Canada’s antidemocratic “national security certificates” and the impotence of official liberalism

They have been detained indefinitely without charge and without knowing why. They have been told that they represent a threat to Canada’s national security but that they do not have any right to see the evidence against them. The Canadian government has kept them in isolation in small cells while it waits court sanction to deport them to countries where, as the government itself admits, they face the possibility of torture and death.

For some of them, this state of affairs goes back as far as 2000. Harkat and Charkaoui were recently “freed”, but they are essentially restricted to their own homes, must wear a GPS (Global Positioning System) bracelet at all times, and remain under the threat of expulsion from Canada. As for the other three detainees—Majoub, Jaballah, and Almrei—they have been on hunger strike for the past three weeks in order to obtain access to medical care and preserve their personal dignity.

On November 29 the journalist and documentary filmmaker Alexandre Trudeau presented his film about the security certificates, one of the most undemocratic and reactionary legal measures in the Canadian justice system.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2007/jan2007/cert-j04.shtml