Kerry Pither

In today’s Toronto Star, lawyer Lorne Waldman points out that the Harper government has been responded with “absolute silence” to the many revelations about CSIS of late — that the agency has been complicit in the detention of yet another Canadian (Abousfian Abdelrazik), and has misled the courts in two security certificate cases by either failing to provide evidence, or providing inaccurate evidence.

Oversight without political direction is not enough. Clearly, it’s serious when any government agency breaks the rules. But what is of even greater concern here is the absolute silence of the political overseers. Public Security Minister Peter Van Loan has been invisible and mute. So has the minister of justice. Their silence sends CSIS and Canadians an ominous message. It is that the problem isn’t that CSIS misled the court or was complicit in detaining a Canadian: the problem is only that it got caught – and the problem will go away if it is ignored. That’s the wrong message: It leaves us with serious doubts about the integrity and competence of federal security agencies. And it leaves us with equally serious doubts about the position of our government on these serious matters. Canadians need to know where the government stands. The government needs to send a strong message to CSIS. The terrorists need to fear CSIS. Canadians should not.

Read his full op-ed here.

Special to the Ottawa Citizen, June 26, 2009

It’s official. As long as the U.S. doesn’t interfere, Abousfian Abdelrazik will finally return home on Saturday, the fifth Canadian to come home with questions about Canadian complicity in his torture.

Has anything changed since the four with stories so similar to his – Maher Arar, Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin – came home and demanded answers about Canada’s role in their torture?

For starters, we aren’t as easily convinced when fellow citizens are labeled as terror suspects. An overwhelming number of Canadians from all walks of life – apparently more skeptical of the security apparatus and the government than Abdelrazik – were willing to risk criminal charges by contributing to his airline ticket home.

That’s encouraging, and not surprising, given all we’ve learned from the Arar and Iacobucci Inquiries about the lack of evidence behind the allegations leveled against the others.

The media is more skeptical too. Even before Arar, El Maati and Almalki were released, the onus was on them to somehow disprove allegations being hurled at them in the media by nameless, faceless officials hoping to distract attention from their own shameful behaviour. Thanks to findings at the Arar Inquiry, and the benefit of hindsight, very few journalists are still willing to publish terrorism allegations from officials insisting on anonymity. That’s encouraging too.

We’ve also seen a shift in the courts, aptly demonstrated by the Federal Court ruling forcing Canada to bring Abdelrazik home.

But have the Canadian government and its agencies changed?

There, the news isn’t as good.

By waiting until a Federal Court forced it to bring Abdelrazik home, the government demonstrated it has learned precious little. And CSIS and the RCMP have yet to express any remorse for their now well-documented contribution the torture of El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin. So despite evidence that CSIS requested Abdelrazik’s detention, it’s unlikely he’ll be getting an apology any time soon.

So where can he turn for answers and accountability?

When Arar returned home almost six years ago, Shirley Heafey, then chair of the RCMP’s Public Complaints Commission, had publicly revealed that the force was refusing to cooperate with her investigations. Even if she had won new powers, her investigation would have been restricted to the RCMP, and Arar would have had to ask for separate investigations into the roles of CSIS, the CBSA, DFAIT and other agencies.

That’s why he called for a public inquiry – one that could subpoena witnesses and evidence from all the Canadian agencies implicated in his case.

Arar won that inquiry, and through it we all won many answers and important recommendations. Recognizing there was nowhere for El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin to turn for answers either, the Arar Inquiry made a recommendation leading to the creation of a second inquiry to examine their cases. And to address the long term, the Arar Inquiry called for the creation of a review mechanism with powers much like its own.

That recommendation, made more than two and a half years ago, has been fiercely resisted by CSIS and the RCMP, and dutifully ignored by the government.

Not that things have changed. Just weeks ago, the current chair of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission announced that he still lacks the power to investigate the force’s national security work. And SIRC has emphasized that its investigation into Abdelrazik’s case will be limited to CSIS involvement, not other agencies involved.

The government, apparently lacking the courage to stand up to CSIS and the RCMP, says that before it can implement that robust, independent and integrated review mechanism, we need to wait until the Air India Inquiry releases its report.

So Abdelrazik comes home to the same dilemma Arar faced six years ago. How will he, and we, get to the bottom of who did what in his case? Must he fight for an inquiry too? If he somehow manages to win one, will that be used as another excuse to stall implementation of a long term solution? And in the meantime, how are we to have any confidence in the agencies that are supposed to make us feel safer?

If the government won’t stand up to CSIS and the RCMP, we must. Canadians must insist on implementation of the long term, efficient and effective checks and balances so essential to delivering the accountability our democracy demands.

The Public Safety Committee’s report on the Iacobucci/Arar Inquiries was successfully tabled in Parliament today, and calls on the government to ensure ALL of the Arar Inquiry recommendations are implemented (including the until-now entirely ignored call for a robust, independent, integrated review mechanism for agencies involved in national security investigations); to issue a formal apology to Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin; and to move to compensate them. Importantly, the report also calls on the government to correct the misinformation about these men shared in Canada and with other countries. The full report is available here.

The Canadian Press is reporting that the Public Safety Committee will table a report today that calls on the government to beef up review of national security agencies, apologize to Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah and Muayyed Nureddin for Canada’s role in their torture, and move swiftly to compensate them so they can rebuild their lives.

The report would wrap up a study that saw several days of testimony on unfinished business stemming from the findings of the Iacobucci Inquiry, and the recommendations of the Arar Inquiry. I testified before the committee, along with several representatives of human rights, civil liberties and human rights organizations. Together we called on the committee to call on the government to:

The Federal Court of Canada has ruled that Abousfian Abdelrazik’s right to return to Canada, under subsection 6(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has been violated by the government. “The Court therefore allows the application and orders the Canadian government to take action to return the applicant to Canada.” See the full decision here.

At long last, we’ll be delivering the 308 copies of my book donated by readers and organizations to parliamentarians tomorrow, Tuesday, June 2. The books were donated by readers and organizations from across the country who believe it should be required reading for all MPs.

The reception is being held on Parliament Hill and will be hosted by Deputy Speaker Denise Savoie and Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Alex Neve. NDP leader Jack Layton, Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe and Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic Bob Rae will attend to accept the books on behalf of their caucuses. It is not yet confirmed who will attend to receive the books on behalf of the Conservative caucus.

Three of the men whose stories are told in the book — Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki, and Muayyed Nureddin — will be on hand to meet with the party leaders and parliamentarians, as will some of the readers and organizations who donated the books.

Human rights and civil liberties groups continue to urge the Canadian government to implement the Arar Inquiry’s recommendation — made more than two and a half years ago — for an effective, independent review mechanism for national security agencies, to fully implement the rest of the Arar Inquiry’s recommendations and to provide redress for
El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin through compensation and a public apology for Canada’s complicity in their torture.

The reception will start at noon and end at 12:45 p.m., and is being held in the Speakers Dining Room in room 216-N Centre Block. If you’d like to attend, please RSVP.

Five Muslim community workers in the UK have made the very courageous choice to go public about how MI5 agents threatened and blackmailed them in attempts to get them to spy on their communities. The Independent’s law editor, Robert Verkaik, has written the exclusive story about their experiences. One of the men describes how an agent who said her name was “Katherine” threatened his family:

“Katherine tried to threaten me by saying, and it still runs through my mind now: ‘Remember, this won’t be the last time we ever meet.’ And then during our last conversation she explained: ‘If you do not want anything to happen to your family you will co-operate.’”

The same tactics have been used in Canada. In my book, for example, I describe how CSIS agents, questioning Ahmad El Maati on September 11, 2001, threatened to stop his wife from emigrating to Canada from Syria, and used the Arabic word mukhabarat (meaning secret police or intelligence agency, a word synonymous with torture in the Middle East) in their conversation with him. El Maati was detained by the mukhabarat when he traveled to Syria two months later, we now know because of information, including inaccurate allegations, shared by CSIS with both Syria and the US. He was repeatedly tortured, and remained in detention for two years, two months and two days.

I tip my hat to these five men in the UK who have made the very courageous decision to go public in a bid to stop this from happening again. It’s a frightening decision — just ask El Maati, Abdullah Almalki, Maher Arar and Muayyed Nureddin, who will always suffer the wrath of CSIS and the RCMP.

Thanks so much to CKUW 95.9 FM in Winnipeg for recording the Dark Days dramatic reading last week. Listen in to Shahina Siddiqui, president of the Islamic Social Services Association, who opens the night, then me, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ offensive lineman #60, Ibrahim Obby Khan and CBC radio’s “Information Morning” host Terry MacLeod reading from and about the book. Now I’m looking for ideas for local personalities who can join in readings in Montreal, Vancouver, and elsewhere in the country…

Darcy James Argue’s 18-piece “steampunk big band” Secret Society has just released a fabulous new album, “Infernal Machines”, which includes a haunting instrumental piece dedicated to Maher Arar. Argue is from Vancouver, now living in New York. His band has been dubbed a “powerful and well-stocked ensemble” and designated an official “Jazz Great of Tomorrow” by the New York Times and is featured in this month’s Village Voice and in Newsweek, which proclaimed that “if Ellington went indie, he’d sound something like Darcy James Argue.” I asked Argue about the piece dedicated to Maher Arar and here’s what he said:

The piece was written in September and October of 2006, after the Canadian Commission of Inquiry issued its final report. I completed work on it shortly after President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act, enshrining into law the denial of habeas rights to “alien unlawful enemy combatants.” It is dedicated to Mr. Arar but it’s really a response not just to his specific case, but to the entire regime of torture, rendition, kidnapping, black site prisons and all the rest, which have become depressingly normalized. It’s also my attempt to break through feelings of apathy, denial, “outrage fatigue,” etc. (including my own) and attempt to express things that can’t easily be put into words. I hope it resonates in some way with others and ideally stirs them to action.

Very cool. “Habeas Corpus” can be downloaded for free from National Public Radio (NPR) here, but I hope you’ll purchase the tune or the whole album from New Amsterdam Records here.

Terry MacLeod, host of “Information Morning” on CBC Radio One 89.3 and Ibrahim (Obby) Khan, Winnipeg Blue Bombers offensive lineman #60 will join me for this dramatic reading from my book, Dark Days at the Eckhardt-Gramatte Hall, University of Winnipeg at 7:00 p.m., tonight, Wednesday, May 13, 2009. Admission is free. For more information contact me here. Details also available on facebook here. You can download the poster for the event here.