The Toronto Star 25/04/2016 - With Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale currently embarking on a sweeping review of national security policy in Canada, and promising to consult with communities and civil society, now is an opportune moment to raise critical issues that have been neglected or bungled for too long. First, the federal government must review the lessons of the past and implement the required fixes. Second, the government must accept the findings of an internal inquiry into the handling of a case involving three other men who were also tortured abroad. Moreover, the government has not yet taken a firm position on the use of torture-tainted evidence, or the sharing of information with states that are known human rights abusers. Third, will the new Office of the Community Outreach and Counter-radicalization Coordinator truly address the various factors leading to radicalization, the role of community stigmatization, as well as security threats from far-right extremists (who have been identified by Canada's security agencies as a leading security concern). Finally, perhaps the most important test for the government will be how it implements the recommended changes and amendments to the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015.

Read more - Lire plus

The Globe and Mail 25/04/2016 - Here's the question: If police want to borrow from the playbooks of modern spies and advance their investigations with secret surveillance techniques or the help of telecommunications corporations, can they prevent those methods from being revealed during prosecutions? The court of Justice Stober, which has had a unique exposure to those issues, ruled that the answer is a resounding no. "The interests of the accused in having a fair trial where the accused is able to make full answer and defence outweighs the public interest in protecting police-investigative techniques," he ruled. While police in Canada may have plenty of protections to keep human informants anonymous, they have no analogous legal safeguards for surveillance technology or corporate relationships.

Read more - Lire plus

US - Email privacy bill passes House unanimously

US court: Cops need a warrant to open your phone, even just to look at the screen

'Worth it': FBI admits it paid $1.3m to hack into San Bernardino iPhone

FBI won't reveal method for cracking San Bernardino iPhone

US authorities drop another iPhone fight after being given passcode

 

The Canadian Press 26/04/2016 - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals have been put on the spot by an e-petition demanding a federal inquiry into unresolved questions about the treatment of prisoners during the Afghan war, something that human rights groups support. Former New Democrat MP Craig Scott, who represented the riding of Toronto-Danforth up until the Oct. 19 election, has gathered 750 names for the digital solicitation - well over the threshold of 500 individuals that compels a reply. The Liberals have until May 30 to respond in writing - and unlike the old paper petitions tabled in the House of Commons, the federal government is obliged to post its answer online. The system of e-petitions is new and only came into effect last December. Paul Champ, an Ottawa-based lawyer who represented Amnesty International Canada and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association in a series of legal battles over the issue of Afghan prisoners, said Tuesday the absence of clear answers has long cast a shadow over the Canadian military. "We never had a true public investigation, and we are a lot poorer for that," Champ said.

Read more - Lire plus

US judge grants torture victims their first chance to pursue justice

CBC News 28/04/2016 - The cover page of a new study on Muslims in Canada features six carefully chosen images: Justin Trudeau, cheek to cheek with a woman in a headscarf, in yet another grinning selfie, a bearded man in a skullcap shaking hands with a policeman, a child in tribal dress, a minaret, a handsome, barbered young guy in some sort of Canada-motif shirt who may or may not be Muslim, and a political demonstration somewhere. The message seems to be that Muslims are a fully integrated, engaged strand in the warp and woof of Canada's social fabric, and that everything is peachy. The report's contents are more clear-eyed. "Muslims in this country," it states flatly, "do not enjoy the acceptance accorded to other religious minorities." The study, produced by the Environics Institute, is an important, scholarly, data-based assessment of a community beset by myths and suspicions, and which, upon inspection, appears to have more commonalities than differences with other Canadians.

Read more - Lire plus

Speaking Arabic while flying

Al Jazeera 28/04/2016 - The recent drowning of 500 refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean Sea was not only preventable, but arguably caused by policy. A policy known colloquially as "Fortress Europe", designed to make the journey to Europe as difficult as possible for asylum seekers. The European Union's two-faced approach to human rights has rarely been so crudely apparent as in its treatment of refugees. Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights is unequivocal. "Collective expulsion of aliens is prohibited." That is the full extent of the article. It is not qualified or mitigated in any way, so self-evident is the principle taken to be. But mark the sequel. The first line of the recent agreement between the EU and Turkey, on the other hand, states that: "All new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands as of 20 March 2016 will be returned to Turkey." Only by the most strained linguistic tort is this not "collective expulsion".

Read more - Lire plus

UK - Labour says 'fight will go on' after Tories vote down child refugee plan

Yanis Varoufakis: Europe's "hot spot" refugee registration centers are "concentration camps"

April 25, 26, 27: Military airstrikes continue against ISIL terrorists in Syria and Iraq

Airstrike destroys Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo amid fears of 'catastrophic' turn in Syrian fighting 

"Horrified": Seymour Hersh reacts to Obama's plan to send 250 more U.S. Special Ops troops to Syria

US to release report on failings leading to airstrike on Afghanistan hospital

Afghan president puts aside peace bids and vows harsher fight against Taliban

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to publish report on global anti-terrorism strategy

UK - Volunteer police 'to work on sex crimes and terror cases'