Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Alex Neve. I'm the secretary general of Amnesty International.
Amnesty International has played a central role in the work around all four of the cases that you are examining, from very early days, when Maher Arar had just been arrested in the United States. So our experience is quite extensive. In November 2003, after Maher Arar had described his ordeal in a national press conference, I received an emotional call from a man who told me about his son, Ahmad El Maati, who he said had been imprisoned in Syria and Egypt for about two years at that point, and still was in detention. He said that Canadian officials had insisted he not go public about his son's case. Now, he had seen that Monia Mazigh had gone public and that her husband, Maher Arar, was home. He feared--and was almost in tears with me on the phone--that he had been wrong to remain silent, and again and again in that call he pleaded with me to know what he could or should do to ensure that his son's rights could and would be protected.
There were similar moments to this in each of the four cases you are reviewing, at every turn and every juncture. Every time, the theme has been the same: where to turn to ensure that the individual's rights could and would be protected. That none of these individuals or their loved ones have known where to turn to secure basic human rights protection was and continues to be a scandal. It is very much our hope that through these hearings and the much-needed attention they will bring this committee will help restore human rights to where they belong in Canada's national security practices. Human rights are the key to national security; they are not the obstacle. That's a point that has been forcefully brought home in two recent international reports.
The first report, issued last month by Martin Scheinin, the UN Human Rights Council's special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, includes a reference to Maher Arar's case and stresses how important it is to ensure that there is strong oversight and true accountability with respect to human rights violations associated with counter-terrorism practices.
The second report is a lengthy, remarkable report from an eminent panel convened by the International Commission of Jurists, which after close to four years of research, investigations, and hearings around the world, including in Canada, concluded that the ways human rights have been undermined since the September 11 attacks represent “perhaps one of the most serious challenges ever posed” to the integrity of the international human rights system. The eminent panel points out that upholding human rights is not a matter of being soft on terrorism. Quite the contrary: states have a positive human rights obligation to protect people under their jurisdiction from terrorist acts, an obligation that extends to those who may be at risk of terrorism and to those who may be suspected of terrorism.
The cases of Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin have been the subject of two extensive judicial inquiries. The result is a disturbing picture of disregard for fundamental precepts of the rule of law, due process, and commitment to human rights. In all cases the use by Canadian officials of inflammatory, exaggerated labels, such as being extremists linked to al-Qaeda, labels not at all borne out by evidence, was shown to have played a crucial role in the chain of events that led to their unlawful imprisonment and torture. Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Dennis O'Connor and former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci, eminent Canadian jurists, both catalogued a myriad of shortcomings that caused or contributed to the severe human rights violations experienced by these four men.
Many Canadians likely assume that with the inquiries done and the reports in, these cases and the underlying issues have all been resolved. That is all the more so given that most Canadians are, of course, very much aware of the official apology and compensation that Maher Arar received in early 2007. But there is still far to go, both in ensuring that there truly is justice and accountability with respect to these four cases, and in ensuring that the legal, institutional, and policy reforms needed to guard against similar instances of human rights abuse in the future are enacted.
I'm going to briefly sketch the important work that still must be done to address the pressing concerns at the root of these human rights tragedies.
First is oversight and review. An absolutely crucial safeguard in protecting against human rights violations by police or security agencies in any country, in any context, is to ensure that there is effective, independent, and impartial review and oversight of their activities. In the Arar inquiry, Justice O'Connor spent considerable time and resources canvassing this issue exhaustively. He found that the approach to review and oversight of agencies involved in national security investigations in Canada was complex, unwieldy, incomplete, and inadequate. He proposed a thoughtful, comprehensive, integrated new model. However, more than two years later there has been no public indication at all of progress towards adopting and implementing that model.
We--and all of us here today--have called on the government to do so without further delay, and to implement the precise model Justice O'Connor proposed, nothing less. With a strong mechanism in place for reviewing the national security activities of the RCMP, CSIS, and other agencies, there would finally be an answer to the question that haunted Mr. Elmaati's father and all of these men and their families, and a place to turn to and ensure their rights would be protected.
Second is the critical importance of implementing the reports from these two inquiries. Justice O'Connor formulated a detailed set of recommendations, as that was part of his mandate. Justice Iacobucci did not, as that was excluded from his mandate. However, his findings as to what went wrong, and why, lead quite naturally to implicit recommendations, some similar to those of the Arar inquiry, others perhaps in addition to what Justice O'Connor proposed.
More than two and a half years after the first report was released from the Arar inquiry, there has not yet been any meaningful public reporting as to the implementation of the recommendations. Mr. Arar himself remains in the dark.
Five months since Justice Iacobucci released his report, we have only an assertion that his findings are reminiscent of what arose in the Arar inquiry, that the Arar report has been fully implemented, and that there is nothing more to do.
That's not enough. It is time for full implementation of the Arar recommendations, a public analysis as to what additional recommendations are needed to address the Iacobucci findings, and a commitment to regular public reporting on the progress of implementation. In a letter to Amnesty International earlier this month, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan described ten steps the government has taken with regard to the Arar inquiry recommendations. This was the first time we had heard anything of this sort. Unfortunately, the points tend to raise more questions than they answer. For instance, it is asserted that before sharing information with a country that has a questionable human rights record, the RCMP now uses Department of Foreign Affairs human rights reports, but there is no indication as to what approach is taken and what would lead to a decision to share and what would lead to a decision not to share the information.
Third, there must be accountability for the serious human rights violations that have occurred in these four cases. Individuals in Canada, the United States, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan all made decisions or took actions that contributed to the human rights violations these men experienced. To date, to our knowledge, not one person in any of those countries has been held accountable. We urge you to press for details about what has happened to Canadian officials most centrally implicated in these cases. What steps have been taken to determine whether any criminal charges should be laid? What steps have been taken to impose appropriate disciplinary penalties?
When there is no accountability for human rights violations, the only message conveyed is one of impunity, and impunity encourages more of the same. Beyond the accountability of Canadian officials, we also urge you to press for details as to what the Canadian government has done to ensure accountability of officials in other countries. Unfortunately, the government has maintained that in Canadian courts lawsuits against foreign government officials are barred because of Canada's State Immunity Act. Therefore, Maher Arar's efforts to sue Jordanian and Syrian officials in Ontario court failed.
It is not clear how forcefully Canadian officials have pushed for there to be independent investigations and real accountability in any of the other countries involved.
The recent letter from Minister Van Loan indicates that the Syrian and Egyptian ambassadors to Canada have been provided with copies of the Iacobucci report and have been asked to investigate and report back. That falls short of a forceful demand that individuals responsible for the torture of four Canadian citizens be held accountable. At a minimum, we need assurance that formal diplomatic protests have been registered with both governments.
Fourth, there must be redress for all of these men. There has, of course, been redress for Maher Arar. Five months after the release of the Iacobucci report, though, there has been nothing for the other men. Minister Van Loan's letter declines to comment on this, because their cases are currently before the courts, and notes that Commissioner Iacobucci was not asked to address issues of compensation. With respect, that is not the issue. Commissioner Iacobucci documented numerous deficiencies that contributed to the imprisonment and torture of these three men. It is time for redress for the role Canadian officials played in those human rights violations. We urge you to press government witnesses who come before you to lay out what steps they are taking towards a prompt, preferably negotiated or mediated settlement of the claims of these three men, leading to a meaningful official apology and appropriate compensation.
Finally, what we have learned from these four cases must inspire a new approach to how Canada responds to similar situations. Sadly, we need look no further than the current case of another Canadian, Abousfian Abdelrazik, to see that little has changed. Imprisoned on two separate occasions in Sudan, almost certainly, information now reveals, at the behest of Canadian officials, he was subjected to torture in detention, and now, for close to one year, he has been languishing in temporary refuge in Canada's embassy in Khartoum. Rather than take quick and decisive action to right the wrongs in this case, the Canadian government has put obstacle after obstacle in the way of his return to Canada and the restoration of his rights.
That brings us back to Ahmad Elmaati's father, who didn't know where to turn to protect his son's rights. Six years later, thinking about what's happening in Sudan, sadly, it seems, the refrain remains largely the same.
Thank you.