The Dominion - csis

Saying No to CSIS

Tim McSorley — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:10:14 +0000

Dozens of groups launch campaign to not co-operate with Canadian spy agency

MONREAL—Nearly 70 groups across Canada have joined a campaign to no longer co-operate with the work of Canada's national spy agency, and are calling on others to join them.

The organizations represent a broad swath of society, covering such a diversity of issues as migrant rights, anti-war organizing, women's rights, social welfare, international solidarity groups, unions and community media organizations. As representatives from several organizations laid out at a press conference in Montreal on Sunday, they share the belief that the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) targets political organizations in Canada and sows fear and suspicion each time they knock on someone's door.

Coalition groups are urging that their members not interact with CSIS agents should they be approached. This includes answering questions or even listening to what the agents have to say. Legally, Canadian citizens can refuse to speak or even listen to CSIS agents; for others, the coalition suggests only interacting with CSIS with a lawyer present.

"Visits [by CSIS] are meant to create psychological profiles, to instill distrust and to create tensions within groups and communities,” said Marie-Ève Lamy, a spokesperson for the People's Commission Network, which has spearheaded this campaign. Lamy added that the coalition believes visits from CSIS agents also aim to aggravate divisions among groups and individuals, discourage participation in social movement, isolate individual activists or community members – actions that do not actually make people any safer.

The idea for the coalition came about when members of the People's Commission Network (PCN), which organizes around questions of abuse in Canada's anti-terror laws, began hearing a growing number of accounts of unannounced visits by CSIS agents to people's homes in the lead-up to the Vancouver Olympics and the G20 meeting in Toronto, both held in 2010.

While the PCN and other organizations were already familiar with CSIS' tactics—visits from the spy agency were nothing new—the renewed and more widespread visits caused concern, especially since stories were surfacing of CSIS agents appearing at people's workplaces, and questioning family members and neighbours of people involved in anti-Olympic and anti-G20 organizing.

Such visits can be destabilizing and frightening, said Lamy. "People don't know their rights towards secret services, given that all their activities are secret. From that came the idea of a community notice suggesting complete non-collaboration if visited by CSIS."

Now two years later, while the visits have diminished in frequency, their impacts remain. Representatives from Montreal's South Asian Women's Community Centre (SAWCC), migrant rights group Solidarity Across Borders, Tadamon! (which focuses on international solidarity in the Middle East, particularly with Palestinians), and the Central Committee of Metropolitan Montreal of the Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux, the largest regional council of Quebec's second largest union, all spoke about how they are advising members to no longer collaborate with CSIS agents.

"We feel that CSIS is preying on our community's insecurities, vulnerabilities,” said Dolores Chew, of the SAWCC. “The countries we come from already have a tradition where people feel they have no other option but to comply with police and the authorities. and we know from our experience that CSIS uses fear, sowing seeds of mistrust, turning people one against the other."

That history of sowing divisions has been apparent for decades in the labor movement, according to Francis Lagacé of the CSN. Canadian security agencies have had a history of infiltrating labor and social movements, he said, pointing to Marc-André Boivin who infiltrated and spied on the CSN for 15 years for the RCMP and CSIS, as well as the spy agency's targeting of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in the lead up to the 1991 postal workers strike.

Most concerning, said Legacé, is the agency's history of making something out of nothing:

"They don't know the difference between organizing and conspiring. [...] [CSIS officers] collect info, and once they hear our answers, imagine that we know 'something,' something on we-don't-know-what. They imagine that it's useful info, they create plot, they continue to interview more and more people and they create a climate of fear and suspicion between people."

CSIS was involved in gathering information on protests, along with the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies, in the lead-up to the Toronto G20 meetings and protests. Of the 17 people eventually charged with conspiracy following those investigations, 11 saw their charges dropped, and of the six facing jail-time, none were found guilty of the original conspiracy charges.

Concerns about CSIS' actions are not confined to Canada's borders either. Singh, Chew and Amy Darwish of Tadamon! all warned that the spy agency's actions abroad should make Canadians think twice about cooperating with them.

“It's important to recognize that CSIS is not our friend,” said Signh. “We can look to renditions to torture, through cases like Abdullah Almalki or Maher Arar [or] the treatment of Omar Khadr at Guantanamo, where he was interrogated by CSIS, and they we complicit in his torture there.”

Almalki and Arar both faced rendition, detention and torture in Syria based on suspect information gathered by CSIS and provided to the Syrian government. Khadr was arrested at age 15 by US soldiers in Afghanistan in 2001 and has been detained in the Guantanamo Bay prison ever since. There are allegations he has been tortured while in custody, and human rights groups say that as a minor he should have been treated as a child soldier under the Geneva Convention.

Despite these incidents, information sharing between CSIS and international intelligence agencies known or suspected to use torture continues.

“It maintains intelligence sharing agreements with 147 other agencies, including not only Israel's Mossad, but also the Mukhabarats or secret police of Egypt, Syria and Morocco,” Darwish explained. “This can not only cause complications for people when they travel overseas, but can also put community members and their families at risk.”

The result of CSIS' actions, the coalition alleges, is a chilling effect on anyone who considers joining a social movement, getting involved in community organizing, or speaking out publicly on issues contrary to the federal government's concerns.

“[CSIS' actions] creates a climate of fear and insecurity, so people stop wanting to get involved in community organizing of any kind because they feel it will attract unnecessary attention; it creates a chilling effect,” said Chew who added that the impact doesn't just stop with the peopel who receive visits. "There are many people who would like to be here from my community but who won't come forward. You don't speak out for your rights generally; it creates fear, intimidation.”

CSIS has defended it's actions in the past, saying that their investigations are necessary to ensure the safety of the Canadian public and for our national security and interests. CSIS, though, is not charged with setting those interests, leading some to question to what degree changes in the political wind can impact their investigations.

According to Darwish, the fact that CSIS is mandated to collect information about the influence of foreign interests on domestic activities in Canada provides a pretext for unfairly targeting groups, particularly those who support “national liberation struggles or anti-colonial movements abroad.”

She characterized CSIS' definition of what constitutes Canadian interests and what poses a national security risk as “very narrow” and “influenced by political priorities and interests.”

“In fact, even the Security Intelligence and Review Committee, which is CSIS' own oversight body, has claimed that CSIS has a regrettable attitude that supporting Arab causes can be suspicious,” she said.

Domestic activities also raise questions of the agency's impartiality and whether its actions can be seen as separate from political priorities, said Singh.

“The surveillance of Indigenous communities is one example among many showing that CSIS does not play a neutral role. [...] It's highly politicized and the state determines who the enemies are,” he said. “And historically, the very origins of policing in Canada, the Northwest Mounted Police and eventually the RCMP, was to quell native rebellions and was in the service of Canadian colonialism.”

Echoes of this can be seen today, panelists said, in the government's use of terms like “enemy of the government” in internal documents, publicly characterizing environmental groups as “radicals,” as Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver recently did, or dividing society into sectors such as government “allies” and “adversaries,” as revealed in recent government documents.

Such heavy-handedness and political labeling may come to backfire, though, said Lamy. She said the Conservative government's continued attempts to equate dissent with criminality will lead to the label of “radical” being applied to a growing number of groups from wide range of society. The result, she believes, will be that “the feeling of solidarity will grow larger and larger, because the label [of “radical”] will be stuck to more than anarchists or anti-capitalists or Indigenous movements, but will be applied to a variety of groups that work on questions of social aid, welfare, even women.”

The ultimate goal of this new coalition, and the ongoing campaign against cooperating with CSIS, the speakers said, is to build a greater capacity for self-defense within communities when faced with harassment or interrogation from the spy agency. “[This campaign] is done in the spirit of support and understanding and dialogue,” said Singh. “It's trying to build community-based trust between our different groups and it's there that we can provide proper security versus any kind of threat.”

To that end, the coalition will continue to approach groups across Canada to join the campaign against cooperating with CSIS, as well as share information on what people should do if they or others in their community are approached by the service. Lamy also said that an annual march against what is seen as CSIS' myriad abuses could be in the works for the future.

“[We want to make] sure this gets out across the country and that there are clusters and nodes in every city and town that are getting endorsements and breaking that fear of CSIS,” said Singh.

Tim McSorley is a Dominion editor and member of the Montreal Media Co-op.

Disclosure: The Dominion editorial collective has endorsed the PCN's non-cooperation campaign.

CSIS non-compliance posters

CSIS non-cooperation campaign panel

First Nations Under Surveillance

Martin Lukacs — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Harper government prepares for Native “unrest"

TORONTO—Internal documents from Indian Affairs and the RCMP show that shortly after being elected in January of 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper had the federal government intensify the gathering and sharing of intelligence on First Nations. This was done so that the government could anticipate and manage potential First Nation unrest across Canada.

Documents obtained by Access to Information requests reveals that almost immediately upon taking power in 2006, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) was given the lead role to spy on First Nations. The goal was to identify the leaders, participants and outside supporters of First Nation occupations and protests, and then to closely monitor their actions.

To accomplish this task, INAC established a "Hot Spot Reporting System." These weekly reports highlight all those communities across the country that engage in direct action to protect their lands and communities. They include bands from the coast of Vancouver Island to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

What we see in these documents—from the hot spot reports themselves, to the intelligence-sharing between government and security forces—is a closely monitored population of First Nations, who clearly are causing a panic at the highest levels of Canadian bureaucracy and political office.

In 2006, INAC gave the name"hot spots" to those First Nations conflicts of "growing concern" due to "unrest" and increasing "militancy." In a briefing presentation that INAC gave the RCMP that year, they identified certain communities as hotspots: Caledonia, Ontario (Douglas Creek Estates occupation); Belleville, Ontario (Montreal/Toronto Rail Blockade in sympathy to Caledonia); Brantford, Ontario (Grand River Conservation Authority Lands); Desoronto, Ontario (Occupation of Quarry); Grassy Narrows (Blockade of Trans Canada Hwy by environmentalists); and Maniwaki, Quebec (Blockade of Route 117).

But the "hot spot binder" prepared each week by INAC officials closely monitors any and all action taking place across the country and names dozens more communities as sources of potential unrest. A particular concern of the federal government is that these "hotspots" are unpredictable. ‘Hotspot’ protests are generally led by what the federal government labels "splinter groups" of "Aboriginal Extremists." As INAC describes in the same presentation to the RCMP:

Incidents led by splinter groups are arguably harder to manage as they exist outside negotiation processes to resolve recognized grievances with duly elected leaders. We seek to avoid giving standing to such splinter groups so as not to debase the legally recognized government. Incidents are also complicated by external groups such as Warrior Societies or non-Aboriginal counter-protest groups.

Telling in the INAC statement above is that the identified protests are "outside of negotiation processes" with elected councils. Canada is clearly spooked by the spectre of First Nations demanding Crown recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, as well as Aboriginal and Treaty Rights, beyond the narrow confines of Crown land claims and self-government policies. These so-called "splinter" groups also threaten the status quo by demanding their own First Nation leaders, staff and advisors to pull out of the compromising negotiations

Judging from the INAC briefing to the RCMP, Indian Affairs now operates less as an institution of reconciliation and negotiation and more as a management office to control the costs of Native unrest.

In addition to hotspot reporting, the Deputy Ministers of Public Safety Emergency Preparedness Canada and INAC directed that a summer operational plan be prepared in 2006 to deal with Aboriginal occupations and protests. A progress report on the operational plan reveals the blueprint for security integration on First Nations issues.

The Standing Information Sharing Forum, for example, is chaired by the RCMP and includes as its members the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Department of Fisheries, Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Transportation Canada, and involves weekly conference calls and continuous information dissemination by INAC to its partners.

The inclusion of these government departments at the Information Sharing Forum should also alert us to the commercial threat of Aboriginal resistance to the free trade agenda.

Aboriginal people who are defending their lands are now treated on a spectrum from criminals to terrorists. Under Harper, an intensification of intelligence gathering and surveillance procedures now govern the new regime.

Haudenosaunee/Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy

The reports mention "Warrior Societies" and an "illicit agenda" referring at several points to concerns around smuggling. The federal government deems the tobacco/cigarette trade as "illicit" because Canada is not getting paid taxes by the Mohawks who are operating the businesses.

However, the 1995 federal Aboriginal Self-Government policy, which was developed unilaterally by the federal government, does not allow First Nations to share jurisdiction with government over trade and commerce matters. The federal self-government policy only allows small business operations on-reserve. Historically, the federal government has used the Indian Act to control and manage on-reserve economic development to prevent adversarial competition with surrounding non-Indian businesses and towns. For example, On the prairies, First Nations agriculture was undermined and led to the failure of farming on-reserve because of complaints from non-Indians. This policy of non-competition is still the reality today.

The federal government is particularly concerned about the Haudenosaunee/Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy actions at Caledonia. As the INAC 2006 report describes it:"Caledonia was and remains a significant event in risk management."

The RCMP agree. In a 2007 report to CSIS, they state: "Caledonia continues to serve as a beacon on land claims and Aboriginal rights issues across Canada."

The Canadian government is extremely worried about First Nations taking back lands and resources outside the scope of their one-sided land claims and self-government "negotiation processes," as was done at Kanenhstaton/Caledonia.

In order to contain the situation, the Crown governments have dispatched hard-nosed, experienced negotiators who have presented fixed negotiating positions from the Harper government, which is likely why there hasn't been any negotiated resolution of the situation at Kanenhstaton/Caledonia to this date. The Crown government obviously remains worried more lands will be "occupied" by the Six Nations "extremist" "splinter groups."

Ever since the 1990 stand-off in Kanesatake and Kahnawake, the federal government, the security and police agencies, and the Canadian army have been worried about a repeat of coordinated First Nation political actions across Canada.

The 2007 National Day Of Action

Specific information about policing First Nations was obtained in a series of Access to Information requests about the AFN National Day of Action that took place on June 29th, 2007. A 2007 RCMP brief to CSIS lays out a number of concerns regarding the National Day of Action. The RCMP were mainly concerned with protecting their men and women in uniform from First Nations protesters who confronted the police on the front lines. They were also concerned, by the bad public relations that might result from a particularly heavy handed approach to protesters at the event: "The often disparate and fractured nature of these events can lead the police to become the proverbial meat in the sandwich and the subject of negative public sentiment."

The RCMP also show concern that a lack of coordination, or "a fractured and inconsistent approach" by police forces, could "galvanize Nations throughout Canada." In response, cooperation between departments, security forces, and ministries are deemed to be necessary to provide a strong united front against First Nations protest.

The RCMP also caution that "Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal extremists often see these events as an opportunity to escalate or agitate the conflict." By inference, we can guess that they may be referring to groups unaffiliated with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), unwilling to negotiate under Crown policies, or prepared to engage in tactics not sanctioned by the official leadership, such as property destruction and armed conflict. Non-Aboriginal groups are also cited here as potentially threatening, giving credence to recent targeting of G20 "ringleaders" who feel their Indigenous solidarity work has made them targets of the Crown and police forces.

Cost is a serious concern to the RCMP as well. The price tag for policing these nation-wide events is "exorbitant" and therefore can lead to rash policing decisions where force is used in order to bring a quick end to conflicts. The economic risks of blockades are themselves potentially catastrophic. As the RCMP warn, "The recent CN strike represents the extent in which a national railway blockade could effect the economy of Canada."

The RCMP also express this curious concern: "The police role may be complicated by the conventional and sometimes political view that there is a clear distinction between policy and police operations." Clearly, where the distinction slips between police and policy roles, the RCMP become simply Indian Agents, carrying out the colonial work of the department. Given the information disclosed here, this distinction is impossible to maintain. Where police intimidate and arrest Indigenous peoples on their own lands, there is no law on the police's side.

There is also a considerable public relations issue at stake here. The RCMP displayed concern at the potential fall-out of a number of "perception" problems that could befall the forces:

Perception of a two-tiered approach to enforcement can generate significant criticism and motivate non-Aboriginal activists.

An intense and protracted event may lead to long-standing erosion of relationships for the police and the community—they are usually always the victims.

Because there are limitations on what the police can negotiate and success often depends on others, the role of the police can become frustrating.

It appears as though the RCMP realize to some extent that they must choose between First Nations approval of their policing tactics and the wrath of a public convinced that blockades are criminal, rather than political acts. The police, however, contrary to their assertions, are not the victims here. They are just the dupes in a much older game of cowboys and Indians.

The above RCMP statements show that even with federal financial and managerial control over First Nation Chiefs and Leaders, the same Chiefs and Leaders were still not trusted by the federal government.

One insight emerges strongly here: most threatening of all to security and government forces is coordinated First Nations action. At one point in the 2007 INAC to RCMP briefing, concern is expressed about a First Nations conference because, "The 2006 Numbered Treaty Conference proposed a 'national' movement of independent actions to express discontent."

The concern is obvious in the documents where the government follows the trajectory of the Day of Action. It was first proposed by Chief Terrance Nelson at the Assembly of First Nations' general assembly, where the motion carried. After having been approved at the AFN general assembly the nation-wide day of action was later confirmed in a personal meeting between the RCMP Commissioner and then-National Chief Phil Fontaine. "Mr. Fontaine expressed his concern over the sense of frustration that seems to exist among First Nation leaders and the growing resolve to support a June 29th blockade," a memo states.

The growing unrest, of course, cannot be resolved through greater coordination of security and government forces. First Nation frustration with this strategy will only continue to mount.

Crown Reward-Punishment System Divides Leaders and People

If coordinated action gets the goods, special attention must be paid to the government’s particular interest in "splinter" groups.

Under Canada’s colonial system, the struggle for Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, Aboriginal and Treaty rights has historically been undermined by First Nations who cooperated with the Crown government turning in those members of First Nations who were resisting the Crown’s colonial system.

Over time this evolved into the Crown dividing First Nations into the "progressive" Indian Bands and the backward or "traditional" Indian Bands. Through its various Indian Affairs departments the federal government developed an approach to reward the "progressive' Indians and punish the "traditional" Indians.

This federal reward-punishment approach still exists, although the "Indian Agents" have been replaced by Band Councils who now do the job of delivering Crown programs and services to their community members. Funding for Band Councils and other First Nation organizations’ is tightly controlled by the federal government’s bureaucracy through a system of legislation, policies, terms and conditions.

The First Nations Chiefs and Leaders who become more known and prominent are largely the individuals who have been trained and supported by federal bureaucrats. These individuals become known for their seeming ability to get federal funding for First Nations’ projects.

However, many of these individuals depend on federal support to advance their political careers. This is the reward system at work. Those Chiefs and Leaders who do not cooperate with the federal government often have their funding requests ignored or given less precedence. In some circumstances the federal government will even support "splinter" groups to take out the offending Chief or Leader. A current prominent example of this is the Algonquins of Barriere Lake in Western Quebec, but this also occurred historically at the Six Nations Grand River Territory.

The INAC and RCMP documents make it clear that while the Canadian State Security Apparatus is concerned by "splinter" groups, they are also apprehensive even when dealing with the current Aboriginal establishment. The reports indicate a belief that Chiefs and Leaders from Indian Act Band Councils and First Nation establishment organizations like AFN and their Provincial/Territorial Organizations have the potential to become Aboriginal "extremists."

What the INAC and RCMP briefings show is that there needs to be unity on the ground with coordinated political actions between First Nations Peoples in order to protect, defend and advance First Nation pre-existing sovereignty, and First Nation Aboriginal and Treaty rights to lands and resources. Divide and conquer tactics can only be met with new strategies of alliance-building, and by bringing the leadership back down to the land.

Russell Diabo is a member of the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawake, Quebec, and a policy advisor. Shiri Pasternak is a Toronto-based writer, researcher and organizer. An earlier version of this article appeared in the Mediacoop.ca and the First Nations Strategic Bulletin.

Barriere Lake riot police

Fear: An Olympic Legacy

Moira Peters — Fri, 28 May 2010 05:21:09 +0000

How the security apparatus rules our world

Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn’t Always Better
Matt Hern
New Star Books: Vancouver, 2007

ROME, ITALY—East Vancouver author Matt Hern wasn’t talking about Vancouver’s 2010 Olympic Games when he penned Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn’t Always Better several years ago, but he may as well have been.

Indeed, the book should have been required reading for each security agency linked to the three levels of government as it contemplated delivering a “safe and secure” Winter Olympics without descending into total security hysteria. Alas, the book never made the must-read list of the Integrated Security Unit (ISU), the organization created by the RCMP to coordinate Games security.

The ISU’s mandate, at least as they understood it, was to ensure that absolutely nothing could go wrong during the Olympics and Paralympics. The ISU began by considering possible “threats” based on the evaluations of the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre (ITAC) of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). ITAC identified three key concerns: foreign-inspired terrorism, crime, and domestic protests—and pretty much in that order. However, long before the Games had arrived, the order had shifted and the fear of protest became paramount. Vocal critics of the Olympics found themselves followed, monitored, surveilled, visited, and, in more than a few cases, intimidated and threatened by undercover ISU agents.

In the end, nearly $1 billion was spent on Games security; thousands of police from across the country patrolled Vancouver and thousands more soldiers patrolled cold, wet, mountain slopes. Close-circuit cameras (CCTV) in the downtown core monitored people 24 hours a day and the city and province passed egregious laws that violated our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And despite all of this, the authorities could not, or chose not to prevent the breaking of a few Hudson’s Bay windows during the second day of the protests.

In hindsight, it all sounds ridiculous. And it was. Any half-bright ISU agent (and there were a few) or any Vancouver Police Department deputy chief could have done a more realistic assessment of the real threats and responded appropriately—and far more parsimoniously—by realizing that the assessment itself was badly overblown. The massive preparations were so over-the-top and out-of-proportion that the entire plan should have been significantly scaled back.

But nothing was scaled back. All threats were considered massive and the response even more so.

Indeed, the state of mind that sees anything and everything as a potential threat is precisely the subject of Watch Yourself. And Hern’s book taps into they ways we respond when we let fear rule our world. This mindset dictates that kids need to be safeguarded from being kids; forget protecting your child from playground equipment and strangers, we need intrusive policing and scores of cameras to keep them safe. We need constant surveillance for our own safety, and adults need to have their habits controlled for their own good too. We have become, in effect, the perfect example of the ultimate security state that is ruled, not by a dark authoritarian presence, but by our own fears. And, one might say, such fears enable and nurture the apparatus that feigns security.

Although Hern did not address the Olympic madness—the five ring circus—his book foreshadows the mentality of a security-obsessed society. “l’d say that the Olympics were a monumental exercise in total securitization,” he told me over the phone after the Vancouver Organizing Committee shut up shop and left town. “Not just the billion-dollar, multi-layered policing effort, nor the sea of CCTVs, nor the endless security guards, nor the reaction to protest, nor the bewildering array of security agencies from all over the globe...” a point well made, I thought, “but all these in combination and the willingness of our elected officials and civic leaders to mobilize a huge swath of citizens—city workers, volunteers, bus drivers, garbage collectors, the media—into a comprehensive exercise in discipline and abhorrence of anything not officially corporatized and cleansed.”

In barely a few breaths, Hern had summarized the detriments of the 2010 Winter Games and pin-pointed its greatest legacy: fear.

He continued: “The effort largely succeed[ed] in moving huge chunks of capital from the common wealth into privatized hands and continued to cleanse the city of working class, radical, alternative and affordable possibilities by insisting on a relentlessly ‘safe,’ contained, controlled, clean and tourist-slash-investor friendly ethic where nothing out of order is permitted.”

I write this from Rome, a city that is alive in ways that Vancouver may never be in spite of the aching need to feel world-class. Indeed, much of this angst drove the Olympic venture from the beginning. While we still debate the role of police in Canadian society and worry that kids might fall off the jungle gym, here in Rome kids play outside unsupervised and wander into bars with their parents while people picnic with wine in full view of the constabulary. And who could care less? The streets are filled with people day and night, drunk and sober, happy and sad. Romans have not yet let their fear blind them to the possibilities of being human—a vista that is remarkably refreshing coming from “no fun” Vancouver.

Maybe if we listened to Hern (or simply heeded our own better instincts) and accepted that some risk is the price for being human, we can escape our self-imposed state of fear, a state that is not only sterile, but also soul-destroying.

Chris Shaw is a Vancouver-based neuroscientist, academic and author. He wrote Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games, published in 2008 by New Society Publishers.

For a recent example of Canada's security apparatus at work, see the Vancouver Media Co-op's latest coverage of protests and police response at the G8 University Summit in Vancouver over the weekend. Check out the Vancouver Observer's case-in-point of security using fear at these protests.

Watch Yourself

"You Will See..."

hillarybain — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:36:47 +0000

Bearing the scars of Canadian intelligence

HALIFAX – Abousfian Abdelrazik toured Canada this fall after six long years spent in forced exile in Sudan where he was detained and tortured. He has returned to Canada, despite the efforts of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), or as Abdelrazik calls them, the Canadian Muhkabarat. Mukhabarat is an Arabic word meaning "intelligence," and refers to state security intelligence agencies known for their brutality, torture, arbitrary detentions and human rights violations.

He related his story of the Canadian Muhkabarat at a public presentation in Halifax in September.

“Between 1997 and 2003, [CSIS] started to follow me everywhere. They started bothering my [sick] wife, they even went to her family and to her father at work. 'Give us information about your husband, and we will give you better treatment for your cancer,' they said.”

In 2003, On the eve of his departure from Canada to Sudan to see his mother who had fallen ill, Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen who had never been charged with a crime, had an encounter with CSIS in Montreal.

“Two days before leaving for Sudan, two agents from CSIS came to my apartment and asked me about my travel. One of them said, 'We know you're planning on going to your country, Sudan.' I went back inside and called the police. The police arrived in the parking lot, and asked the CSIS agents to leave. While they walked away, one of them turned to me and said to me, 'You're going to Sudan, you will see.'”

While in Sudan in September of 2003, he was detained by Sudanese state security and initially held in prison in Khartoum. In Sudan, where he was being interrogated and tortured, the same CSIS agents visited him.

“One evening, the same men who arrested me, came and took me. They said 'Your friends, the Canadian Mukhabarat, have come to talk to you.' They brought me to the office, where I found the same two guys who visited me my last night in Montreal, sitting at a table, with nice drinks, cakes, and coffee. One of them, the one who turned to me in Montreal and said 'you're gonna see', said to me, 'Remember what I said to you in Montreal? Now you're going to see! Sit down!' And they interrogated me for two days.”

“He said to me 'You're not Canadian, you're Sudanese. You're going to stay forever in Sudan, my country doesn't need you!'” said Abdelrazik, relating some of the verbal harassment.

Abdelrazik was released from his first detention in 2004, but was detained again in 2005 for nine months.

In 2006, he was added to the UN no-fly list, under regulation 1267, and all his assets were frozen.

The RCMP reviewed their files in 2007, and found there was “no substantive evidence to indicate that Abdelrazik is involved in any criminal activity.” Nonetheless, CSIS maintained “he is an important Islamic jihad activist.” In April 2008, Abdelrazik took refuge at the Canadian embassy for fear of continued detention, torture and possible death at the hands of Sudanese security.

In 2009, 116 Canadians broke federal law and purchased a plane ticket for Abdelrazik's return home. Mere hours before his flight, Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, used his discretionary powers to bar his return.

In his June 4 ruling, Federal Court Judge Russell Zinn ordered the Canadian government to repatriate Abdelrazik to Canada within 30 days, stating, "[Mr. Abdelrazik] is as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists."

Judge Zinn found that CSIS was complicit in the original detention of Mr. Abdelrazik by Sudanese authorities; that by mid 2004 Canadian authorities had determined that they wouldn't seek to assist Abdelrazik's return to Canada, and would consider refusing him an emergency passport that was required to ensure he could return to Canada; that the UN Resolution (regulation 1267) does not impede Abdelrazik from returning to his own country, and Canada's assertions to the contrary was a way to ensure he would not return to Canada; and that the denial of an emergency passport on April 3, 2009, was a breach of his Charter right to enter Canada.

Due in part to Judge Zinn's ruling and partly to mounting pressure on the government, Mr. Abdelrazik finally touched Canadian soil again on June 27, 2009, and was heralded by his supporters.

On September 21, three days before launching a Canada-wide speaking tour with Abousfian Abdelrazik and Project Fly Home—an advocacy and campaign network—Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyers submitted a lawsuit against the Attorney General of Canada and Minister Cannon. Abdelrazik is claiming $24 million in damages from the Attorney General on the basis of false imprisonment, torture, negligence, intentional infliction of mental suffering, breach of fiduciary duty, and breaches of his Charter Rights. He is also claiming $3 million in damages from Lawrence Cannon for misfeasance in public office, intentional infliction of mental suffering, and breach of Charter Rights.

Abousfian Abdelrazik's case is similar to those of Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, all of whom were jailed on the recommendation of CSIS. Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen jailed in Syria and later repatriated to Canada, described the situation in a Globe and Mail column.

"Canadians deserve to know why so many of this country's citizens, all of Muslim background, have been imprisoned and tortured abroad," he wrote. "Human-rights organizations, activists and national-security experts have been calling for the current government to establish the credible oversight agency that was recommended by Judge O'Connor several years ago."

Sarah Todd, a member of Project Fly Home, toured with Mr. Abdelrazik across Canada and helped in the public presentations. "You have to call into question the privilege, and the structures of class, race, religion, and highlight who is targeted," she told The Dominion. "This couldn't necessarily happen to any Canadian citizen, [and] it's important to highlight the two-tiered citizenship rights.”

Abdelrazik spoke of the fear among the Muslim community, in Montreal and across Canada. "I have so many friends in Montreal, who are Muslims, and they live in fear of CSIS, and wherever the Muslims are [in Canada], they are living the same thing.”

"With Stephen Harper, [exporting torture has] become a reality that people accept, and it violates human rights and creates a climate of fear that is totally unacceptable," Project Fly Home member Emilie Breton told The Dominion. "[It] has also made people believe that arbitrary measures should be used in the name of national security. This is a slow move towards a police state, where rights don't exist for citizens. It's important to denounce this and resist it."

Project Fly Home is an initiative of The People's Commission on Immigration and “Security” Measures. The Project came together under the increased harassment of immigrant and racialized communities, Indigenous people, radical groups and political organizations. Its goal is to monitor this harassment, to oppose it, and to challenge the whole idea of the national security agenda.

In an interview with The Dominion, Mr. Abdelrazik stated that the mobilization of Canadian civil society was an instrumental factor in pressuring the government to repatriate him. One hundred and sixteen Canadians broke federal law to purchase the April 3 plane ticket for Mr. Abdelrazik's return, despite UN regulation 1267, which makes it an offence to donate or give any financial aid to the listed person.

"I want to thank them a lot, for what they have done for me," he said. "I think if they hadn't stood up for me, and without the pressure on the government, I would have been forgotten in Sudan for so long. And I would tell them to continue, as there are many cases just like mine. Let us all continue doing the same thing, and bring justice for them.”

Lawrence Cannon, Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, was contacted by phone and email to request an interview for this article, but his press secretary declined to comment due to the current lawsuit.

-----

David Parker is an independent journalist and Spoken Word Coordinator at CKDU 88.1 fm in Halifax.

Abousfian Abdelrazik

Canadian Hypocrisy, CSIS, and Omar Khadr

dawn — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:14:23 +0000

The July 15 release of seven hours of footage of a CSIS agent interrogating Omar Khadr is the first footage released of an interrogation at Guantanamo, and the first time that footage of a CSIS interrogation has been made public.

Toronto-born Khadr has been imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay since 2002. He was 15 years old when he was accused of throwing a grenade that killed SFC Chris Speer in Afghanistan.

Romeo Dallaire is quoted in today's Guardian saying: "[Canada has] worked for years to assist other nations in eradicating the use of children in conflict. But our own country doesn't even want to recognise that our own citizen (is a child soldier). No matter what his politics are, it's totally irrelevant."

Chiming in on behalf of the small but powerful extreme right, hyper militarized Canuck class, the National Post editorial board had this to say today, in an editorial titled Keep Khadr Where he is: "...the question becomes, do we trust an American military tribunal to dispense justice? Frankly, we do."

This situation is so terrible, and so wrong in so many ways.

Click here for information on writing your MP & the PM demanding that Khadr be transferred from US to Canadian custody.