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Updating Mohamed Harkat's Persecution - by Stephen Lendman
An earlier article explained. Like in America, Canada is waging war on Islam, Mohamed Harkat one of many victims used for political advantage to incite fear and mask Ottawa's support for US imperialism and war on terror, a bogus one affecting innocent victims like Harkat.
Based on spurious allegations of ties to Al Qaeda and the Armed Sayyaf Group (GIA), he was arrested on December 10, 2002 and imprisoned for the next four and a half years under Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provision pertaining to the "security certificate" process.
Until Canada's Supreme Court (in October 2007) ruled it unconstitutional in Charkaoui v. Canada, it let authorities detain and/or deport foreign nationals and other non-citizens suspected of human rights violations, alleged threats to national security, or claimed affiliation with organized crime, using secret evidence (like in America) withheld from counsel.
The same month, however, Canada's House of Commons passed Bill C-3 (a so-called anti-terror measure), amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by introducing a special advocate into the certificate process on the pretext of protecting subjects during secret proceedings.
This and other policies are troubling, including indefinite detentions, whether or not charged, draconian house arrest, and deportations to despotic states, ensuring torture, imprisonment or death, the reason people flee to Canada, believing they'll be safe.
The special advocate provision, is fact, is reprehensible, providing legal cover for an unjust process designed to stigmatize, vilify, convict or deport targets to oblivion - on the pretext of protecting national security.
False! The provision mocks the rule of law, dispensing police state justice against human, civil rights, and anti-war advocates as well as Muslims like Harkat. It denies the presumption of innocence unless proved guilty beyond a shadow of doubt in fair, open hearings with full disclosure of evidence, nothing kept secret for any reason. Claiming national security is bogus. In real democracies, doing so is unconstitutional.
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