Posted by admin on Jan 7th, 2010
By Darah Hansen, Canwest News Service, Thursday, January 07, 2010
Vancouver — A Sri Lankan man who came to Canada aboard a human-smuggling ship is still fighting for his release more than three weeks after he was ordered freed from immigration lock-up because of a lack of evidence linking him to the Tamil Tigers. The case went before Vancouver’s Federal Court on Thursday after government counsel applied to have the original Dec. 16 release order issued by the Immigration and Refugee Board overturned. The government suspects the man – whose identity is banned from publication – is a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a group the Canadian government considers a terrorist organization.
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Posted by admin on Jan 5th, 2010
Jane Armstrong and Colin Freeze, Globe and Mail, Jan. 05, 2010
With the power of security certificates being nullified in the courts, Ottawa is wielding a rarely used section of federal immigration law in their place to ensure that 25 migrants they suspect are Tamil Tigers remain behind bars. Starting as early as this month, secret evidence will be used in closed hearings at the Immigration and Refugee Board in Vancouver. Government lawyers will introduce evidence they hope will persuade the board to continue the incarceration of about two dozen Tamil migrants, who arrived in a ship off Canada’s West Coast last fall claiming to be refugees from postwar Sri Lanka. Unlike ordinary detention hearings, these sessions are closed to the public, to the migrants involved and to their lawyers, and the evidence given is secret. Special advocates, appointed by the government, represent the migrants’ interests.
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Posted by admin on Dec 25th, 2009
By Tamsyn Burgmann, Canadian Press, Dec 25, 2009
VANCOUVER, B.C. — About 50 Tamil migrants taken into custody off B.C.’s West Coast will soon be released and allowed to settle with their families already living across the country, says an immigration lawyer representing several of the men. Immigration officials will be working through the holidays to process many of the men held in detention for two months after arriving on the Ocean Lady freighter in October, said Narindar Kang. “The writing is on the wall and we’re just waiting to schedule a date. It is, in essence, an agreement between both counsel,” he said Friday.
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Posted by admin on Dec 19th, 2009
Jane Armstrong, Globe and Mail, Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009
The government wants to go behind closed doors to introduce secret evidence at detention-review hearings for 11 Tamil migrants who turned up on the West Coast. Department of Justice lawyers informed lawyers for some of the migrants yesterday that they have applied under a special section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to keep their information secret as they argue for continued detention of some of the men.
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Posted by admin on Dec 17th, 2009
Haroon Siddiqui, Dec 17 2009, Toronto Star
Has Canada done better than the United States in striking the right balance between maintaining national security and democratic values? Oh yes, we’ve had no Guantanamo Bay, no Abu Ghraib, no torture in Canadian prisons. We have maintained due process, of sorts, for terrorism suspects. Partially because of that, we looked down on the Americans for their security excesses. I had argued that 9/11 made Canada more Canadian, in that we rediscovered our values: multilateralism, the rule of international and domestic law, respect for civil rights. It was argued back that we had the luxury of such values because – unlike the U.S., the U.K. or Spain – we had been spared a terrorist attack.
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