Civil Liberties Fall Victim

Civil Liberties Fall Victim

Canadian Arabs, Muslims targets in the war on terror

by John Duncanson
The Toronto Star
September 9, 2002

Hassan Almrei spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in a Toronto-area jail - a man the federal government has branded a security risk, a foot soldier in Osama bin Laden's worldwide terrorist network.

Former Toronto resident Nabil al-Marabh is locked up in a Batavia, N.Y., jail awaiting deportation. Like his friend Almrei, he spent months in a tiny cell without being able to call relatives or a lawyer.

Both men were made infamous by the American and Canadian governments, police agencies and the media, for alleged ties to terrorism.

Their families, lawyers and civil libertarians say these men are innocent - guilty of simply being in police crosshairs as security agents scrambled to round up suspects following 9/11 to placate a public who believed the country was being overrun by Al Qaeda terrorists. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has built cases against men like al-Marabh, often in sealed court documents, or, as their critics charge, through strategic leaks to the media.

But a year after Sept. 11, there is little convincing evidence that these detainees are linked to terrorist activities. In fact, some wonder if they should ever have been detained at all.

CSIS and the RCMP will say little publicly about individual cases when questioned by reporters. The police and government take the position that they don't have to provide full disclosure to the public because of national security or ongoing investigations.

But that official attitude has fostered a growing concern that if agencies such as CSIS can detain people within the Muslim community after the events of 9/11, then everyone's civil liberties are at risk.

"Right now it's primarily directed at Muslims and Arabs, but who knows what's next?" said Raja Khouri, the president of the Canadian Arab Federation.

He said CSIS agents have stepped up their attempts to recruit people in his community, many of them refugees who don't understand their rights when Canada's spy agency comes to their door.

His organization will be providing Arabs and Muslims with legal advice on how to deal with CSIS. The bottom line is that no one has to co-operate with the spy agency, Khouri said.

CSIS denies assertions it has Arabs and Muslims as paid informants. "We are not investigating or targeting any particular community," says CSIS spokesperson Nicole Currier. "It's not a recruitment program at all."

Khouri predicts history will judge Canadians poorly for their treatment of the Arab community during this unprecedented war against terrorism being waged by the United States, Canada and other countries.

"We have secret detention, secret hearings. I think at this point everyone should be clear that it's not a matter of whether civil rights are being abused. We know they are," he said.

"We have to start reflecting on what we are doing," he said. "It seems it's acceptable to treat Arabs and Muslims in a certain way because they are all suspects. One day we are going to look back on this and say, 'We didn't do the right thing.' "

Because Ottawa won't say how many people have been detained in the wake of Sept. 11, Khouri has been forced to file freedom of information requests with both the provincial and federal governments. So far, he has had no response.

Alan Borovoy, counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, says the collective rush to judgment, which included new terrorism laws passed in December, has meant people's rights in this country are definitely in jeopardy.

Borovoy added that Canadians may never know how bad things have gotten because there are no provisions in the new legislation or in the act governing CSIS to provide for an independent audit of policing activities.

"We hear allegations from time to time, but there is no systematic flow of information to the public," he said.

Rocco Galati launches into a tirade at the mere mention of CSIS. His second-floor office on College St. has been a headquarters of sorts for those seeking not only legal help, but also some insight into the inner workings of the spy game.

Galati may be the best-known constitutional lawyer handling the terrorist file. He's trusted in the Muslim community and fights hard to get to the bottom of the evidence CSIS has when it petitions the government to have someone locked up.

"Justice has been suspended in this country since Sept. 11 and it's not going to get better for the Arabs and Muslims in this country," Galati said.

He has several clients who are either jailed or facing deportation because of alleged terrorist activities, including: Egyptian-born Mohamed Mahjoub, a Scarborough woodworker; Abdellah Ouzghar, who is facing deportation; and Mahmoud Jaballah, who is being held on a CSIS national security certificate.

Galati also represents the most recent alleged terrorist, Mohamed Mansour Jabarah. The problem is that Galati doesn't have a clue where he is.

CSIS delivered the former St. Catharines man to U.S. authorities a few months ago. He is being held at a secret location where he is being questioned by American investigators.

Jabarah was arrested in Oman in June. Then, according to his family, he was turned over to CSIS after being implicated in a botched plot to bomb the American and Israeli embassies in Singapore.

While CSIS has no powers of arrest, Galati maintains its powers go well beyond that of the police. CSIS can hold up refugee and citizenship claims for years or persuade Ottawa to jail someone on a national security certificate without having to show its hand, he said.

Galati said that for all the media hoopla surrounding CSIS allegations, the evidence is thin.

"From what all I have seen, all the documents, it doesn't amount to anything bigger than a mosquito's fart," said Galati. "Sorry if you can't print that, but it's the truth."

Late last week, Toronto lawyer Barbara Jackman went to visit her client Hassan Almrei in a Toronto jail to see how he was doing. That's about the only visit the 27-year-old Syrian refugee has had.

He is locked up 23 hours a day and has been since last Oct. 20 when he was arrested on a national security certificate.

CSIS alleged he was "a member of an international network of extremist groups and individuals, who follow and support the Islamic extremist ideals espoused by Osama bin Laden," court documents show.

Poppycock, says Jackman.

"They believe he's a terrorist because he would rather meet with friends for a coffee than talk on the phone," Jackman said.

Jackman said anything that someone does to makes CSIS suspicious is automatically cited as terrorism. For example, CSIS supported its claim against her client by providing a federal judge with images taken from his computer, including pictures of bin Laden.

"They were pictures he downloaded from the Internet, off of news sites. That's a crime?" Jackman asks.

She said CSIS is a "bunch of cowboys" who are eager to flex their muscles after Sept. 11. "CSIS didn't want to be left out. In a perverse way, they want us to have problems here."

A simple, two-page letter signed by a Brampton judge was all that Ahmad Shehab was given when police raided his Charles St. store, Best Copy, just two weeks after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed upon being struck by two hijacked planes.

Shehab was never named in the warrant. Aside from the judge and the RCMP officer who oversaw the operation, the only other name on the search warrant was that of his nephew, Nabil al-Marabh. At that point, al-Marabh was already behind bars in Chicago.

According to the terrified clerk behind the copy-shop counter that night, 40 or 50 officers, some wearing masks and brandishing machine guns, burst into the store at closing time. They tore the place apart, seized computers and printing equipment, and then left.

The search warrant mentions police were looking for evidence of forging equipment, special paper used to make passports, and anything belonging to al-Marabh. Shehab said they kept his equipment for three months, which has resulted in huge financial losses - a situation that continues to this day.

"Every time I look at the equipment in my store it reminds me of that night," Shehab said.

Last February, Shehab's lawyer, Galati, received a letter from the government indicating it was no longer interested in the copy shop, or al-Marabh for that matter.

Al-Marabh was sentenced last week in a Buffalo court to time served after pleading guilty to trying to sneak into the United States illegally in June, 2000, and is to be deported to Syria.

U.S. authorities have made no terrorist claims against him. Nor have they made allegations that Shehab's shop was used for terrorist purposes.

Meanwhile, Shehab sits and waits for a simple apology from the RCMP. He knows it won't come.

"You know, I want to meet a family of one of the victims of Sept. 11 because I, too, am a victim."

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