld. Protesters are angry the administration has sought to expel student leaders and ramp up security at the politically active campus as they cut programs.  The world's largest privately held security firm, Garda is open about its need for repressive university, business and political leaders. The Montreal firm's chief executive, Stephan Cretier, called the 2012 Québec student strike "positive" for business: "Naturally, when there's unrest somewhere -- the Egyptian election or some disruption here in Quebec or a labour disruption somewhere -- unfortunately it's usually good for business." But, that's not half of it. Read more - Lire plusCriminalizing farmers' activism in ColombiaWhy we should teach about the FBI's war on the civil rights movement
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Michael Dawson: The Canadian military wants armed drones. Here's why we should say no.
iPolitics 01/04/2016 - Almost all the defence policy experts in Canada these days seem to think that that the Canadian Armed Forces need to acquire drones suitable not just for surveillance, but for engaging the enemy in low-intensity wars. I think the experts are wrong - dead wrong. Acquiring armed drones - MQ-1 Predators or the larger MQ-9 Reaper, Washington's attack drones of choice - would risk involving Canada in all manner of military follies and morally  questionable acts of assassination. Because deploying armed drones is so easy - and so low-profile - when compared to fighter-bombers, their presence in the arsenal would solidify an expectation in the CAF that their primary role is to serve in expeditionary campaigns run by the U.S. or NATO. Our military, in other words, would want to serve alongside its big brothers in drone campaigns and, inevitably, would end up using those drones to target individuals. Coalition targeting practices are applied to all, modified by some caveats; once in, we'd be engaging in the same kind of morally shaky acts we've seen the Americans commit in the name of fighting terrorism. Let's not kid ourselves.
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Mass surveillance
Surveillance globale
La liberté d'expression menacée par la surveillance de masse, selon un étude
La Presse 31/03/2016 - La surveillance de masse des communications en ligne pousse nombre d'internautes à s'autocensurer, y compris ceux qui affirment « n'avoir rien à cacher », et limite la diversité d'opinions à un degré préoccupant. Le constat figure dans une nouvelle étude parue dans la revue Journalism & Mass Communication Quartely, qui sonne l'alarme quant à l'impact potentiellement néfaste sur la liberté d'expression de pratiques mises en lumière aux États-Unis par Edward Snowden. [...] Dans la vaste majorité des  cas, écrit la chercheuse responsable, Elizabeth Stoycheff, les participants ayant été sensibilisés par le message sur la NSA se montraient beaucoup moins disposés à exprimer leur opinion s'ils avaient l'impression qu'elle n'était pas conforme à celle de la majorité. Ceux qui étaient les plus susceptibles d'adopter un comportement conformiste sont ceux qui soutenaient le plus les programmes de surveillance. « Ces individus prétendent que la surveillance est nécessaire pour assurer la sécurité nationale et qu'ils n'ont rien à cacher. Toutefois, quand ces individus ont l'impression qu'ils sont surveillés, ils modifient volontairement leur comportement - exprimant leurs opinions quand ils sont en phase avec la majorité et les taisant dans le cas contraire » - Elizabeth Stoycheff, chercheuse responsable de l'étude.
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Autres nouvelles - More news
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Action
Become a social media champion!
Are you on Facebook and/or Twitter? If you are and you would like to support ICLMG's work, you can start today by becoming one of our social media champions.  - Like our Facebook page and like, share and comment on our posts. - Follow us on Twitter. - Write a review on our Facebook page and invite your friends to like our page.
- Set yourself a goal of sharing ICLMG's content once a week, or more. - Ask to receive emails with convenient, easy-to-share social media links to our press releases, reports and weekly News Digest. See details and more ideas here
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Action
Stop stingray surveillance!
OpenMedia - Stingrays (also known as "IMSI-catchers") are surveillance devices that can suck up every piece of sensitive, personal info in our cell phones. Every call, email, and text - our most intimate moments. You don't have to do anything wrong to be a victim. Stingrays CAN'T target one  person. They CAN vacuum up an entire neighbourhood, or up to 10,000 people's private data at once. We know they're being used in countries including the U.S. and Australia, and other governments are fighting to keep their use a secret. We must rein this in. Tell law-makers: It's time to put a stop to invasive Stingray cellphone surveillance.
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Action
Free Huseyin Celil
Amnesty International - Huseyin has been in prison for 10 years after an unfair trial.  Take action now to ensure that Huseyin is not subject to another 10 years of unfair treatment.
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Action
PM Trudeau: Call on the UAE to free Canadian citizen Salim Alaradi now!
ICLMG - Salim Alaradi, a Canadian citizen and father of 5 young children, has been detained without charge in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)  since August 2014. We are also worried that he was tortured. His health is deteriorating quickly as his family has informed us this week. Write to Prime Minister Trudeau to urge him to call on the UAE to free Salim Alaradi now!
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Action
Let Khaled leave Egypt!
Free Khaled Al-Qazzaz - Write to your MP to ask them to urge the Egyptian authorities to remove the travel ban on Canadian resident Khaled  Al-Qazzaz so he can finally be free after being detained without charges for a year and a half and released since January 2015 but prevented from leaving the country.
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ICLMG - Canada's numerous national security agencies - including CSEC, CSIS, the RCMP and CBSA - have inadequate or simply no oversight or review mechanisms. This has led to human rights violations such as the rendition to torture of Canadiancitizens Maher Arar,
Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El-Maati and Muayyed Nurredin, among others. In 2006, Justice O'Connor concluded the Arar Commission with several recommendations to prevent such atrocities from happening again: Canadian national security agencies must be subjected to robust, integrated and comprehensive oversight and review. Years have passed and the federal government has yet to implement the recommendations.
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Les opinions exprimées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de la CSILC - The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of ICLMG
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The News Digest is ICLMG's weekly publication of news articles, events, calls to action and much more regarding national security, anti-terrorism, and civil liberties. The ICLMG is a national coalition of 43 Canadian civil society organizations that was established in the aftermath of the September, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. +++
La revue de l'actualité est notre publication hebdomadaire de nouvelles, d'évènements, d'appels à l'action, et beaucoup plus, entourant la sécurité nationale, la lutte au terrorisme, et les libertés civiles. La CSILC est une coalition nationale de 43 organisations de la société civile canadienne qui a été créée suite aux attentats terroristes de septembre 2001 aux États-Unis.
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place in March, 4,946 refugees are still living there, including 1,400 in the shipping containers set up by the French government. The refugee charity said it was "very concerned" at the findings. It wrote in a Facebook post: "This is simply not acceptable. We call on the French authorities to put systems in place immediately to register and safeguard the remaining 294 lone children in the camp."
