Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.
Our committee agrees with your committee’s decision to examine the security certificate and conditions of detention. The objective of the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee is to obtain justice for Mohamed Harkat, a Convention refugee imprisoned under a security certificate for more than 41 months at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, known for having the worst conditions in Ontario, and at Millhaven. He has been under house arrest in Ottawa since June 2006.
Since December 2002, the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee has been calling on the Canadian government to abolish security certificates, which are an anti-democratic instrument contrary to fundamental human rights that do nothing to guarantee the security of Canadians for the simple reason that they do not protect rights. And without the protection of rights there can be no security.
I will not expand any further on the security certificate process, which has been explained at length by my colleagues, but I do wish to underscore, in the name of national security, that security certificates violate every principle of justice. They are contrary to the limited rights contained in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Torture Convention.
As for the conditions of detention, we believe that those faced by people held under security certificates are linked to what is at the heart of security certificates: impunity, arbitrariness and the violation of rights. Everything that contributes to the horror of security certificates can also be found in the conditions of detention. Mohamed Harkat was arrested under a security certificate on December 10, 2002, which ironically is Human Rights Day. Because he is a Convention refugee, he was immediately detained, without the possibility of release until 120 days after the Federal Court ruled on the reasonableness of the certificate. This release, moreover, was left to the discretion of the court.
From December 2002 to April 2006, Mohamed Harkat was held in the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre under conditions in which cruelty and vengeance prevailed. Nothing can justify this type of treatment, not even the hysteria caused by the war on terrorism. His first year was spent in isolation, the first four months of which were in complete isolation without even a book, newspaper or radio. His hands were cuffed and his legs chained when he was allowed out of his cell for 20 minutes twice a month. He would be taken to the detention centre’s exercise yard where he would remain chained. For the first few weeks, he was also chained when taken to his weekly visits, which he received twice a week from his wife, Sophie Harkat, and his family.
From April to June 2006, Mohamed Harkat was held at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre. You already know about the conditions of detention at this centre. You heard them being described. In late June 2006, Mohamed Harkat was placed under house arrest in Ottawa at the residence of Sophie Harkat and her mother. This is someone who has never been found guilty or even accused of any crime and yet he is subject to 23 conditions, the strictest in Canada. Now, along with Mohamed Harkat, his whole family, particularly Sophie Harkat and her mother, are under house arrest.
The conditions that Mohamed Harkat must currently abide by include: always wearing an electronic ankle bracelet; never being alone in the residence or outside of it, in other words, he must always be accompanied by Sophie Harkat or Ms. Brunette; complying with a curfew from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., which includes going out into the yard of the home, where he must be accompanied by his wife or her mother; not leaving the residence more than three times a week and for no longer than four hours at a time, in other words 12 hours a week; having his outings approved by the Border Services Agency in advance; in his request for permission to leave the residence, specifying the reason for the outing and the location, including which stores he will visit and who he plans to meet.
This process is repeated for every outing. He can only receive visitors that have been approved by the Border Services Agency. His friends can visit him. This permission extends to Sophie Harkat’s niece, who is seven years old. It took a special request and most likely intervention by the court so Sophie’s niece could spend the night in the house.
All verbal and oral communications are monitored and intercepted. No wireless devices, computers or cell phones are allowed in the residence. Other conditions regarding limitations on his movements also restrict him. The conditions surrounding his authorization to leave the residence are among the reasons that Mohamed Harkat did not appear before this committee today. For him to be able to testify, each of you would have had to receive approval from the Border Services Agency to speak to him.
House arrest is a practice will never replace justice. In March 2005, the Canadian Minister of Justice publicly announced the possibility of adopting a new system of certificates that would allow the release of detainees by replacing imprisonment with an assortment of humiliating measures including searches of the home, prohibiting or limiting access to means of communication, requiring an electronic ankle bracelet to be worn and restricting movements.
The danger is that such a system will be codified and instituted. The new security certificate system would allow the government to extricate itself from the legal fiasco it created by implementing the following measures: first, indefinite detention, without the support of any accusations or based on unfounded allegations of terrorist ties of refugees or permanent residents and, second, denying these people a fair trial.
A new certificate system cannot replace a fair and equitable trial. The new proposed system would continue being implemented without a trial, whether for refugees and immigrants who are not Canadian citizens, or for any citizen accused under the Anti-Terrorism Act. By adopting a new certificate system, the government would continue denying the principles of human rights.
In Mohamed Harkat’s case, house arrest extends his detention to the members of his family. Neither he nor Sophie Harkat is able to work. Added to this is uncertainty about the future and the threat of being deported to face torture, death or disappearance. These are the anxieties faced by all those held under security certificates, whether they are detained at Millhaven or under house arrest.
I for one am particularly opposed to the bracelet being standardized for those held under a security certificate or for anyone else. I will never forget the moment during a 2005 press conference at the Parliament Buildings, when Ms. Charkaoui expressed the humiliation she felt when her son came home. She said that the bracelet he was wearing strongly resembled those worn by the slaves in her country that indicate the name of their owner. We feel this same humiliation in the case of Mohamed Harkat, as we do for anyone forced to wear a bracelet.
Finally, house arrest and Kingston are heralded as progress, but this is certainly not the case. It is not about meeting a challenge as stated by the Border Services Agency. These people are being deprived of their rights and now they are fighting for their rights. We believe that this fight includes the rights of all.
Thank you.
