On repatriation and separation: how Canada is moving forward with its unjust policies

On January 20, 2023, after weeks of deliberation, Justice Henry Brown wrote an incredible ruling; a ruling that spread hope among many families of Canadians still detained in Northeast Syria. Justice Brown ordered the Canadian government to repatriate six women, 13 children and four men who are languishing in horrible conditions, detention camps and prisons Justice Brown described as “… very poor. In my view they are dire.”

The positive impact of this ruling didn’t last long as the federal government announced its intent to appeal. Then followed the shameful news regarding some other Canadian children, not included in this lawsuit (therefore not affected by the ruling), who have been vetted to be repatriated by the federal government without their non-Canadian mothers. One step forward ten steps backward.

Rights and freedoms of Canadian detainees

During the hearings to repatriate the Canadian detainees overseas, the Government cited the dangerous situation on the ground and its lack of resources (understood here as human resources) as barriers to repatriation. More so, the Government’s position is that those who went to Syria and got arrested have no constitutional rights and thus Canada has no binding legal obligations towards protecting their extra-territorial rights, per the Charters of Rights and Freedoms.

Clearly, those arguments didn’t impress or convince Federal Court Justice Brown who relied on previous Supreme Court decisions to emphasize the rights of citizens to leave and enter their country of citizenship. Justice Brown went even further, citing an example of the political philosopher Hannah Arendt who in the aftermath of World War II observed that a ‘right to have rights’ flows from citizenship and belonging to a distinct national community.

What is interesting and explicit in the ruling is the reference to this alleged ‘exile’ and ‘banishment’ that seems to be veiling the inaction of the Canadian government. Justice Brown wrote:

“To begin with, the Supreme Court of Canada established three decades ago that subsection 6(1) is aimed at prohibiting the banishment or exile of Canadian citizens by their government. It is aimed at preventing the Government of Canada and any and all of its emanations from severing or interfering with the right of Canadian citizens to leave and return to Canada.”

We thought that these past inhuman and cruel practices were gone with the emergence of the rule of law and the establishment of constitutionally-protected rights and international conventions. However, unfortunately these same laws and constitutions are used today by government lawyers to justify keeping their fellow citizens, in this case Canadian-Muslims, abroad, away from their families, and  depriving their children from education and health care.

I was extremely relieved that Justice Brown reminded the Canadian government of its obligations and insisted on the ongoing injustice that these Canadians detainees were subjected to and urged their repatriation.

Unfortunately, this ruling was appealed by the federal government despite several human rights advocates pushing the government to accept the ruling and move forward with the repatriation.

Repatriation and the so-called ‘War on Terror’

It is not the first time Canada opts to appeal rulings urging it to correct its blatant human rights violations. In the case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen detained in Guantanamo for over a decade, the Canadian government, in 2009, appealed to the Supreme Court (and later, bitterly lost) when it upheld a lower court ruling that required Ottawa to repatriate Khadr, the only Western citizen still being held by the United States at its Cuban military base.

Perhaps some would interpret this stubbornness and use of public funds to fight the repatriation of Canadians justified by the ‘fight against terrorism’ and as protecting the Canadian population from dangerous and suspicious individuals. Assuming that this is true, protecting national security should never be done at the expense of violating the rights of others. The rule of law should prevail and playing politics with the rights of some, who are already demonized in the media, isn’t morally acceptable and should have legal consequences.

Canadian children, non-Canadian mothers

Some mothers, living in the camps, were informed by Global Affairs Canada that their children will be repatriated to Canada without them. These women who married Canadian men don’t hold Canadian citizenship and will most likely never set foot in Canada, whereas their children would automatically be considered as Canadians given their fathers status. With their fathers dead or disappeared, the children have no other families than their mothers. But despite these tragic circumstances, the Government gave the mothers a deadline of a week and a half to decide whether they will send their children back to Canada alone. What should we call this other than a ‘barbaric practice’?

We thought the federal government’s systemic separation of Indigenous children from their mothers, their community elders, their culture and their customs was something of the past – that Canada apologized for and committed to end it with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

How did the mothers feel when they learned of this heart wrenching decision of separating them from their children to be safe in Canada or keeping them in horrible conditions, together. Is it really a choice?

Hope pending with ongoing legal battles

Some critics would say that these women might not be ‘good mothers’ or that simply can’t come to Canada since they’re not citizens.

As for the first argument, I think it is important to quote Justice Brown who said that he is not judging the Canadians who went to Syria. He reminded us that every Canadian is entitled to have a different opinion even if this opinion turns out to be unpopular by the majority: “Canadians are entitled to have political opinions, no matter how abhorrent they may be to other Canadians.”

As for the second argument that these women aren’t Canadian citizens, there is always a solution to keep children with their mothers. Other countries did it, so why not Canada?

Faraz Bawa, a Calgary-based lawyer representing one of the women, said he and other lawyers are now working on getting their clients temporary resident permits so they have permission to enter Canada with their children. Simple solutions exist but they need moral courage and political will to be implemented.

Exile, banishment and separation should never be part of any governmental solutions or policies. Justice Brown  ruled on the unjust practices of the Canadian government to keep its citizens in Syrian camps. As for separating children from their non-Canadian mothers, we are still waiting for other legal decision.

It is sad and troubling how fundamental human rights are caught in the meanders of the geopolitics of wars or considered as a luxury. Strong legal decisions, like Justice Brown’s, are needed to anchor these rights into the centre of our democracies.

This article was originally published at rabble.ca

Advertisement

Feds engaging in double-talk on Canadians detained in Syria

Last week, a two-day court hearing took place at the federal court in Ottawa to bring back Canadians detained in Northeast Syria. A group of families representing some of those detainees filed a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge for the inaction of the Canadian government to repatriate their loved ones home.

I watched some of these hearings online and I was terribly disappointed if not shocked by the attitude and the arguments presented by the Canadian government lawyers.

Before going any further, I feel that this matter is merely a political case and shouldn’t have been brought in front of a judge. The legal arguments for repatriation are pretty obvious and compared to them the counter arguments advanced by the government looked so out of place if not ludicrous.

However, if it wasn’t for the unwillingness of the government to act, perhaps wishing the matter to magically disappear on its own, the legal challenge wouldn’t have existed. But the matter didn’t go away, and it is coming to haunt Canada, and it will continue to do so, as long as these Canadians citizens are not repatriated back.

Watching some excerpts of this legal challenge brought me back 20 years ago to my own family ordeal when my husband, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was kept in Syria in a dungeon tortured by his Syrians interrogators. Many times, during his imprisonment, I repeatedly pleaded with the Canadian officials working  at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to bring my husband home. They kept telling me that once in Syria, his Syrian nationality prevailed and that Canada couldn’t do much. That argument, despite its weakness, would assume of course that my husband had arrived in Syria of his own will, which is wiping out the fact that he was rendered to Syria by the American authorities (even worse, later we would learn about the complicity of Canadian officials). Even when the Canadian government didn’t tell me explicitly that they didn’t want to repatriate my husband, behind the scenes some part of the government acted in a way to prevent his repatriation. This double-talk by the Canadian government made my husband stay in horrible conditions for over a year, until the political decision by then Prime Minister Jean Chretien, came and delivered him from his torturers and his subsequent return in October 2003.

After months of campaigning and advocacy by activists, some by politicians and human rights organizations, the Canadian government ordered, reluctantly, a commission of inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials in relation to Maher Arar. That was in March 2002. In 2007, a fact finding report was released by Justice Dennis O’Connor, head of the commission, as well as a list of recommendations for the government so the ordeal wouldn’t happen again.

Few weeks ago, I was invited to testify at the Senatorial committee on human rights regarding Islamophobia in Canada and I was asked by Senator Ratna Omidvar if anything had changed since the repatriation of my husband and the reports submitted by Justice O’Connor. A part of me wanted to simply reply “No” but I quickly changed my mind and gave a more nuanced and elaborate answer pointing to some minor changes that occurred since.

Nevertheless, watching these two days of hearings, I am more and more convinced that a more accurate answer to the senator would have been “nothing really changed”.

The picture is bleak and frozen in time: a number of Canadians, mostly children, arbitrarily detained in awful conditions documented by Human Rights Watch. Their families are being kept in the dark, not knowing whether their loved ones are alive or not, and their government is fighting in front of a judge and stubbornly arguing that these Canadians can’t claim their Charter Rights so thus do not need to be “fetched” by their own government.

Almost exactly the same cold attitude, the same circular arguments and the same stubborn inaction that I was facing two decades ago and that is still making Canada look so bad internationally and even at home.

At the hearing, the government lawyer kept bringing legal cases that have nothing in common with the current cases, except perhaps that they are happening to other Canadian citizens. The same government lawyer tried by all means to argue that these 23 children, 19 women and eight men have basically no Charter Rights and Canada has no responsibility in repatriating them. Worse, the lawyer argued that Canada was not responsible in detaining them and did not request their detention. According to her, they were detained by Kurdish forces – “we are not part of the causal chain” and should not be compelled to intervene to repatriate.

No wonder why it is the same government who had to apologize to Maher Arar when they implicitly applied the same faulty reasoning to his case and told me that his Syrian citizenship superseded his Canadian citizenship while in detention in Syria and thus Canadian laws couldn’t “reach” him. This sort of legal gymnastics didn’t convince Justice O’Connor when he wrote his report criticizing the in-action of the Canadian government and its complicity in keeping one of its own in detention.

When the legal counsel Barbara Jackman, representing Jack Letts one of these Canadian men detained in Syria, opened her statement in front of judge Russel Brown, she rightly reminded him and the audience about her participation not only in the Arar Commission but also in the Iacobucci judicial inquiry that was ordered to determine what happened to four other Canadians who were also arrested and tortured in Syria and Egypt and as expected the Canadian government refused to bring them back to Canada until years later. By invoking that history, Barbara Jackman implicitly reminded the government lawyers of the flaws in their previous legal judgements and their ongoing mistakes in assessing the current situation.

Why is Canada is becoming serially stubborn and complicit in the torture and the neglect of its citizens, specially Muslim citizens?

What is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau afraid of by ordering the repatriation of all the Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria?

As a flagrant evidence of the incompetence of the government is, and its dismissal of basic human rights of its own citizens became the policy Global Affairs Canada (GAC), adopted in November 2021. In this policy, shared with the families of the detainees and their lawyers, the government cited a list of six conditions that the detainees should meet so they can become eligible for repatriation. They were called “threshold criteria.” Needleless to mention that none of the detainees met these criteria except Kimberley Polman, a woman from British Columbia who was since successfully repatriated and is under a peace bond. All the other detainees didn’t meet these criteria.

In November of 2022, GAC would contradict its own written policy by informing some of the detainees (some women and some children) that they are eligible for repatriation. What looks like good news, is clear evidence of the weakness and arbitrariness of this policy.

First writing it to prevent their return and suddenly overturning it a few weeks before the court hearing in an attempt, in my opinion, to prove to the judge that they are working behind the scenes. This looked so amateurish, and I don’t believe that the judge would be impressed by these last-minute moves.

At the end of the two days in federal court, Justice Brown stated that the hearings would need to continue at a date to be determined. It was a big disappointment for all the families who were hoping for some quick decisions that would deliver their loved ones from their ordeals and unfortunately more delays means for the prisoners the continuation of their limbo; they will not be able to leave any time soon. However, one ray of hope appeared in this ocean of darkness and abject manoeuvres to “deny” some citizens their basic rights to security, education, and justice.

According to a tweet by CBC journalist Ashley Burke, Justice Brown stated “he was disappointed because Canadians are at risk of dying every day the matter is adjourned.”  This simple statement restores my faith in humanity and in the justice system, after being so disappointed and shocked by what Canada has been doing upfront to deny some of its citizens their fundamental rights.

This article was initially published at rabble.ca

La démocratie ou Carthage

En décembre 2010, je me suis tenue sur le trottoir en face de l’ambassade de Tunisie à Ottawa. Ni les températures glaciales de l’hiver ottavien, ni la peur du régime de l’époque, ne nous ont dissuadé, une poignée de canadiens d’origine tunisienne, d’afficher notre solidarité avec le mouvement de contestation qui a pris le gouvernement de Ben Ali par surprise et qui a déferlé à travers toute la Tunisie.

C’était le début de ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui le printemps arabe, né du fin fond de la Tunisie, à Sidi Bouzid, une ville de l’intérieur connue pour l’esprit indomptable et révolutionnaire de ses habitants et de leur marginalisation par le pouvoir central de Tunis depuis presque toujours.

Ayant quitté la Tunisie sous le régime de Ben Ali en 1991 pour terminer mes études au Canada, je n’ai jamais cessé de m’intéresser à la politique de mon pays natal. Un pays géographiquement petit, certes, mais connue depuis des siècles comme carrefour des civilisations. Nichée entre des puissances géographiques et économiques comme l’Algérie et la Libye et aux portes de la rive nord méditerranéenne, la Tunisie reste un incontournable de la politique du Maghreb, et du bassin méditerranéen.

Depuis, nos manifestations de solidarité se sont transformées en des marches pour soutenir la démocratie naissante tunisienne. Au mois de janvier 2011, nous étions une centaine à marcher depuis le parlement Canadien à Ottawa jusqu’au Monument des droits de la personne en passant par les bureaux du premier ministre pour démontrer notre soutien à ce changement que nous chantions tous avec ce slogan arabe « Le peuple veut la chute du système » devenu depuis le célèbre slogan scandés par les foules dans les rues du Caire, de Daraa, de Sanaa, de Tripoli et d’autres villes arabes.

Il est sous-entendu que le système dont il était question est le système politique, c’est-à-dire la dictature sous laquelle nous avons tous vécu : un régime policier où les arrestations des opposants politiques, le népotisme, la corruption et les atteintes aux libertés civiles étaient monnaie courante.

Avec la fuite du Président dictateur, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, sous les chants furieux de la foule qui répétait « dégage, dégage » devant la terrifiante bâtisse du Ministère de l’Intérieur où plusieurs tunisiens ont été torturé ou humilié, le peuple tunisien n’avait désormais qu’un seul rêve : construire une nouvelle ère de liberté, de dignité et de prospérité.

Cette nouvelle ère a commencé de 2011 jusqu’à nos jours. Le 25 juillet dernier, une journée symbolique dans l’histoire tunisienne, puisqu’elle marque la naissance de la première république tunisienne après son indépendance de la France, le président tunisien, Kaïs Saïed, élu en 2019, a décidé de geler les travaux du parlement tunisien, de démettre le premier ministre de ces fonctions tout en s’octroyant le pouvoir exécutif.

Ce fut un tremblement de terre dont les ondes de choc se font sentir jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Après l’annonce, plusieurs tunisiens sont descendus dans les rues désertes pour exprimer leur joie avec cette décision que plusieurs qualifient de courageuse et de « coup d’éclat », en contraste à ce que certains ont qualifié de « coup de force » ou carrément de « coup d’état ».

Mais après l’euphorie vient le temps du ressaisissement et de la réflexion.

Personnellement, je suis restée sceptique pour ne pas dire craintive. Les dérives populistes qui prennent d’assaut plusieurs démocraties sont devenues un peu trop familières, surtout avec un exemple assez proche de chez nous. Rappelons-nous le Président Trump qui a régné à coups de Tweets en parlant directement à sa base et en faisant fi aux lois et aux institutions démocratiques centenaires. Bien evidemment, la Tunisie n’est pas les États-Unis. Toutefois, avec sa démocratie bourgeonnante, elle n’est pas à l’abris de ces dérives de plus en plus courantes.

Mais la question qui revient sur les lèvres est pourquoi la Tunisie en est arrivée là.

La crise sanitaire de la COVID-19 est la goutte qui a fait déborder le vase. La pandémie a fait des ravages dans ce pays qui est devenu malheureusement le pays le plus endeuillé du monde. Une mauvaise gestion de la crise sanitaire, une infrastructure sanitaire précaire, des politiciens incompétents, une communication avec les citoyens presque inexistante dont certains sont restés sceptiques quant à l’importance de la vaccination et des médias sociaux qui ont fait circuler des théories du complot qui ont accentué la peur des citoyens. Mais c’est surtout une crise de confiance entre la population qui a perdu une grande partie de son pouvoir d’achat et la classe politique qui n’a pas cessé depuis les balbutiements de cette révolution à jouer les cartes politiques tout en oubliant leur raison d’être primordiale : travailler pour le bien de ceux qui ont voté pour eux et améliorer le sort des plus démunis.

La crise économique : depuis la crise mondiale de 2008, la Tunisie n’a pas pu se relever de cette crise financière qui a touché en pleins fouets des pays comme l’Italie l’Espagne et la Grèce. Une économie dominée par un tourisme vieux et archaïque, une industrie minière à la discrétion des marchés mondiaux, une administration lourde et bureaucratique qui n’a pas pu se moderniser et faire miroiter des avantages fiscaux face aux investisseurs internationaux comme ce fut le cas dans les années 70. Bref, une économie sclérosée qui a pu relativement s’en sortir sous le régime de Ben Ali mais qui a connu sa mise à mort par les guerres intestines entre Ennahda, le parti d’inspiration islamiste et les autres partis et la corruption qui a gangrénée tous les secteurs clés économiques.

Un système électoral et politique hybride et compliqué est resté presque méconnu et incompris par la population en générale. Depuis l’indépendance en 1956 jusqu’à la création d’une nouvelle constitution en 2014 et l’émergence d’un système plutôt parlementaire, la Tunisie a été gouvernée par un système présidentiel : « l’homme fort de Carthage ». Dans la mentalité populaire, le « sauveur » de la nation est toujours un homme, Monsieur le Président, qui prend les « bonnes » décisions pour nous sortir des crises successives. Très rares, étaient les fois où ce sont les institutions qui ont pris le dessus sur ces hommes forts de Carthage.

En 2010, c’est le peuple qui est sorti dans les rues pour prendre le dessus.

Le 25 juillet 2021, c’est un homme de Carthage qui tente de reprendre sa place en sein de l’histoire de ce pays en s’appuyant sur cette volonté populaire. Mais cette fois-ci en mettant de côté ces mêmes institutions qui l’ont porté au pouvoir.

En 2020, lors de mon voyage en Tunisie, je suis allée rendre visite à un cousin de mon père. Un homme de grande culture et qui s’est toujours intéressé au fait politique. Je voulais connaitre son opinion sur la situation politique du pays. Je m’attendais à une longue diatribe sur les partis et sur les politiciens. A ma grande surprise, il m’avait brièvement répondu : « La Tunisie s’en sortira. Nous nous en sommes toujours sortis depuis Hamilcar jusqu’à aujourd’hui! »

En faisant référence à cet ancien général militaire carthaginois du deuxième siècle avant Jésus Christ, qui s’est battu contre Rome, mon cousin paternel me rappelait à juste titre, qu’au-delà des hommes forts et de leur visée hégémonique, c’est la résilience des populations qui survivra. Ce n’est pas moi qui le dit, ni mon cousin, c’est l’histoire qui nous le rappelle.

Une version courte de cet article a été publié sur le site de La Presse.ca

Canada is still in denial about Islamophobia

Islamophobia is real. It crawls under many skins. It kills people.

I clearly remember the attack on the Quebec City mosque. It was January 29, 2017. I was scrolling my Twitter feed and some of my friends shared with me the horrible news: a shooter killed six men and injured several others. I couldn’t find sleep that night until I wrote something that expressed my fear and anger.

I still remember Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, tears trickling down his cheeks, attending the funeral of the six men, who were husbands, fathers, sons, immigrants who came to Canada for a better life and ended up in coffins in front of thousands of mourners.

I thought that these images would be our “never again” moment. In a desperate attempt to find hope, I wanted to believe that this was the last time the Muslim community in Canada would be attacked for our faith, for our hijabs, for our brown skin. I was in denial.  

Sunday, another young man added his name to the long list of Islamophobic perpetrators in Canada. He turned his car into an arm of destruction. He killed four members of the same family: Salman Afzaal, his wife Madiha, their 15-year-old daughter Yumna, and Salman’s mother, 74.

Their son Fayez is recovering from serious injuries, and it looks like he will win the fight for his life.

That family could have been mine. I wear a hijab, I have a daughter and son, my mother lives with us and since COVID-19, I started to go on short walks in the evening with my husband in our neighbourhood. Four lives taken away, one life hanging on, and millions of Muslims in Canada and around the world watching the news, living in constant fear, thinking: who will be next?

Immediately after the Quebec City mosque shooting, MP Iqra Khalid introduced M-103 — a non-binding motion to the House of Commons to study the growing trend of Islamophobia in Canada.

It was met with backlash from other MPs who denied the existence of Islamophobia and wrongly linked it to an attempt to silence any criticism about Islam.

Some pundits and commentators latched onto this misleading argument. Some others contested the use of the term itself, turning it into a semantic fight.

From victims of Islamophobia, Muslims were made out to be some sort of fifth column suspected of changing the values of the liberal democracies.

Needless to say, the motion didn’t pass unanimously.

When the resulting committee report on Islamophobia was released in 2018, it barely contained any concrete recommendation on how to effectively tackle Islamophobia. It was a waste of time and energy.

Meanwhile, the attacks kept happening, specifically targeting Muslim women wearing hijab. Over the last few months in Edmonton, there have been so many attacks on the city’s Black Muslim women that I almost lost count. Strangers outside of shopping centres and transit stations pushing them, trying to remove their veils, swearing obscenities at them in front of their children. There have been at least six such instances since December.

Usually, these attacks are not taken seriously by the police nor by politicians and when they are they don’t result in any significant arrests nor any rigorous change in the laws or any change in attitude by politicians.

Even worse, in the same province where the Quebec City mosque attack happened, a law targeting Muslim women wearing hijab was introduced passed in 2019. Premier François Legault used the notwithstanding clause to prevent any constitutional challenge to it. Prime Minister Trudeau sheepishly shied away from criticizing this political manoeuvre, fearing the electoral consequences on his party in Quebec. He kept a neutral position.

We cannot remain neutral towards racism and Islamophobia. We have to take a strong stance and choose our side.

Overall, the core narrative remains untouched: Canada is a polite and compassionate country; we don’t do these things at home; we are shocked by these acts of violence.

Well, I am not anymore surprised by these acts and unfortunately, I expect more to come.

Canada is a country where anti-terrorism legislation was passed in record time after 9/11 even when we were not personally affected by the attacks.

It’s a country that kept five Muslim men detained for years in solitary confinement while threatening to deport them to other countries where they would be tortured.

This is a country that for over a decade, kept one of its own citizens in the shameful Guantánamo Bay prison since he was 15, and refused to repatriate him until forced to do so.

It’s a country where once, its prime minister used the term “Islamicism” to criticize Islam and insinuate that Muslims conduct shadowy and terrorist business in the basement of their mosques.

Canada is a country where the actions of one troubled man — the Parliament Hill shooter –were used as an excuse by the former prime minister to introduce even stricter anti-terrorism legislation.

This is a country where, in one province, Muslim women can’t become teachers or Crown prosecutors if they wear a hijab.

This is a country where a Muslim woman and friend of mine asked her husband in the morning: are we safe in Canada?

For years, Canada, its politicians and media refused to look at the past and acknowledge the genocide conducted against its Indigenous people. They chose to look away.

Today, despite evidence upon evidence of Islamophobia, some still want to convince themselves and their children that we are a “good” country. Well, sorry to say, we are a country inherently built on injustice. We have a history of racism and a present still full of racism toward many communities.

The least we can do today is acknowledge the harm and slowly work together to heal the wound and avoid more tragedies in the future.

This article was originally published at rabble.ca

Should the Proud Boys be labelled terrorists?

I hate the word “terrorist.” It is hard for me to pronounce; it brings back painful flashbacks of the wrongful arrest and consequent imprisonment and torture of my husband Maher Arar. It brings back years when the mere pronouncing of this word signified mobilization for human rights, activism against security certificates, pushback against Bill C-51, and the physical and emotional drain these campaigns meant for me and many activists. When you have been labelled a terrorist, you are usually a Muslim man — and by all legal standards it is one of the worst accusations, if not the worst, to have made against you.

It doesn’t matter much if your name has been cleared (a very rare occurrence, anyway). Once labelled a terrorist, you will be one forever. That is the power of stigmatization. That is the power of some words.

Since 2002, I have written many columns and spoken to audiences across the country denouncing successive anti-terror legislation adopted by Canada and by countries around the world. I still stand up today to denounce these laws. They unfairly target Muslim communities; they rely on racial and religious profiling. I consider them unconstitutional and our struggle should continue to denounce them.

Guantanamo — a whole island in the middle of the ocean — was used by the United States 19 years ago to indefinitely imprison Muslim men. Without due process, they were branded terrorists. They were waterboarded, tortured, forcefully fed, scared by dogs, and mentally and physically abused by guards.

All of this is still accepted by much of the public in the name of fighting terrorism.

Canada isn’t any different in all of this. It kept Omar Khadr in that shameful prison since he was 15 years old. Successive governments refused to repatriate him. Political parties played partisanship games to use Khadr as an example of vigour and rigour in fighting terrorism.

To this day, Mohamed Harkat, a refugee from Algeria, cannot get his permanent resident status, despite living in Canada for over 20 years, only because he was arrested under a security certificate accusing him of being a “sleeper cell” or terrorist.

In the aftermath of the storming of the U.S. Capitol by hordes affiliated with white-supremacy — who illegally entered the building, breaking, destroying offices and terrorizing elected officials with weapons — Jagmeet Singh, leader of the federal New Democratic Party, started a petition to ask Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “to immediately ban and designate the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization.”

The Proud Boys are a group of men who pursue “anti-white guilt” and “anti-political correctness” agendas.

A few days ago, the federal government revealed that it was examining information about the Proud Boys and seriously looking into the possibility of declaring the group a terrorist organization.

My initial reaction was against such labelling. I strongly disagreed with the whole idea of creating different, specific sections of the Criminal Code to deal with politically and ideologically motivated violence. Canada’s anti-terrorism legislation is rotten at its core. So how can we make it more legitimate by making cosmetic changes or enlarging its scope to other groups, in this case non-Muslim groups?

Does a correct move change an initial wrong move into a correct one? No, absolutely not.

Anti-terrorism will remain a politically motivated tool that governments around the world use to silence dissent, create division within their own populations, and give the public a false sense of security at the expense of vulnerable (Muslim, racialized, Indigenous) groups.

Nevertheless, today I think that we should label the Proud Boys a terrorist group. Not because I like the labelling, but because it is a matter of simple coherence. Up to now, white-supremacy violence was hidden and protected by mainstream institutions — until it exploded in the world’s face in front of the U.S. Capitol.

For the sake of legal coherence in Western democracies, Proud Boys and other white-supremacist groups should be labelled terrorists. Their monetary and financial channels should be tracked down; their social media should be scrutinized; their members should be imprisoned.

Alexandre Bissonnette, the 27-year-old Canadian who killed six Muslim men and injured 19 others in the Quebec City mosque attack, was never charged under anti-terrorism legislation. I thought he should have been. I even remember some racialized activists insisting that we couldn’t be against terrorism legislation while at the same time calling for terrorism charges against him. It was a serious mistake.

Not only did he recieve less harsh sentences than what he would have under Canada’s terrorism law, but when the time came to challenge his consecutive sentencing a few months ago, Bissonnette successfully appealed.

The same dilemma came to haunt Muslim activists: should we call for consecutive sentences, knowing that our own people would be the majority suffering under this harsh punishment? Or should we adopt a more “civilized” approach and accept the fact that a killer will be able to apply for parole in 25 years?

In both cases, Bissonnette won because to start with, he was never charged under terrorism legislation.

White supremacists should feel the pain of racialized groups. They should navigate the unfair legal system; they should understand what it feels like to be labelled a terrorist.

I have no sympathy for the Proud Boys nor for the Three Percenters, deemed to be the most dangerous group in Canada, nor for all the other white-supremacist Islamophobic groups roaming freely across Canada, recruiting former or current police and military officers.

They should face the consequences of their actions — even if it means that one day we fight together against the same system that, at its origin, has created this oppressive, racist, Islamophobic legislation.

Years ago, Audre Lorde, the black feminist, writer, and civil right activist, wonderfully framed this crucial situation: “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” She was a brilliant visionary.

Anti-terrorism legislation is the wrong tool. It overwhelmingly targets racialized people, Muslims in particular. We will forever call for its abolishment. But in the meantime, and while it remains in place, can we use it to eliminate violence done by white supremacists against marginalized groups? Yes, I totally think we should. It is a matter of survival. Until the “master’s house” is dismantled, until that day, I see no other choice than to use the “master’s tools” to protect ourselves and our communities from white-supremacist violence.

This article was originally published at rabble.ca

Legal and political agendas asserted on the backs of Quebec’s Muslim communities

Last month, Quebec’s Court of Appeal reduced Alexandre Bissonette’s life sentence without parole from 40 years to 25 years.

In 2017, Bissonette — who was 27 at the time — attacked the Quebec City mosque, killing six men and injuring 19 others, including Aymen Derbali, who became paralyzed for life.

When Justice François Huot delivered Bissonette’s sentence in 2019, he described the acts as “premeditated, gratuitous and abject,” and motivated by “visceral hatred toward Muslims.”

Justice Huot sentenced Bissonette to five concurrent 25-year life sentences and a 15-year term for the sixth count, to be served consecutively.

However, legal scholars described that sentence as “innovative” and “complex.” Some predicted, correctly, that it would be challenged.

Then-prime minister Stephen Harper — motivated by a “law and order” agenda that appealed to his base and its near-obsession with anti-terrorism legislation — introduced the “consecutive sentencing” principle in 2011.

But luckily for Bissonette, he lives Quebec and isn’t a Muslim.

Despite the fact that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the actions of Bissonette as a “terrorist attack,” there was always subtle but persistent pushback from Quebec politicians and media.

They viewed Bissonette’s actions not as being symptomatic of systemic islamophobia, but rather as an “isolated” incident. It is by this same logic that Bissonette’s father wrote an open letter to French and English media asking Trudeau to stop calling his son’s action a “terrorist” attack.

In my opinion, the decision to reduce Bissonette’s sentence carries four meanings:

• It reinforces the notion that Quebec’s legal system is somehow aligned with the ideals of second chances and rehabilitation for criminals, according to the principles of “liberté, égalité, fraternité” of the French Revolution.
• It appeases the idea that Bisonette is one of “ours,” and that he doesn’t deserve a heavy-handed punishment.
• It sends a subtle message to the Muslim community: to give them a “lesson” in “civility” and teach them how to remove vengeance from their hearts.
• It sends a clear message to Justin Trudeau, daring him to appeal the judgement with the knowledge that it could have implications for his electoral chances in Quebec.

It is both interesting and ironic to see how in two very publicized and controversial cases, the Muslim community in Quebec became the perfect “guinea pig” for the province to assert itself legally and politically.

Take the example of “Bill 21,” or the Laicity Act. It prohibits public employees from wearing religious symbols at work.

The bill was introduced despite everything that was said against it, and despite what several Muslim women described as a blatant discrimination against them.

In my opinion, the arguments that attracted most Quebecers weren’t the “feminist” or “secularist” ones, but rather the notion, subtly reiterated again and again by Premier Francois Legault and his supporters, that “in Quebec, we do things differently.”

This can be understandable. After all, Quebec has a unique status. Nevertheless, it has become clear that some Quebec politicians are asserting a new brand of “sovereignty” on the backs of immigrants, racialized communities and, in particular, the Muslim community.

With Bill 21, Muslims in Quebec are once again caught between a rock and a hard place. The Laicity Act attempts to send several messages:

• The idea that Quebec is a progressive province that is serious about women’s rights, despite the fact that Bill 21 removes some women’s rights to take certain jobs.
• A hidden message: to prove to the public that “chez nous” — we decide on things the way we want to.
• A third message, directed to the immigrant Muslim community: if you want to prove your loyalty to “our values,” you must leave your traditions in your country of origin.
• A final message to Justin Trudeau that was repeated during the 2019 federal election: if you legally challenge our law then you are automatically against us. 

To be sarcastic, Legault and his supporters should thank the Muslim community for unwillingly serving as pawns to achieve his political ambitions. 

More seriously, it is undoubtedly time for action. It has started already with challenges of the constitutional legality of Bill 21, and the likely appeal of Bissonette’s reduced sentence.

This article was originally published at rabble.ca

French state’s demand that Muslims forget colonial history shows double standard

During a first and symbolic visit to Algeria — a former French colony — in 2017, Emmanuel Macron was asked by a journalist about the crimes the French colonial regime committed in Algeria that included killing and raping the local population for more than a century.

The French president, looking annoyed, replied that he knows the “Histoire,” but that he is not a hostage of the past and argued “both of us [France and Algeria]” should be looking into the future. 

A few days before, Macron tweeted an excerpt from an interview he had with an African journalist. In it, the French president gave the same patronizing advice to a young woman who asked him about the crimes against humanity committed by France in Africa.

Implying that she didn’t live through colonization because she was young, Macron reiterated his call for “neither denial nor repentance” and stressed that “we cannot remain trapped in the past.”

Taken at face value, those words seem to fit the attitude of a dynamic, pragmatic and young president who wanted to build new business relationships with the old French colonies. I would have understood this attitude, without necessarily agreeing with it, that in order to build new and better relationships, the past should be moved on from, but from both sides.

According to this distorted logic, France should embrace its French citizens originally from former colonies — without rejecting their religions, cultures and traditions — and on the other side, French citizens from the former colonies should embrace France, without holding grudges for their painful past.

However, this erasure of the past and “looking-towards-the-future” attitude seems to be very selective — mainly to the advantage of the French state, the former colonizer, serving its interests when needed, and dropped when not.

Only the colonized seem to be expected to forget their past. The colonizers have the luxury to bring it up or hide and erase it whenever they see fit. The “forgetting-the-past” approach is always on the French state’s terms, and never on the terms of its citizens originating from former colonies.

Indeed, this same past was brought up recently by Jean Castex, Macron’s prime minister, in order to appease the insecurities of the French political and intellectual class.

Speaking about the fight against Islamist terrorism, the French prime minister insisted that “the first way to win a war is for the national community to be united, or united, or proud. Proud of our roots, of our identity, of our Republic, of our freedom.”

So why can the past, with its crimes against humanity, become a source of inspiration for some politicians, whereas this same past should supposedly be forgotten by French Muslims?

France has a long history with “la problématique islamique.” It didn’t start with the recent trial of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack. It didn’t start with the debate about the “Islamic veil” that has been ongoing since the end of the 1980s — before being eclipsed by the more recent burkini ban controversy on French beaches.

With over five million Muslims, France is home to the largest Muslim population in Europe. And yet Muslims’ relationship to the French political class and media is extremely tense.

Every time there is a tragic event, committed or claimed by Muslim extremists on French soil (regardless of whether the perpetrator is of French descent or from a different country), the media and political machines start a cycle of blaming and targeting Muslim citizens with laws — like the planned “Islamist separatism” bills that Macron announced a few days before the recent horrifying beheading of school teacher Samuel Paty in Paris.

And each time, the debate is simplistically described as a fight between “good and evil,” where evil is always attributed to French Muslims with terms like “Islamism,” “Jihadism,” “terrorism,” “separatism” and “barbarism.” The “good,” meanwhile, is always attributed to French republican values described by words like “laïcité,” “civilité,” “liberté” and “égalité.”

Yet none of these ideals ever seem to be adopted to embrace French Muslims.

After Abdullakh Anzorov, a young Chechen refugee living in France, brutally murdered Paty — who had shown his students the Charlie Hebdo caricatures of the prophet Mohamed — voices in the media and political class were very quick to pinpoint an imaginary link between this appalling act of violence and Islam — and by extension, between terrorism and French Muslim communities.

The mental state of the killer was largely unquestioned. Only his religious affiliation seemed to matter. And, by association, so did the faith of French Muslims.

The government cracked down on more than 50 Muslim organizations, while vigilante groups attacked mosques. A French minister proposed a ban on the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) — an association that tracks anti-Muslim hate crimes — prompting opposition from academics and civil society groups.

French republican values are anchored in a controversial past: a past where the powerful party is always the French state and the weak are those who were colonized — a past that Macron urges Algerians and Africans to forget, but one that the French state is eager to remember and be proud of when it suits them.

This article was first published at rabble.ca

Racism Kills Two Times

I was listening to a podcast with French sociologist Rachida Brahim called “Racism Kills Twice,” when I heard the news that Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) will not charge the alleged killers of Soleiman Faqiri.

How would Faqiri’s mother feel? I tried to imagine the pain of losing a son in horrible circumstances and later hearing the news that no one would be held accountable. 

“Racism kills two times: first when the physical and verbal violence is exerted against the mind and body of the victim, and second when that violence or abuse is denied or not held accountable by the authority. That would leave the victim lost, without a sense of purpose,” explained Brahim speaking about the double violence that she argues racialized people suffer from when they become caught in an oppressive system.

Personally, I think Faqiri was killed several times. When this 30-year-old man, diagnosed at the age of 19 with schizophrenia, was taken to the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario, his family thought that his troubles with the law were, as it happened a few times before, “benign,” and that all he needed was mental health supervision and support.

But Faqiri was let down by the system. He died on December 15, 2016.

That tragic story could have ended with an apology, or at least some explanation. But it didn’t. Due to the tremendous efforts and persistence of the brother of the deceased, Yusuf Faqiri, the family was able to dig further into the tragic circumstances of this horrible death. In 2016, in an interview with CBC, Yusuf repeatedly asked the same questions: “We want to know why my brother died,” “Why did Soleiman die?” “How did Soleiman die?”

Holding up information from the family. Putting the onus on the family to find out exactly what happened before and after the death of their loved ones. These are other ways to “kill” the victim again. To deny them the rest and peace. To prevent the family from finishing their mourning. This is what the system did.

Initially, the answers were scarce. Worse, they were not given straightforwardly by the authorities to the family. They came bit by bit, through investigative journalism and legal efforts, but mainly through the family’s activism.

First came the coroner report. It indicated that Soleiman Faqiri died inside a segregation cell at the detention facility following an altercation with guards. He was found with dozens of injuries, including blunt force trauma. The report mentions “obvious injuries,” but the cause of the death remained “unknown.” And when the family asked for accountability, their demands were left unanswered. 

More disappointment came when after conducting an investigation, the Kawartha Lakes Police Service decided to not lay charges.

The decision came after years of fighting for answers, and after a nearby inmate housed just across from Soleiman’s cell at the time of the incident broke his silence with an eyewitness account. The pressure built on OPP to do something. 

In 2019, OPP re-opened the case and promised to conduct an independent investigation. That was received with relief and optimism by the family.

Meanwhile, the family learned more details about how Soleiman died. He was pepper-sprayed, his ankles and hands were cuffed, a “spit hood” was placed over his head and 50 signs of blunt force trauma were found all over his body. Most likely it was a group that caused Soleiman’s death.

OPP buried its head under the sand and refused to lay charges. Their argument was that it was not clear who gave the fatal blow.

What logic is behind this reasoning? If we face a gang killing, or other violent assault, can we let the killers go free? 

Why, when jail guards participate in the beating of a young racialized man in crisis, does it become hard to determine who gave the “fatal blow” to the victim?

By denying his family truth and justice, Soleiman Faqiri is being killed over and over.

Speaking about the case recently, Senator Peter M. Boehm called it a “travesty of justice.”

Dozens of civil society and professional organizations have issued statements condemning the OPP decision. What more is expected? What more can the family and their supporters do to let Soleiman Faqiri rest in peace, and stop killing him over and over?

A slightly edited version was published at rabble.ca

Why is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refusing to stop Meng Wanzhou’s extradition?

Why is Prime Minister Trudeau refusing to stop Meng Wanzhou’s extradition?This is the question I have been asking myself over and over since Wanzhou’s arrest in Vancouver by the Canadian authorities for an extradition in December 2018.

As a clear retaliation to this act of aggression taken by Canada, the Chinese government arrested two Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and accused them of spying. 

My objective here isn’t to defend the wrong retaliatory actions taken by the Chinese government, but instead to understand what the Canadian government was thinking when it accepted the extradition file from the U.S. authorities, knowing that President Donald Trump is personally on a mission to attack Iran and that the charges against Meng Wanzhou are mainly related to the embargo against Iran — and thus “punishing” whoever deals with Iran. 

(Wanzhou is accused of lying to HSBC in 2013 about Huawei’s relationship with Skycom, a company accused of violating U.S. economic sanctions against Iran.)

Who is Canada helping with this politically motivated arrest? Is it its own political and economic interests, which I assume should always come first? Or is it rather the U.S. president or other American political interests? I still examine and re-examine these questions and still don’t find any smart side to the arrest.

A few weeks after the arrests of the two Canadians, John McCallum, a long-respected politician who was the former Canadian ambassador to China spoke very candidly — and in my view, very reasonably — that in order to obtain the release of the two Canadians, Wanzhou should be released. 

Unfortunately, some media and political parties turned this into a political drama to score ideological points against China. The case was turned into a hockey game of Canada versus China — and obviously Canada needed to score goals. 

McCallum was immediately criticized. He tried to back off, but it was too late. He was scapegoated for the pride of the country and lost his job. It was a big mistake by Prime Minister Trudeau, and it showed that a stubborn position in treating this case can make things even worse.

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in political sciences to understand that this case has been from its inception a political case. It has never been a case about law and the prevalence of the judicial system. 

Wanzhou isn’t a random Chinese citizen arrested for a benign fraud. In terms of her reputation and stature, Wanzhou is comparable to a Bill Gates. Would the U.S. or Canada accept the Microsoft founder or his wife being arrested by China for suspicion of fraud in the same manner as Wanzhou, and consider it an ordinary legal case? Of course not! 

In fact, many would likely be calling for politicians to intervene.

A few months ago, 19 prominent Canadians, including former justice minister Allan Rock and former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling him to stop the extradition of Wanzhou.

The authors of the letter made it very clear that there is no harm in invoking Canadian laws. This is not called political interference; it is using whatever means to solve a problem.

And a problem, there is. The two arrested Canadians are caught in the middle of this political quagmire. Of course, this is a wrong approach and China shouldn’t keep these two Canadians in prison. Nevertheless, we have a Canadian government that accepts playing the dirty game initiated by the American authorities. 

Are we Canadians supposed to apply the “rule of law” by proxy? If Wanzhou has done wrong, why did the U.S. ask Canada to arrest her? In all this, what did Canada gain? Nothing good — not even a peace break in the trade war launched by President Trump against Canada.

And not even strong support in diplomatic efforts to release the two Canadians. Nothing!

This is why it is time for Trudeau to take the right decision and stop the extradition process for Wanzhou. It is the only way to obtain the release of the two Canadians. 

Why is Trudeau waiting to move forward? Is it fear of backlash from the opposition? Or is it fear of another failure in managing a case that would show the weakness of the Canadian government?

First of all, politics shouldn’t be done at the expense of the lives and well-being of ordinary Canadians. All Canadians should speak with the same voice when one of them is arrested unjustly by a foreign government. Opposition parties should help the government in choosing the best solution.

Second, Canada has already lost a lot of political blood in this case. By stopping the extradition of Wanzhou, Trudeau would put an end to the crisis. 

Yes, Canada lost face in front of China, but diplomatic relations can be mended. However, the damage done to the lives of the Canadians who were arrested by China cannot be repaired, and worse, they could be harmed.

Trudeau should correct a wrong with a right: stop the extradition of Wanzhou and open the doors for the release of Kovrig and Spavor.

This column first appeared on rabble.ca.

It is time to bring Little Amira back to Canada

Last year, on February 19th, 2019, Prime Minister Trudeau, on the International Day against the use of child soldiers, declared the following:
“All children deserve a safe space to learn and grow. As part of our G7 Presidency last year, Canada and international partners announced a historic investment of $3.8 billion – the single largest investment of its kind – to support education for women and girls in crisis and conflict situations. Canada has also endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration to protect schools, teachers, and students during armed conflict.”

The words of Prime Minister Trudeau are crystal clear. Canada is serious and committed to protect, schools, teachers and students during armed conflict.

But what if the child is born to Canadian parents who allegedly went to fight in Syria? How if the parents went to fight with radical Islamic groups ( knowing that there are about 40 Canadians who went fighting with Kurdish militia. Their actions were met with somehow a sympathetic public opinion, as if some violence can be accepted depending on who is using it and who is receiving it)? And finally, what if the parents who fought with the wrong side, died and the children are left orphans? Would Prime Minister Trudeau be still committed to protect them?
Until now, the answer is a resounding no. At least for the troubling case of little Amira.

She is a five-year-old Canadian girl, whose Canadians parents went to fight in Syria, and she was born there. Unfortunately for little Amira, her parents and other siblings were killed ( was it during an air bombing by the Russian planes? The American planes or the Syrian regime), and sadly she was left alone in the Al-Hawl refugee camp in eastern Syria earlier. By 2019, the camp population was estimated to 74,000 people, mainly women and children, guarded by the US Kurdish forces.

So far, the Canadian government refused to repatriate little Amira so she can live with her uncles, cousins, grandparents and extended family in Canada. It didn’t want to provide her with travel documents so she can fly home.

There are about 900 children from western countries, including Canada in different refugee camps in Syria, run by the Kurdish forces. Even France who has 270 children from French nationals and in which the public opinion is adamantly against any sympathy towards French Muslims travelling abroad to fight, decided few weeks ago to repatriate 10 of the French children stranded in some of these camps.

These kids didn’t take the arms against anyone. They are not even close to the definition of child soldiers. Thus, they should be, at least benefit from the definition and treatment reserved for child soldiers. Because assuming they are child soldiers, through the actions of their Western parents, wouldn’t they be the “perfect” candidates to be included under the protection reserved for child soldiers?

Recently, the uncle of little Amira decided to go after the Canadian government and sue it because he considered that the Canadian government has been negligent in dealing with the case.

I personally think that this is the best thing to do. “Playing nice” is always interpreted by the government as a lack of means, or lack of determination… By going after the government, I think the family of little Amira is sending a clear message to the Canadian government and to the Canadian public that the right place for little Amira is Canada where her family loves her and wants her among them, despite the circumstance that led to the departing of her parents to Syria.

Despite the alleged acts her parents did or didn’t. She is only five. She needs to be loved, nurtured and most importantly start go to school.

Last week, we read in the news that CSIS, the Canadian intelligence agency has been lying to judges, using illegal methods to obtain warrants against Canadians who went fighting abroad. This is an explosive news. Not surprisingly, it was met with almost no shame by the government and a sort of indifference from the public opinion.

What if some or most of the information obtained about Canadians fighting in Syria is flawed, biased and even false?
Judge Gleeson, found that CSIS has engaged in illegal activities such as “provision of money” and “provision of personal property” to a person “known to be facilitating or carrying out terrorist activity.”

Judge Gleeson said that, in a case of a Canadian who went abroad to Syria, CSIS paid someone known to be facilitating or carrying out terrorism an amount totalling less than $25,000 over a few years.

Who is the guilty and who is the innocent? Relying on the “false” information gathered by CSIS through person who has been conducting terrorism themselves, has been misleading and damaging to the Canadian government and to Canadians. Judge Gleeson wasn’t outraged because of one isolated case. He talked about a “pattern” over years. Personally, I wouldn’t believe any information after hearing from a Canadian judge that CSIS lied on judges so why wouldn’t they lie on all the government and Canadians.

A public inquiry should be announced and getting to the bottom of this should be the right thing to do by Prime Minister Trudeau and his government.

Last May, sixteen independent human rights experts at the United Nations have called on Canada to repatriate little Amira and have described the repatriation of children as “a humanitarian and human rights imperative”.

The Canadian government should correct the wrong, fulfill its promise of protecting children in zone of conflicts and what is better today than bringing little Amira home.

A slightly modified version of this article was published at rabble.ca