Every Tuesday in April, we encourage you to make a quick call to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale:  613-947-1153 (Ottawa office), (800) 830-3118 (Ministerial office), 306-585-2202 (Constituency). The message is simple: "Hello. I'm calling about the case of Mohamed Harkat. He is a refugee in Canada facing deportation to torture in Algeria. By Canadian and international law, no one should ever be tortured. That should be true for Moe, too. Minister Ralph Goodale has the power today to allow Moe to stay in Canada. Please make the right decision: cancel this deportation to torture order, let Moe Harkat stay in Canada. Thank you."

++++++++++++++++++++++

Every Tuesday in April, we encourage you to join the growing campaign to end a 17-year nightmare: the constant threat of deportation to torture that has hung over the head of Ottawa refugee Mohamed (Moe) Harkat since 2002. Every Tuesday, please call and email Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale (details below), who has the power to stop this deportation and to grant Moe a long-delayed path to citizenship.

Who is Moe?
Mohamed (Moe) Harkat came to Canada in 1995 and was granted refugee status in 1997 due to a well-founded fear of persecution in his native Algeria. Canada has never sought to remove that status. Since 2002, he has been subjected to a cruel and unending stream of rights violations documented by the Federal Court of Canada, Supreme Court of Canada, international human rights groups and the United Nations (see blow for some of this documentation).

Moe is now fighting a Canadian deportation order to Algeria, where he faces a substantial risk of torture. To ensure Canadian compliance with its domestic and international obligations to never be complicit in torture, the deportation process must be immediately halted. In addition, Moe – who has never been charged with, much less convicted of, a crime, and against whom no allegation of violence has ever been made – seeks a path to Canadian citizenship under section 42.1 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (“it is not contrary to the national interest” to allow Mr. Harkat to live here in peace).

Please take two minutes to make a call and send a letter to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale to end the illegal and immoral deportation to torture proceedings against Ottawa refugee Mohamed Harkat. Also urge Mr. Goodale to accept Moe's long-standing application to live in peace in Canada because it “it is not contrary to the national interest” to allow him to do so.

1. Call Minister Goodale: Let’s flood the lines to call for an end to Moe Harkat’s deportation to torture and remind Ralph Goodale to do the right thing by allowing him to stay in Canada (“it is not contrary to the national interest” to allow Mr. Harkat to live here in peace).

You can reach Ralph Goodale at 613-947-1153 (Ottawa office), (800) 830-3118 (Ministerial office), 306-585-2202 (Constituency)

Here is a suggested message you can use:

"Hello. I'm calling about the case of Mohamed Harkat. He is a refugee in Canada facing deportation to torture in Algeria. By Canadian and international law, no one should ever be tortured. That should be true for Moe, too. Minister Ralph Goodale has the power today to allow Moe to stay in Canada. Please make the right decision: cancel this deportation to torture order, let Moe Harkat stay in Canada. Thank you."

If you’re comfortable, please leave your name and where you are calling from to show that we have support from across the country!

2. Send a letter:
Once you have made your call, please visit http://iclmg.ca/stop-harkat-deportation to send a letter to your own MP, the PM and federal ministers, asking them to act now. We need all MPs to know that the pressure is on to oppose torture and to keep Moe in Canada.

3. Send an email: If you have a moment, send a quick email to Ralph Goodale at ralph.goodale@parl.gc.ca

Thank you!

Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture

BACKGROUND
Mr. Harkat was arrested and detained under the controversial security certificate regime in 2002 (a draconian immigration measure declared unconstitutional by the unanimous 2007 Charkaoui Supreme Court decision). Despite having been detained for 3.5 years under a process that the Supreme Court said “gutted” Section 7 Charter rights for failing to conform to the principles of fundamental justice (with over a year in solitary confinement, whereas the benchmark for segregation amounting to torture is widely acknowledged, including by the United Nations, to begin at day 15), Mr. Harkat was nonetheless transferred to house arrest under the most stringent bail conditions in Canadian history.

Under slightly revised legislation passed in 2008, Mr. Harkat remained subject to the same weak case (all the original “evidence” against him had been destroyed). The case continued despite a Federal Court finding that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had purposely withheld critical information that called into question the credibility of two secret informants at the heart of the allegations: one had failed a lie detector test, while another had had an affair with his CSIS agent handler. The Federal Court found that CSIS malfeasance made it "necessary to repair the damage done to the administration of justice and to re-establish a climate of trust and confidence in this proceeding,” but nonetheless refused to allow either informant to be cross-examined in either a public or secret court.

The Federal Court of Appeal found in 2012 that Mr. Harkat’s rights had once again been violated (both “a breach of his Charter section 7 right to disclosure” and a finding that the secret informants did not deserve the assignment of a class privilege shielding them from cross examination).

The Supreme Court of Canada found in 2014 that “In the present case, the destruction of operational notes” in the Harkat case “constitutes unacceptable negligence… Indeed, no reasonable steps were taken to preserve the evidence,” and “CSIS destroyed the materials in violation of the CSIS Act, and, in so doing, compromised ‘the very function of judicial review’. Consequently, the ministers failed to meet their disclosure obligations towards Mr. Harkat and breached s. 7 of the Charter.” While they acknowledged that “It is true, as the Federal Court of Appeal noted, that the destruction of the originals makes it impossible to ascertain with complete certainty whether the summaries contain errors or inaccuracies,” they came to the remarkable conclusion that “The destruction of the original operational materials did not significantly prejudice Mr. Harkat’s ability to know and meet the case against him.” While the Supreme Court concluded that the secret informants did not enjoy a blanket shield from examination, there was no remedy for Mr. Harkat: the one-dimensional, unchallenged allegations of informants remain the heart of a secret case, and the issue was not sent back for further consideration.

Notably, security certificates represent two-tier justice; they rely on a much lower standard of proof (“reasonable grounds to believe”) than that afforded to citizens accused of state security violations (who enjoy the higher procedural standards and relative protections of the Criminal Code and a standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”) The legislation governing security certificates says that by law a judge reviewing such a case may receive into evidence and base their decision on anything “even if it is inadmissible in a court of law.” This means, in essence, that Mr. Harkat, and anyone else subject to these secret hearings, is no longer in a court of law.

In the past 16 years – despite never having even been charged, let alone convicted, of a crime – Mr. Harkat has faced constant monitoring and harassment by government officials. Notably, while his bail conditions are far less restrictive than when he was originally placed under house arrest in 2006, Mr. Harkat and his wife Sophie have expressed repeated concerns about intrusive and harasssing surveillance by agents of the Canadian Border Services Agency.

In 2009, the Federal Court found that CBSA had violated Mr. Harkat’s Charter rights not to be subject to unreasonable search and seizure following a highly intrusive and unjustified house raid: “Little consideration was given [by the CBSA] to the dignity of the Harkats who were required to witness this excessively intrusive search into the most intimate details of their private life… The breach of Mr. Harkat’s Charter rights was significant. While the CBSA may not have acted in bad faith, they acted with disregard for the terms of the former order and the requirements of section 8 of the Charter.”