Day says terror suspects who don't like security certificate

Written By: sthompson
Date: 2006-06-12 18:17:00
<a href="/article/181757475-day-says-terror-suspects-who-dont-like-security-certificates-should-go-back-whe">Article Link</a>

 And from <a href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060612/security_certificates_060612/20060612?hub=TopStories">Security certificates are constitutional: Day</a>: Updated Mon. Jun. 12 2006 7:28 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day is supporting the use of security certificates to detain people suspected of terrorist activity. Day also says he is confident that the Supreme Court will uphold use of the certificates in hearings, starting Tuesday, which will decide whether the process is a violation of the Charter of Rights... ...The minister stressed that those held under security certificates have options to either appeal, or to accept the deportation order. "They can choose to be subject to the security certificate. That means you'll have your full appeal, but you have to be maintained in detention; or you can go back to your country of origin," said Day. "As a matter of fact . . . the whole time the appeal process goes on, at any time they're free to leave and return to their country of origin." [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on June 13, 2006]

I'D like to send Day back where he came from ... unfortunately my time machine is in the shop right now. .... Okay,okay, it's working now!!!! Monster of Public Safetypin "Dancing with Dinosaurs" Day back you go to the "land before time" with all the other Brontosaurus- eses!!!!!

Day obviously don't believe in Democracy. Throw someone in prison untill their innocence can be proven by the jailors or give them the option of not being a citizen. Sounds like the good ol' days when witch hunts were acceptable.

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Expect little from life and get more from it.

I'd love to send Stockwell someplace appropriate, but unfortunately Auschwitz is closed.

What better place to condemn fascist wannabees to than the same hell they sent so many to during WWII?

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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

"We can't allow a person who has been deemed a significant security threat [in secret without a trial by a secretive group of appointed people with an unknown agenda of their own] to be free."

C B C . C A N e w s - F u l l S t o r y :
Supreme Court hears security certificate challenge
Last Updated Tue, 13 Jun 2006 06:59:58 EDT
CBC News

The Supreme Court of Canada has begun hearing a constitutional challenge to the federal government's controversial security certificate process.
Handout photo of Adil Charkaoui (CBC)

Mohamed Harkat, Adil Charkaoui and Hassan Almrei have all been held for years in jail because Canadian Security Intelligence Service alleges they have ties to al-Qaeda.

Almrei is the only one who remains in custody, but they all argue their constitutional and Charter rights were violated by their detentions.

The hearings before the Supreme Court began on Tuesday and were expected to last three days.

"The certificates are an extraordinary remedy," former Liberal minister of justice Irwin Cotler told CBC News on Tuesday morning.

While recent concerns involving terrorism have come to the fore, Cotler said the security certificate legislation was enacted to deal with a broad range of concerns, including organized crime and suspected war criminals.

Since 1978, security certificates have been issued 27 times.

"I think that the relatively few times they've been invoked is testament to that fact they've been used that way [as a last resort]," former CSIS director Reid Morden told CBC.

They allow authorities to detain foreign-born nationals indefinitely without charge, and without making public any evidence against them.

Process quashes Charter rights, critics say

In court Tuesday, lawyers for Charkaoui and the two detainees argued that locking people up, often for years, without charge violates Canadian and international law.

"It's reached a point where it's cruel. You can't just put someone in jail, throw away the key and not give them any hope of ever getting out," Barbara Jackman, the lawyer representing Almrei, argued before the court.

But the Supreme Court justices returned to the same line of questioning: what alternative did the lawyers propose, short of simply releasing their clients into the community?

"What does the world do with someone who is truly dangerous wherever they go?" asked Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. "Is freedom really an option?"

On Wednesday, federal lawyers will make their case, arguing that secrecy is necessary to protect intelligence sources; also that the cost of putting even a single person under constant surveillance is exorbitant.

Detainees can appeal, safety minister says

The government wants the court to give it a year to create a new anti-terrorism law, but Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Monday the current security certificate law offers detainees a way out of prison.

'If the appeals show that they're not a threat then we live with that and they go free.'-Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day

"Because they're deemed to be a threat they are kept and detained until the appeals process is over," Day said. "If the appeals show that they're not a threat then we live with that and they go free."

Day also noted that under the law those detained are free to voluntarily return to their countries of origin or any other country willing to take them in.

Critics say returning to a country such as Syria — where Almrei was born — could mean arrest and torture.

Cotler said right now the certificate process involves two options, neither of which is "palatable."

"Either deportation to a country where there's a substantial risk of cruel and unusual punishment, or unlimited detention," he said.

Other alternatives proposed

Cotler said he would like lawmakers to consider other alternatives, such as supervised release and specially designated counsel to allow for more evidence to be provided to defendants.
Irwin Cotler in Ottawa, Tuesday, July 20, 2004. (Tom Hanson/ Canadian Press)

Morden said that while detainees do have the option to leave voluntarily, the court would probably still consider the timeliness with which decisions are rendered.

Harkat was ordered released last month. The government's bid to to get an injunction blocking the release was denied last week by the courts.

Charkaoui urges 'same rights' for all in Canada

Charkaoui, who was detained for more than two years, was released in February on $50,000 bail and subject to a number of conditions.

'I don't need just the freedom. I want justice. I want nobody on the street to look on me like a terrorist, like a potential terrorist.'-Adil Charkaoui, who was detained under a security certificate for more than two years

He was arrested after an informant claimed he had participated in a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.

"I'm asking the same rights like any human being in this country," he said Tuesday.

"I don't want just to be released. I don't need just the freedom. I want justice. I want nobody on the street to look on me like a terrorist, like a potential terrorist."

'We cannot allow Guantanamo in Canada'

Charkaoui said he didn't want Canada to follow the lead of the United States, which is been holding hundreds of detainees accused of terrorism on its Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba for up to 4½ years.

Only 10 of them have ever been charged and most have never been allowed access to the alleged evidence against them.

"I want them to offer me fair trial. If they have any secret evidence, they have to show it to the public," Charkaoui said of the Canadian authorities. "We cannot allow Guantanamo in Canada."

Almrei, a Syrian-born refugee, was detained in 2001 and ordered deported a year later. He remains in custody, mostly in solitary confinement.

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