SOS: URGENT MESSAGE FOR CANADIANS!

FEDERAL COURT OF APPEAL CHALLENGE 

ON THE CONSTITUTIONALITY

OF SECURITY CERTIFICATES.

 

Sophie and her husband Mohamed Harkat

February 20, 2012

Challenging Canada's Security Certificate

Justice for Mohamed Harkat

Please ask everyone you know to sign our Statement Against Security Certificates/Secret Trials in Canada. We are 110 signatures away from 5000!

We need to show the Federal Court of Appeal that many oppose this secretive process.

If you are in Ottawa: WE NEED TO PACK THE COURTROOM this Tuesday, February 21st at 9:30 sharp, on the 10th floor of the Thomas D'Arcy McGee building at 90 Sparks Street in Ottawa.

We will be in court from Feb. 21st-23rd.

PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS.  Please watch our website for updates.

The public is free to come and go at any time, but seating is limited, so please arrive early to go through security and get a seat.

Thank you for your continued support and solidarity. May justice prevail !

Related: Who's the terrorist?  It might be you! 
 

STATEMENT AGAINST SECURITY CERTIFICATES

We, the undersigned, have grave concerns regarding the continued use of sections 9, 76-87 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which allow for the imprisonment in Canada of refugees and permanent residents under the authority of a “Security Certificate”.

The new version of this measure - which included only cosmetic changes in the form of a very limited appeal provision and of the introduction of "special advocates", whose ability to act on behalf of the detained is extremely limited - still maintains a veil of secrecy over any information that may be used against the detained.

Therefore, we are concerned that those detained under security certificates are:

• Imprisoned indefinitely on secret evidence, though no charges have been laid against them;

• Tried in unfair judicial proceedings where information is not disclosed to the detainee or their lawyer;

• Denied the full right to appeal when the certificate is upheld in a process that uses the lowest standard of proof of any court in Canada;

• Under threat of deportation even when they face unfair imprisonment, torture or death.

We believe that the existing Security Certificate process is undemocratic; violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; and violates fundamental human rights, to which the government of Canada has committed itself through the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on Refugees, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the UN Convention on Torture.

Accordingly, we demand that the Security Certificate process be abolished.

For those currently detained under security certificates, we demand:

• That their certificates be removed, and, 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.

• That they not be deported.