TAKE ACTION TODAY!!! WRITE/FAX/CALL for a Fair and Transparent review of Adil Charkaoui’s security certificate

For four years, Adil Charkaoui and his family have been living in a state of uncertainty and fear, under a threat of deportation to torture. In February 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the certificate process violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In April 2007, Ahmed Ressam admitted that he had fabricated information in Charkaoui’s file. In September 2006, Bush admitted that Zubaydah – another person who has been publicly named in connection with Charkaoui’s file – had been held in a secret location and tortured. In February 2005, Radio Canada revealed that a third person who was supposed to have provided information against Charkaoui said that he had been tortured and forced to sign a confession he never saw and repudiated entirely. In January 2005, the government admitted that CSIS had destroyed evidence in Charkaoui’s file. Four years without charge or trial, under an unconstitutional process, on the basis of bogus evidence, is far too long!

====> SAMPLE LETTER <====

* We encourage people to write their own letters, however feel free to use the template letter below.

Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Email: Finley.D at parl.gc.ca; Fax : (613) 996-9749; Tel: (613) 996-4974

Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety
Email: Day.S at parl.gc.ca; Fax: (613) 995-1154; Tel.: (613) 995-1702

Cc: Justice for Adil Coalition
justiceforadil at riseup.net

I am writing to express my urgent concern about Adil Charkaoui and call on you to conduct a fair and transparent review of the security certificate that was issued against Adil Charkaoui in May 2003.

The security certificate against Mr. Charkaoui has never been upheld by any court. Mr. Charkaoui’s case has been suspended since March 2005 when the government was forced to withdraw a key decision on the risk Charkaoui faces if deported to Morocco.

What is known of the case against Mr. Charkaoui rests largely on information apparently provided by three individuals to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. In 2004, the Federal Court agreed to set aside information from Abu Zubaydah in Mr. Charkaoui’s file in light of testimony and reports that Zubaydah had been tortured while in US custody in Afghanistan and later held in a secret site with no oversight or accountability. In Feb 2005, Radio Canada made public a letter from Noureddine Nafiaâ, a second informer in  Mr. Charkaoui’s case, who wrote from a prison in Morocco recanting his confession, stating that he had signed his ‘confession’ blind-folded and under torture.

Finally, two weeks ago, it was revealed that Ahmed Ressam’s information against Mr. Charkaoui was fabricated. Ahmed Ressam wrote a letter published by the Journal de Montréal on 20 April 2007 that information he provided against Mr. Charkaoui was false: “What I said to the investigators … was not true … I was confonted with difficult psychological circumstances, I did not know what I was saying.”

Thus all the publically disclosed information against Mr. Charkaoui has been discredited, making it impossible to retain confidence in CSIS’s case and the highly secretive Security Certificate regime, which denies non-citizens their basic right to due process.

Mr. Charkaoui spent almost two years in prison (from May 2003 to February 2005) and has spent a further two years under conditions that Amnesty International has qualified as “among the most restrictive ever imposed in Canada” (Amnesty, February 2006) and that affect the freedom of his entire family. Four years without charge, under an unconstitutional process, on the basis of evidence that lacks all credibility, is far too long. It is time for the Ministers to act.

As you have the power to act on this matter, I respectfully demand that you conduct a fair and transparent review of Charkaoui’s file in order to withdraw the faulty certificate, to lift the restrictions on his liberty, and to clear his name. This is clearly warranted in light of Ahmed Ressam’s retraction and considering that previous evidence on file was produced by torturous means. Furthermore, given that the Supreme Court of Canada decision found the security certificate regime to be unconstitutional, I demand that the government act immediately to completely abolish the fundamentally unjust security certificate regime.

Sincerely,