Court to Ottawa: Rewrite anti-terror law
TheStar.com - News

Supreme Court overturns anti-terror security certificates

February 23, 2007

Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down the security certificate system used by the federal government to detain and deport foreign-born terrorist suspects.

In a 9-0 judgment, the court found that the system, described by government officials as a key tool for safeguarding national security, violates the Charter of Rights.

But the court suspended the judgment from taking legal effect for a year, giving Parliament time to write a new law complying with constitutional principles.

Critics have long denounced the certificates, which can lead to deportation of non-citizens on the basis of secret intelligence presented to a Federal Court judge at closed-door hearings.

Those who fight the allegations can spend years in jail while the case works its way through the legal system. In the end, they can sometimes face removal to countries with a track record of torture.

The system was challenged on constitutional grounds by three men from Morocco, Syria and Algeria — all alleged by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to have ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

All deny any such ties.

http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/185051

Globe and Mail
15 Feb. 2007
Mahjoub ordered freed pending government review of case

COLIN FREEZE

Globe and Mail Update

TORONTO ­ An Egyptian who has been jailed in Canada for nearly seven years on suspicion of possible links of al-Qaeda was ordered freed on bail this morning by a Federal Court judge.

Mohammed Zeki Mahjoub worked on a Sudanese farm for Osama bin Landen in the mid-1990s but has faced no criminal charges since coming to Canada in as an asylum seeker.

He has been jailed under the Immigration Act's national-security provisions since 2000, but is now to be freed on some form of conditional release. Mr. Justice Richard Mosley has ruled that any threat that Mr. Mahjoub may represent has been effectively neutralized by his years of being locked away.

”It's pretty much house arrest,” said Matthew Behrens, an activist who has long been pressing for the rights of Mr. Mahjoub and prisoners jailed in similar circumstances. He said it is likely that the Egyptian detainee will be made to wear an ankle bracelet and remain mostly confined to his Toronto home, as his case continues to be mulled by judges.

Some freedoms will be permitted. ”He'll be able to take the kids the school,” Mr. Behrens said in an interview.

It's not clear when Mr. Mahjoub would be released. He is currently on the 83rd of a hunger strike aimed at a improving the conditions of a new prison he his held in, one built for immigrants labelled security threats like himself.

Two detainees suspected of links to al-Qaeda remain there, while two others have been ordered freed from prison in recent years.

While these cases are not new, they have drawn increased attention from Parliamentarians and the media in recent weeks. Mr. Behrens believes the Canadian public is no longer taking the government's national-security claims at face value.

”People have been able to see them as human beings not as these ogres and caricatures,” he said. ”This has been a human-rights embarrassment for this country.”

Five fundamentalist Muslim immigrants continue to be branded threats to national security, but three of them – including Mr. Mahjoub – have now been ordered freed until the government can figure how to deport them.

Recent court decisions have stated that these men cannot be sent back to their homelands if it is likely they will be tortured there. The overall constitutionality of what's known as the ”security certificate” process is also being reviewed by Canada's Supreme Court.

In 2000, two federal cabinet ministers signed off on secret intelligence information that allowed Mr. Mahjoub to be arrested and labelled him a threat to national security. Much of the case has since been revealed in court, but the government continues to use classified evidence to detain him until he can be deported.

The case has stalled at Federal Court, as judges weigh claims that Canada would violate the suspect's rights by deporting him to a state that would likely torture him. Before yesterday, a string of Mr. Mahjoub's bail applications had failed.

The competing national security and human-rights claims basically left Mr. Mahjoub and the others in a legal limbo for years. Recently, the hunger strike he and two other detainees have staged at a new Canadian prison have drawn the sympathies of the broader public and of Parliamentarians.

Canada's Parliament this week endorsed a Liberal MP's motion to improve conditions at the new prison, by giving the detainees better access to health care, family visits, and correctional oversight. The motion, however, does not bind the government to act.

Previous hunger strikes staged by Mr. Mahjoub and the others had been largely ignored by Parliamentarians and the public.

The New York Times

February 8, 2007

U.S. May Be Mishandling Asylum Seekers, Panel Says

By RACHEL L. SWARNS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 - A bipartisan federal commission warned on Wednesday
that the Bush administration, in its zeal to secure the nation's borders
and stem the tide of illegal immigrants, may be leaving asylum seekers
vulnerable to deportation and harsh treatment.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, which
Congress asked to assess asylum regulations, found two years ago that
some immigration officials were improperly processing asylum seekers for
deportation. The commission, which also found that asylum seekers were
often strip-searched, shackled and held in jails, called for safeguards
in the system of speedy deportations known as expedited removal, to
protect those fleeing persecution.

But the commission, which will issue its new findings on Thursday, says
officials have failed to put into effect most of its 2005
recommendations. It says the failures come even as the Bush
administration has significantly expanded efforts to detain and swiftly
deport illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico without
letting them make their case before an immigration judge.

"We are clearly concerned as to whether, in addition to prioritizing
secure borders, the government is ensuring fair and humane treatment of
legitimate asylum seekers," said Felice D. Gaer, who is head of the
commission, which was created by Congress in 1998. "We are really quite
disappointed and dismayed by the lack of a response."

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who is chairman
of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, also expressed concern about
the slow pace of change. Mr. Lieberman said he planned to introduce
legislation by March to require the Department of Homeland Security to
adopt several of the commission's main recommendations.

Officials from the Homeland Security Department emphasized that they had
put into effect some recommendations, including naming the first senior
adviser for refugee and asylum policy and updating training for
immigration officers, detention workers and other personnel.

But they said many other recommendations were impractical given the
challenges in trying to stop illegal immigrants from pouring into the
country.

"We have taken their report seriously," said Stewart A. Baker, an
assistant secretary of homeland security. "But some of their
recommendations just weren't practical given the enormous flood of
illegal immigrants that we deal with every day."

Mr. Baker said the department looked forward to working with Mr.
Lieberman and would review his measure after it had been introduced.

In its report, the commission praised the Justice Department, which
oversees immigration courts, for training immigration judges on asylum
law, expanding the number of legal orientation programs for detained
immigrants and trying to improve immigration court decisions.

But the commission was sharply critical of the Department of Homeland
Security, whose border agents and immigration officers interview asylum
seekers at airports or land crossings.

Domestic security regulations require that immigration officials refer
an illegal immigrant for what is known as a credible-fear interview if
the immigrant indicates "an intention to apply for asylum, a fear of
torture or a fear of return to his or her country." The asylum seeker is
then removed from the expedited removal process so an immigration judge
can review the claim.

But the commission found no evidence that domestic security officials
had taken steps to ensure that agents advised immigrants to ask for such
protection or to ensure that agents did not deport immigrants who
express fear of deportation.

The commission also found no indication that the Department of Homeland
Security had taken steps to ensure that asylum seekers were not treated
like criminals while their claims were being evaluated. Mr. Stewart said
that it would be too burdensome to create a separate detention program
for asylum seekers and that such a system might create incentives for
people to claim that they were fleeing persecution.

Eleanor Acer of Human Rights First said the failure to address such
problems promptly had "real human consequences."

"Asylum seekers continue to be jailed in these prisonlike facilities for
months and, in some cases, for years," Ms. Acer said.

The commission also expressed concern that officials chose to expand the
expedited removal process before addressing the problems in the handling
of asylum seekers.

Refugee agreement hurts queers

THE WORLD WITHIN / Government condemns potential refugees to danger
Ariel Troster / Capital Xtra / Thursday, February 01, 2007
Hundreds of queer people disappeared from Canada last year, and you didn't even know it. In fact, they failed to arrive at our borders. And because we have no way of knowing their names, we can't seek justice for them.

On Dec 29, 2004, Canada and the United States implemented the Safe Third Country Agreement, which designates both countries as "safe" for refugees. As a result, people are forced to make their claim in the first of the two countries that they reach. So even if a person fleeing persecution must cross through the US en route to Canada, they have no choice but to try and make their cases in the States.

In 2005, the first year after the agreement was implemented, the number of refugee claims dropped by a third, and the decrease at the land border was even more dramatic, with numbers only at 51 percent of what they were in 2004. In other words, refugees are getting the message loud and clear: Canada's borders are closed to them now.

And while we have no way of gauging how many people fleeing persecution for being gay or trans were refused entry into Canada, we do know what they can expect when Canada slams its door in their faces. If they only recently arrived in the US, they have the option of making a claim there, but they have to do it with in one year. They might be thrown in jail in the meantime, and if their claim is refused, they will be deported back to the country they sought to escape. So many have no choice but to live underground as non-status workers, with no access to social services, and the constant threat of deportation hanging over their heads.

According to Janet Dench from the Canadian Council For Refugees, the Safe Third Country Agreement presents particular difficulties for queer refugees.

"One of the big issues that we've highlighted is the issue of the one-year deadline," she said in a recent phone interview. "In the US, you must make a claim within one year of arriving. People claiming based on sexual orientation might not know that they are eligible for protection. And if they are coming from a homophobic society, it might take longer than a year to grow into an understanding of who they are."

This is not to mention the fact that the designation of the US as "safe" for refugees is questionable, especially when it comes to queer people. Among the reactionary legislation that the Bush administration has ushered in recently is the Real ID Act, which makes it far more difficult for refugees to prove their claims of persecution. The Act penalizes people for not revealing every detail of their humiliation during their first encounter with an immigration official. So for example, if a woman is fleeing sexual violence, she could be deported for not describing every excruciating detail to the male immigration worker who interviews her the first time.

The US also casts a wide net when accusing people of providing "material support" for terrorism. Even if refugees are forced at gunpoint to pay bribes to militia groups in order to guarantee safe passage out of their home country, they are likely to be labelled as terrorists by the US government, and deported back to places where they could be tortured.

According to Dench, the Real ID Act disproportionately affects queers because, "the law makes it stricter in terms of providing corroborating evidence of persecution. When people are fleeing because of their sexual orientation, it's often not spelt out. Homophobia happens in the shadows in many parts of the world. Both the experience of being gay and the way people are persecuted is not always explicit."

Dench also points out that the act gives US immigration officials the discretion to judge people based on their demeanor. Ironically, an applicant could be rejected for not appearing gay enough.

Growing up in a Jewish family, I often heard about how the Canadian government turned its back on Jewish refugees during the Second World War. When asked how many Jews Canada would welcome, one high-ranking immigration official said, "none is too many." Today, the Safe Third Country Agreement is effectively closing the door to people who would have normally qualified for asylum under the Canadian immigration system, including people forced to leave home because their gay or trans identity puts them in grave danger.

We might never know their stories. That's why our community should fight the Safe Third Country Agreement, before more queer people silently disappear.
Ariel Troster is a writer and activist in Ottawa. Check out her blog at dykesagainstharper.blogspot.com.