Abousfian Abdelrazik was arrested on the recommendation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) while on a visit to Sudan. Never charged, he was beaten and threatened during two periods of detention. In this context, Abdelrazik was interrogated by CSIS officials. After his sixth year in exile, the government was finally forced by the Federal Court to allow Abdelrazik to return to Canada. On 27 June 2009, Abdelrazik returned to Montreal and was reunited with his family at last. However, his struggle is not over. He must now seek to get his name off the UN's notoriously unfair 1267 list, seek accountability, and get his life back to normal.
Mohamad Zeki Mahjoub was accepted as a refugee to Canada in 1996, fleeing political persecution and human rights violations in Egypt. In June 2000, Mahjoub was arrested and detained on a security certificate, eventually being transferred to "Guantanamo North". Mahjoub, with two of the other detainees at Guatanamo North, went on hungerstrike in winter of 2006. He ended the 93-day hunger strike just before a February 15th 2007 Federal Court ruling ordering Mahjoub to be released. The conditions of his release were extremely severe, and in practice turned his home into a prison and his family into his prison guards. On 18 March 2009, Mahjoub returned to prison at Guantanamo North in Kingston. He could no longer subject his family to the intolerable and humiliating invasions of their privacy that the conditions of his house arrest required.
Mohammad Mahjoub began his second hungerstrike on June 1st. On November 26th, on the 179th day of this hungerstrike, he was hospitalized.
Popular education materials have been developed on immigration security measures. Some of these resources tell the stories of the victims of the Canadian national "security" agenda.
From secret trials to extraordinary rendition to deportation to torture, the list of victims of the so-called national security agenda keeps growing. Some of the cases that have gone public are collected here. Many more are kept private and go unreported...
From Omar Khadr in Guantanamo Bay to Ivan Apaolaza Sancho, who was held at RDP prison in Montreal for over a year and deported on the basis of information obtained under torture, to Hassan Almrei, a security certificate victim in Ontario who has been detained without charge for almost seven years under threat of being deported to face torture in Syria, Canadian officials are involved in torture.
This is part of a dangerous trend to deny some people their most fundamental human rights, ironically, in the name of "security" and even "civilization". Public ignorance, political exclusion and racism have allowed this to continue for far too long.
Actions in Montreal are taking place to bring into the open Canadian complicity in torture in the name of the so-called "war on terror".
For three days, the People's Commission on Immigration "Security" Measures held Public Hearings at a community centre in Montreal's St-Henri neighbourhood. The first popular commission of inquiry to take place in Quebec, it was set up to look into the injustices and abuses inflicted on immigrants in the name of national security, and to offer recommendations for change and action.
The People's Commission Network is a working group of QPIRG-Concordia qpirgconcordia.org 514.848.7585 info@qpirgconcordia.org
Contact the People's Commission Network: 1500 Maisonneuve West, suite 204 Montreal, QC H3G 1N1 abolissons@gmail.com
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