Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, committee members.
My name is Alex Neve. I'm the Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada's English branch, and it's a pleasure to be with you this morning.
For many years, and this goes back before the events of September 11 and the aftermath of September 11, which drew much needed attention to the issue of security certificates, Amnesty International has gone on record with the government expressing our very serious concerns about this particular aspect of Canada's immigration laws. We've highlighted that we think there are a number of very serious shortcomings in the process that fall far short of Canada's international human rights legal obligations. That's our particular focus: standards dealing with fair trials, arbitrary detention, discrimination, and protection from torture.
There are many human rights concerns, absolutely, as I mentioned. But we very much welcome your particular focus on detention, because in many respects it is one of the very serious aspects to this human rights tragedy, which doesn't get the attention it requires and is in some ways the aspect of the security certificate process that has the most debilitating human cost and human toll.
Over the past several years, more and more voices have joined in to highlight the serious human rights shortcomings and pressing for much needed human rights reforms. That's been led by the current detainees themselves, their families, lawyers, and support groups.
Notably, I want to draw to your attention as well that there has been concern about this at the international level. A growing number of United Nations human rights experts—and the committee is likely aware of this—have looked at this issue over the past several years and have called on Canada to change the system, including the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, with very important reports from both late last year.
It is, then, a human rights concern that has been taken up at the global level, increasing the importance, I would say, of Canada's taking action to right the wrongs. Canadian failure to comply with UN-level human rights recommendations, on this or on any other issue, fails not only to remedy the particular concern at issue, but more broadly undermines the integrity and effectiveness of the UN human rights system, a system that Canada has helped to build and champion.
There is much at stake here: much at stake for the individuals whose human rights are on the line, and for their families, who of course have great concern and feel the effect as well, but more broadly with respect to the integrity of important human rights standards that Canada stands for nationally and internationally.
We all now have our eyes on the Supreme Court of Canada, with hope and expectation that the court's upcoming judgment in three of these cases will finally compel the government to act.
There are any number of detention-related issues that I'd like to be able to spend time going through with you today. I'm going to focus briefly on four particular aspects: issues regarding the treatment of detainees; some concerns around programming; some broader issues of discrimination; then I'm going to end very importantly with our concerns about the length of detention.
Let me begin with treatment. Since immigration detention is neither a prison nor a correctional sentence, the treatment of detainees should be as favourable as possible, and certainly not any less favourable than that of detainees who have been charged or are convicted prisoners.
I just highlight for the committee's information that this comes from international standards. There are a number of important international legal standards that govern detention. There are broad standards setting out the ban on arbitrary detention in international treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. But the UN has gone further and in a number of documents over the last 20 to 30 years has laid out detailed rules in a number of important instruments that give the specifics around treatment and conditions of detention. These include the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, and the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty.
We can certainly make sure that committee members get copies of those documents, if members are interested.
As well, like all detainees, those held in immigration detention are to be treated in a humane manner that respects the inherent dignity of the human person.
All of that comes from international standards.
Due to the non-criminal nature that's related to detention of this sort, the services, facilities, activities, and programs should seek to minimize the differences between life in detention and life at liberty. They must meet the individual needs of each detainee, taking into account their history, their age, their gender, and their cultural, religious, and linguistic identity. Of course, discrimination among detainees based on such grounds as race, colour, sex, language, religion, or political or other opinion is absolutely prohibited.
International legal standards also make it clear that is very important for prisoners to maintain reasonably good contact with the outside world. Above all, a prisoner must be given the means of safeguarding his or her relationships with family and close friends. The guiding principle should be the promotion of contact with the outside world. Any limitations upon such contact should be based exclusively and very strictly on security concerns of an appreciable nature. A minimum of weekly contact with family, friends, and the community should be facilitated through visits, through correspondence, and through telephone access for each detainee. Communication with the outside world should not be denied at any point for more than a few days at a time.
Despite these standards, the reality for security certificate detainees has been much different. For example, Hassan Almrei has no relatives in Canada. For the first two years of his detention at Metro Toronto West Detention Centre, he was not allowed to phone his family in Saudi Arabia. He was only allowed to make collect calls--he was not allowed to receive them--to people in Canada. About two years into his detention, an arrangement was made with a friend whereby he was finally able to do some three-way calling, using a phone card, to speak to family in Saudi Arabia. Since then he has been moved to the Kingston immigration holding centre, and three-way phone calls are not allowed. He is not allowed to phone his parents directly at all. It's our understanding that for the past six months now he has had no contact with his family.
While Hassan Almrei was at Metro West, he received visits almost every week, beginning in July of 2003, although they were limited to a maximum of 40 minutes. In the last six months, since moving to the Kingston immigration holding centre, he has been visited only three times.
Of course, this is an issue for all of the detainees. Visits to Kingston now take a full day and far more money than family and friends can afford, largely because of the distance. For many of the detainees' families, it's about two and a half hours each way.
I want to underscore that access to family visits is not just something nice but a fundamental right that is clearly enshrined in the international standards. It is not enough to say that visits can happen; for the right to be real, it must be effective. Authorities should take steps to address concerns about access to phone calls and the cost and distance of making family visits.
Let me move on to say a couple of words about programming. Security certificate detention is assumed--of course, the reality is different--to be a temporary status meant to facilitate the speedy removal of those designated by the government to pose serious security threats. However, the intention is far removed from reality. Several of the men in detention have been held for years as they wait for their removal. During that time, they have spent time in provincial correctional facilities before being moved to Kingston, more recently.
Serious concerns have been brought to the government's attention on numerous occasions about the lack of access to programming for these detainees. They had no programming at Metro West for over five years, in some instances. Immigration officials promised at various times to provide them with a library of books that they requested, but that didn't materialize.
Unlike Metro West, which at least allowed mail-order books to come in to the men, the Kingston immigration holding centre has been deducting the value of books that are sent in from the $1,500 yearly value of goods they are allowed to receive in total. There have been reports that they have held back many books and articles that were sent in, claiming that they needed to be checked as security threats.
Again, I'd draw to the committee's attention that there are international standards here that govern, for instance, the importance of having access to education and cultural materials from public sources, reasonable quantities of it, and subject only to reasonable and absolutely necessary conditions that are put in place to ensure security.
I'm worried about discrimination. In April 2006 the UN Human Rights Committee, in reviewing Canada's implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, voiced particular concern over the use of security certificates under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and, in particular, the mandatory detention of foreign nationals who are not permanent residents.
The Human Rights Committee report calls into question the automatic detention of all non-permanent-resident aliens under the security certificate process and the seeming hesitance of the Federal Court to grant bail, despite extraordinary guarantees being given. This raises serious issues of discrimination. It is a concern that Amnesty International has highlighted in our intervention before the Supreme Court.
The Human Rights Committee has previously affirmed that foreigners cannot be held merely on the basis of their status as non-nationals. They can't be treated differently only because of the kind of immigrant or nationality status they bear. This would be a clear violation of Canada's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. There can be no place for discrimination when decisions about detention, about denying someone's liberty rights, are being made.
Last, I want to turn to the question of the length of detention. One essential principle governing detention is that it can never be indefinite. Indefinite detention without end is not only unjust and arbitrary, in that it doesn't stem from a clear decision imposing an appropriate term of detention, but it is also of concern because of the very serious impact on the mental health of detainees. To not know when or if you will be liberated is agonizing, and as it extends can become so debilitating as to constitute torture or ill treatment. Amnesty International, UN human rights experts, the Red Cross, and other organizations have documented that concern in prisons all over the world. That is why indefinite detention is clearly prohibited under international law.
The men who are held under security certificates have often languished in detention for many, many years. This is where human rights concerns begin to overlap. International law is absolutely clear: no one can be deported to a situation where they face torture. Despite that clarity, Canada continues to insist that it is okay to deport certain individuals to situations of torture if they do pose security risks. That position has been frequently and roundly condemned, including last year by both the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Committee Against Torture.
Canada's position is a setback in the crucial global struggle to eradicate torture, a concern that has become of increasing concern, I would say, to Canadians in the wake of cases such as that of Maher Arar.
Last month there was an important ruling from the Federal Court in the case of Mahmoud Jaballah, in which the judge very importantly affirmed and recognized the importance of the absolute ban on torture and took a decision that, given that there is a serious risk that he would face torture if returned to Egypt, his deportation cannot go ahead.
That is what sharply brings the human rights concerns into focus: no deportation to torture. So what is to happen? Detention without charge or trial simply still cannot be an option.
It is time now for Canada to realize that something has to be done about this, that immigration remedies are often not the road to pursue in these cases. Torture is often a likelihood in cases of this sort, but deportations don't further justice. If there were a case with serious concerns about active involvement in terrorism that came up in Canada, we would want—
