Listen to a report on the Supreme Court hearings on the Security Certificates in Ottawa. The hearings were held between June 13-15, 2006.
Produced by Aaron Lakoff of the CKUT (90.3FM) community news collective in Montreal.
Contact [aaron at resist dot ca]
This report begins with an exchange between Mona El Fouli, the wife of security certificate detainee Mohammed Mahjoub, and a racist journalist during a press scrum inside the Supreme Court in Ottawa last Tuesday.
The reporter asks:
"If you're a foreigner living abroad, you don't have the right to a fair trial in Canada. Why should a foreign national living in Canada have the right to a fair trial?"
Mona seemed taken aback by the question, and looked at him with a sincere frustration and anger in her eyes, and replied, "Put yourself in his place and tell me how you'd feel. This is Canada...."
The journalist cut her off abruptly and snapped back, "Yeah, but he's not a Canadian."
To which Mona replied, stunned, "He's a human being!"
This report, recorded in Ottawa during the Supreme Court hearings on the security certificate, examines the question of Canada's national security policies, which have induced a climate of fear and distrust, and classify Arabs and Muslims as second-class human beings.
The security certificate is a measure under the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. After being signed by two ministers, it allows the Canadian state to indefinitely detain any non-citizen, without access to a fair trial, under secret evidence, and with no right to appeal.
In late April, 2006, four of the detainees were transferred to a special detention facility, designed specifically for the security certificate detainees, in Millhaven, Ontario. This new jail has been dubbed "Guantanamo North", effectively bringing the injustices and human rights attrocities of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, right to our own backyards.
I spoke with family members, friends, and supporters of those affected by the security certificates in Canada. They were assembled at "Camp Hope", a three day demonstration staged outside the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa to call for the abolition of the security certificate. Their demonstration comes under a renewed climate of fear and racism across the country after 17 Muslim-Canadians were arrested under terrorism charges in Toronto in early June. It also comes as three of the detainees, Mohammed Mahjoub, Hassan Almrei, and Mahmoud Jaballah, have begun a hunger strike again to protest against their conditions in jail. They have made it clear that they will starve themselves for justice.
For more information: www.peoplescommission.ath.cx www.homesnotbombs.ca www.adilinfo.org www.ckut.ca
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