Gee, UN challenges Canada's Human Rights

[rogerstaubach]

Jim Bronskill, Canadian Press
Published: January 28, 2006
OTTAWA -- A United Nations working group says it is "gravely concerned" about Canada's use of special security certificates and calls on the federal government to reconsider the tool for cracking down on suspected terrorists.

The UN working group on arbitrary detention says elements of the certificate regime jeopardize a person's rights to a fair hearing, to challenge the evidence used against them, and to ensure judicial review of their incarceration.

"This procedure allows the government to detain aliens for years on the suspicion that they pose a security threat, without raising criminal charges," says the body's report, made public Friday.

The group, set up by the UN Commission on Human Rights, toured Canada during the first half of June at the invitation of the government. It visited numerous detention facilities, including police stations, jails, and pre-trial and immigration holding centres in several cities.

The report expresses concern that all four men currently imprisoned under security certificates are Arab Muslims. A fifth man, also Muslim, has been released from jail but is strictly monitored by authorities.

Under federal immigration law, the government may use a certificate to deport a non-citizen suspected of being a risk to Canadian security.

A federal judge examines the case, either upholding the certificate as reasonable or quashing it and setting the suspect free.

The security certificate system has become a flashpoint in Canada's fight against terrorism, drawing criticism from human rights activists, lawyers and scholars.

Amnesty International has also raised concerns about certificates, which have been used in 27 cases since 1991.

Critics say the process is unfair because counsel for the accused is not permitted access to details of evidence, based on secret intelligence, underpinning the case.

As a result, the report says, the lawyers are "not in a position to effectively question the allegations brought against him."

The report notes the only way out of detention is deportation to the person's country of origin. All five men now subject to certificates argue they would be tortured if sent to their homelands.

The Justice Department, which has been leading a review of the certificate regime, had no immediate comment on the report.

The Supreme Court of Canada is slated to hear constitutional challenges of the process in June from three men - Mohamed Harkat, Hassan Almrei and Adil Charkaoui - slated for deportation under certificates.

The UN group pointed to another of the five men, Mahmoud Jaballah, in citing one of the "most troubling" aspects of the process - the difficulty in challenging one's detention.

The report, completed in December, notes Jaballah had been detained without criminal charges for five years but received the chance to challenge his detention only once.

 

[The Mugger]

One would think the UN or Amnesty International have more pressing concerns than this.

 

[oldjones]

One would think the UN or Amnesty International have more pressing concerns than this.

Trouble is they're basically right on. The certificates are a shameful abuse of rights. Perhaps to be excused under the weasel-clause "customary limits in a free and democratic society" provision of the Charter, if it's ever possible to get a hearing on that matter, clear of other issues. But so far the day-to-day issues like where's he being held? what are you proposing to do with him? seem to be more pressing to their families and lawyers.

And we can hardly look to the government to get active on the human rights file now can we?

 

[Cinema Face]

Would that be the Lybian in charge of human rights at the UN criticizing Canada?


You can't spell unethical without U.N.

 

[Truncador]

Let the UN mind its business and quit trying to meddle in our sovereignty

 

[oldjones]

What'sa matter guys, are you so bored you hafta make up what you think the other side's argument might be? Wouldn't it work better if just one of you tried to sound like a lefty so the other guy could call him bad names?

 

[maxweber]

UN is out to get us?

Let the UN mind its business and quit trying to meddle in our sovereignty

With their black helicopters, maybe? Here's a classic comment on this kind of paranoia, published before T. McVeigh;s trial:

It's true what militia members say, metaphorically

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .by Michael Ventura
(reprinted from the Austin Chronicle)

Since Timothy McVeigh's arrest as the prime suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing, journalists can't agree on how many states have "patriot militias" (the figures run from 30 to 50) nor on how many people are in those militias (some say 15,000, some 100,000).
But most reports and interviews mention "black helicopters" -- a belief among the militias that sinister machines, manned by UN troops, patrol the vastness of the American West by night.
That's easy to laugh at. America is huge, and it would be more secretive and more efficient for the UN, or anybody, to monitor us by satellite than by helicopter. With the "black helicopter" image, then, you're in the realm not of theory but of nightmare. Which is, in turn, the realm of metaphor.
While the theories of the militia people don't make much sense, their metaphors do. Analyze their metaphors as you might a dream, and America turns its new face toward you.
The "black helicopter" is a metaphor for a technologically haunted land where no place is isolated enough to escape the sense that something darker than night is coming out of the air, something deadly, piloted by an alien presence speaking an unintelligible tongue. The metaphor says that the land is no longer ours and that some unnamed and unnameable force threatens the safety of the smallest town.
In a general way, this is something many feel -- scientists studying how human beings have damaged nature, culture trackers disturbed by the erosion of standards, ghetto activists unable to stop the flow of drugs and guns, workers watching jobs disappear, and all who are frightened by the hate and fear that is making our neighbours hateful and fearsome in our own eyes.
Militias express our shared dread as something they can shoot at -- black helicopters. It's no wonder that they reject any suggestion that what's really going on can't be fought so easily. The nightmare they've invented is so much more manageable than the nightmare they're actually in -- the nightmare they share with us.
It's also no wonder that, since Oklahoma City, the militia people's favourite theory or metaphor is that the federal government itself was responsible for the explosion -- that the feds sacrificed those bureaucrats and children to start a backlash against the militias.
Timothy McVeigh is a reflection of militia people, and people generally go to great lengths not to face themselves. Fear feeds fantasy and fantasy, in turn, feeds fear, until who we really are gets twisted in a maze of distorted mirrors -- reflections in which hope is lost along with reality.
It's no good saying hope and illusion cancel each other, not to people whose illusions are their hope.
The militia people have turned a complex historical moment into a metaphor that allows them the fantasy that grabbing a gun might do some good.
Which is why they are incensed by any effort to restrict the use of guns, the issue that's their rallying cry. Stripping them of guns strips them of their metaphors, of how they make sense of the world. Without their guns they would feel helpless, even before their own metaphors. This is the heart of the gun-control controversy. Within this metaphoric realm, guns give them power. Take away their guns, and their own metaphors will eat them alive from within.
Sometimes their metaphors are disturbingly close to real. They believe that bills of all denominations are imprinted with bar codes so that secret agents can drive by their home and count their money. In an age of centralized computers and credit cards, scanners are hardly necessary.
Again, the metaphor of actual secret agents in actual (black?) vans makes this a situation one can shoot at. Almost all their metaphors come back to a sense of power that can be held in the hand -- a gun. But it's also true that almost all their metaphors are descriptions, in crude terms, of a reality many of us would recognize.
Especially if you read a New York Times op-ed piece on May 3 by Simon Garfinkle, entitled The Road Watches You "Highway authorities throughout the country are building futuristic `smart road' systems designed to unclog traffic and improve driver safety."
Garfinkle, a respected expert, warns of Orwellian dangers, saying this technology is "just the beginning of a nationwide plan that offers unprecedented opportunities to monitor the movements of drivers."
That isn't a metaphor. It's what's happening to privacy. The fears of militias aren't groundless, but their fantasies are too simple for the complexity they're attempting to confront.
They have another fantasy I wish it were more far-fetched -- that concentration camps are being built to corral dissidents. It has happened here. During the Red Scare, five camps were built. They weren't used but they were ready for use. To assume that this couldn't happen again would itself be a fantasy.
So it's not surprising that, since Oklahoma City, militia enrolment has increased, according to some reports, by as much as 25 per cent.
One can describe some kinds of social upheaval as people taking their metaphors concretely and acting as though they were real. When, however crudely, their metaphors describe a reality, life can get dangerous indeed. For it's hard to convince people they're wrong when, at some level, their wackiness strikes a true chord. It's hard to tell people they're crazy when their metaphors resonate, however discordantly, with what we experience every day.
Timothy McVeigh insists he's a "prisoner of war," and he is -- a prisoner of the war within himself and a prisoner of his warring metaphors. McVeigh is said to have told his friends that the army inserted a computer chip in his buttocks to monitor his movements. For a man whom no one can remember having a girlfriend, that is a pretty telling fantasy.
He also wrote, in a letter to a newspaper -- "The American dream of the middle class has all but disappeared, substituted with people struggling just to buy next week's groceries." That is the truth. Something he is also a prisoner of.
If guilty, McVeigh is as crazed and cowardly as any Irish or Arab or 1940s Zionist terrorist. But that doesn't lessen the simple truth that when mad and half-mad metaphors describe (even crudely) a commonly perceived reality, then reality itself has gone mad -- and not just buildings but whole societies explode.

 

[maxweber]

one more from Ventura:

Suck it up, neo-cons!: http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2005-08-19/cols_ventura.html

MW

 

[langeweile]

and remember boys and girls...DON'T DO DRUGS....some of the current follies of some people don't surprise me at all. The hippie generation has finally come to age.
Time to pay the piper for all that drugabuse and use...geez. Even worse ..somebody prints it, reads it, believes it and posts it.

 

[Truncador]

It's true what militia members say, metaphorically

The American militia movement arose as a reaction to the excess and hubris of the Left in the 1990s, at a time when Clinton was musing about carrying out warrantless house-to-house search-and-seizures for privately owned firearms, while his intellectuals of the "neorepublican" and "communitarian" tendencies were openly advocating the restoration of aristocratic (and, for that matter, theocratic) government in the United States and denouncing individual rights as a reactionary and anti-social aberration to be done away with by the courts. Meanwhile, the infamous massacre of a faith-based community by Federal agents in Waco, Texas proved that, behind the ostensibly paranoid imagery of "black helicopters" and the like, there stood a brutal and downright terrifying reality of State power gone berserk and so far perverted from the ends for which it was instituted as to be turned against the very citizenry itself. It was thus necessary for democracy advocates to exercise their natural, historical, and legal rights to assemble in arms and remind elites that sovereignty, in the last resort, resides in the body of the people- not the Democratic Party, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the ACLU, the Yale school of law, or the BATF.

The militia movement was rendered obsolete when Bush Jr. and the revitalized Republican Party broke the back of Liberal hegemony in America, shut down the totalitarian fantasies of Clinton's elite for good, and broke up the most feared and hated Federal government agency in America, the notorious BATF- which had proven itself more than willing to serve as the elite's jackboot, and poisoned public opinion against the State for years to come as a result (arguably, the misplaced criticisms of the Federal Patriot Act circulating today owe their existence to the spectacular abuses of this execrable gang of brigands). Throughout their heyday, the militia groups- which never once engaged in armed confrontation with the authorities, and on the contrary even partnered with police and governments in some areas-stood as a vote of confidence in the ability of ordinary people to peacefully and responsibly exercise the sovereignty that is rightfully theirs.

 

[Truncador]

One real pfennig is worth more than twenty imaginary Thalers...

With their black helicopters, maybe?

With their notions of supra-national "human rights" they believe trump the inherent sovereignty of the Canadian State to do things like expel non-citizens from the national territory at will. In Canada, where State sovereignty is poorly understood at best (typically conflated with social-insurance programs and the like), and elites tend to uncritically acknowledge the UN's pretensions to the status of a world government, such frivolous remarks do more to subvert the State in real terms than all the black helicopters the Trilateral Commission could launch in a month of Sundays.

 

[arclighter]

Suck it up, neo-cons!: http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2005-08-19/cols_ventura.html

MW

Yes, socialism eventually ruins all things. We need to break the socialist teacher's union stranglehold on our educational system. The math and science scores prove that the socialistic system is ineffective. Our kids deserve better. Why not implement a free market voucher system and make the teacher’s accountable?

Now which party is trying to bring back accountability, and introduce vouchers?

 

[arclighter]

The American militia movement arose as a reaction to the excess and hubris of the Left in the 1990s...

Don't forget Ruby Ridge and Elian Gonzalez.

 

[Truncador]

Don't forget Ruby Ridge and Elian Gonzalez.

Personally, I felt Clinton acted correctly in the Gonzalez case- although the published photo of a Federal agent decked out in military gear pointing an assault rifle at a bunch of women didn't exactly show the Administration in the best possible light, especially in the wake of Waco and Ruby ridge.

 

[maxweber]

well..

The American militia movement arose as a reaction to the excess and hubris of the Left in the 1990s

False. 'twas during the 1980s, when Bonzo was (snoozing) at the helm; by 1990, membership estimates already stood at 25 thouand-plus; public consciousness grew in the 90s, thanks to spectacular incidents like Oklahoma City

at a time when Clinton was musing about carrying out warrantless house-to-house search-and-seizures for privately owned firearms, while his intellectuals of the "neorepublican" and "communitarian" tendencies were openly advocating the restoration of aristocratic (and, for that matter, theocratic) government in the United States and denouncing individual rights as a reactionary and anti-social aberration to be done away with by the courts.

There's little proof for most of this; and the theocracy comment confuses Clinton with Shrub, while the aristocracy comment sounds like Reagan's America, not Bubba's. Then as now, the "intellectuals" speaking out for aristocracy and theocracy were rightwingers, not the Clintonistas. And what "individual rights" did Bubba undermine? Factually, now, not supositionally?

Meanwhile, the infamous massacre of a faith-based community by Federal agents in Waco, Texas proved that, behind the ostensibly paranoid imagery of "black helicopters" and the like, there stood a brutal and downright terrifying reality of State power gone berserk and so far perverted from the ends for which it was instituted as to be turned against the very citizenry itself.

Describing the Branch Davidians as "faith-based" is unusual, to put it mildly; estimates at the time ranged from "menacing cult" to "clear and present danger." But it can be proven that this incident, awful as it was, was an aberration nonetheless. What did Bubba do afterwards that lends the slightest credence to your (hysterical) charges? Nada, zip. It was a terrible miscalculation, possibly even a criminal mistake. But characteristic of the admin's policy and policy goals? Iran-Contra (and its treason) is a lot closer to typical Reagan policy than Waco is to Bubba's.

It was thus necessary for democracy advocates to exercise their natural, historical, and legal rights to assemble in arms and remind elites that sovereignty, in the last resort, resides in the body of the people- not the Democratic Party, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the ACLU, the Yale school of law, or the BATF.

Let's translate from the Jimmie-Stewart movie rhetoric, shall we? Piss off the right enough, and they have the "right" to take the law into their own hands, or abrogate the rule of law altogether.

The militia movement was rendered obsolete when Bush Jr. and the revitalized Republican Party broke the back of Liberal hegemony in America, shut down the totalitarian fantasies of Clinton's elite for good

Straight-up: Clinton had some smart ideas, and some dumb ones--but NO "totalitarian fantasies." On the t'uther hand, he still provides a (absurd) rationalizations for attacks on civil rights by the right:

..broke up the most feared and hated Federal government agency in America, the notorious BATF- which had proven itself more than willing to serve as the elite's jackboot, and poisoned public opinion against the State for years to come as a result (arguably, the misplaced criticisms of the Federal Patriot Act circulating today owe their existence to the spectacular abuses of this execrable gang of brigands).

Thank heaven Bubba was ousted when he was. he was about to make blue dresses the official uniform of the BATF. Sorry to lapse into sarcasm, but this comment is ridiculous on its face.

Throughout their heyday, the militia groups- which never once engaged in armed confrontation with the authorities, and on the contrary even partnered with police and governments in some areas-stood as a vote of confidence in the ability of ordinary people to peacefully and responsibly exercise the sovereignty that is rightfully theirs.

An idyllic picture, based on sheer pipesmoke. Ruby Ridge contradicts it--and, by the way, provides the context and background for Janet Reno's, take your pick, misguided or culpable attack on the Branch Davidians. (Had the loss of life been severe among the authorities instead of the BDs, the outcry would have been just as great, wouldn't it?)
And this is the first I've ever heard of a militias "partnering" with police and governments, in any "area." If you've got some details, I'd love to see 'em.

MW

 

[rogerstaubach]

One would think the UN or Amnesty International have more pressing concerns than this.

Their credo is, "Let no terrorist, supporter, or ideological murderer be subject to the laws of a country."

 

[rogerstaubach]

With their notions of supra-national "human rights" they believe trump the inherent sovereignty of the Canadian State to do things like expel non-citizens from the national territory at will. In Canada, where State sovereignty is poorly understood at best (typically conflated with social-insurance programs and the like), and elites tend to uncritically acknowledge the UN's pretensions to the status of a world government, such frivolous remarks do more to subvert the State in real terms than all the black helicopters the Trilateral Commission could launch in a month of Sundays.

Great post regarding the UN Human Rights and Amnesty Int'l type groups that attempt to interject themselves into soverign nation's legal and moral rights.

 

[rogerstaubach]

Funny thing, how righties dismiss the UN as a bloated bureaucracy, ineffective and without merit when it criticizes the illegal detainment of hundreds without charge for years under GWBs watch, but as soon as there's a criticism of 27 cases Canada over the last 15 years, suddenly the UN has merit.

With that said, undoubtedly Canada needs to do better. So write your MP.

What merit are you talking about? They have the same merit to me in America, Canada, Europe, Angola, Indoneisan and wherever else. That merit to me means that Canadian laws trump the "merit worthiness" of their positions.

 

[red]

the system of security certificates is wrong. either charge them and have a trial or let them go/deport them. it was reviewed by judge, but that is still not good enough

 

[The Mugger]

Well at least we don't shoot these bastards. What in hell does the UN want from us - If we give them bail to face trial they are free to hurt Canadians, if we boot them and send them back home they may someday end up, god forbid, in the US driving airliners into buildings.

Back to my original statement, I say lets shoot them and give the UN and Amnesty International something to really bitch about.