Indefinite Jailing of 6 in Canada Tests Legal System

washingtonpost.com ^ | Sunday, December 19, 2004 | Doug Struck

[crushelits]

Mona el-Fouli is seeking the release of  her husband, who has been jailed in Toronto without being charged.

TORONTO -- For a long time, Mona el-Fouli lied to her young children. Their father was working, she told them at first. He was on a trip, she said later. But when she took her boys, 5 and 7, to see their father behind a glass partition, they knew he was in jail. "Please mom, can I break this glass and go inside to play with my dad?" pleaded the 7-year-old, she recounted. For 4 1/2 years, el-Fouli's husband, Mohammed Zeki Mahjoub, has been imprisoned in Toronto without being charged, without facing trial, and without being fully told what evidence is being used to keep him there. The government has said he is a potential terrorist. His wife and defenders say the authorities should prove it or let him go. Mahjoub is one of six men being held in Canada as security risks on secret evidence. In a country that boasts of its tolerance and respect for legal rights, the jailings present an awkward dilemma for judges, lawmakers and some members of the public. "This process causes suffering for families . . . and includes serious infringements of basic rights," Meili Faille, a member of Parliament from Quebec, said this month in a speech before lawmakers attacking the government's use of "security certificates" to hold the men.

[Grut]

Canadians are 'subjects' and therefore have only the 'rights' the government finds it convenient to let them have. Until they get that straightened out, the rest is just details.

[socialismisinsidious]

"without being charged, without facing trial, and without being fully told what evidence is being used to keep him"


do we expect any more from a socialist country?

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

(cont)

On Dec. 10, a federal appeals court in Ottawa ruled the procedure constitutional. To allow the men to be released would be "an abandonment by the community as a whole of its right to survival in the name of blind absolutism of individual rights," the court concluded.

In Britain, the highest court of appeal ruled Thursday that a similar law there, under which 11 security suspects have been imprisoned indefinitely after secret hearings, violated European human rights laws.

The ruling, a blow to the measures adopted in Britain after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is likely to strengthen opposition to security incarcerations in Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth.
http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2004/12/19/news/nation/sunnat07.txt

[crushelits]

It's like Mexico.

Napoleonic laws.

In Mexico you have to prove your innocence. The government does not have to prove your guilt. Nice, French legacy isn't it?

[goldstategop]

It reminds me of what the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said in response to his invoking the Emergency Powers Act to combat a wave of separatist terrorism in Quebec in the late 60s - "just watch me!" And at the time the Government Of Canada took severe measures to deal with a wave of kidnappings and anarchy in the Province. There's nothing wrong with holding dangerous suspects indefinitely. If the information against them comes from confidential informants or intelligence sources, you can't risk compromising them and you can't risk endangering national security either. If terrorism weren't a threat to free societies, extraordinary measures to counter it would be totally unnecessary.

[trek]

"Canadians are 'subjects' and therefore have only the 'rights' the government finds it convenient to let them have. Until they get that straightened out, the rest is just details"

That sir, is a brilliant point. It sums up perfectly what it means to be an American and why we are fighting the forces of darkness.

[Grut]

If terrorism weren't a threat to free societies, extraordinary measures to counter it would be totally unnecessary.

But the presence of 'extraordinary measures' says nothing about the presence of terrorism; 'terrorism' may just be an excuse to lock people up whom the government, for whatever reason, finds inconvenient.

[drt1]

""This process causes suffering for families . . . and includes serious infringements of basic rights,"

What "Process" is she referring to - Maybe she means the process of crashing jets into buildings and killing thousands?

[socialismisinsidious]

Hold them but charge them, set a trial date and disclose evidence.
I would contend that a government that can pull citizens off the street and "hold them indefinitely" without due process is as dangerous as any terrorists I do not want any government to have that kind of power, even in the name of "safety".

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Canadians are 'subjects' and therefore have only the 'rights' the government finds it convenient to let them have. Until they get that straightened out, the rest is just details.

Where's Rumpole to defend the Magna Carta, when you need him?

[lentulusgracchus]

Canadians are 'subjects' and therefore have only the 'rights' the government finds it convenient to let them have. Until they get that straightened out, the rest is just details.

That may be true, but do you want the Canadians to turn these guys loose, if they're the real deal?

Do you want the RCMP to divulge confidential sources and blow undercover people, just to satisfy the defense table, if these guys are the real thing?

[BobL]

Jeez,

It looks like MoveOn.Org just shifted to this website.

Look, these clowns would probably be sent home on the next plane, if they requested it. When you become an immigrant, you don't go traveling around the world training at terrorist camps. I'm glad Canada has them locked up. I plan to go there next week, and it's a safer place today.

[agere_contra]

"Mohammed Zeki Mahjoub"

Well, this thread could have gone either way.

[goldstategop]

Her husband alive. It may be small comfort she can't see him but there are families of terrorist victims who will never see their loved ones again. Some balance is called for when looking into a sob story like this one.

[Mad Mammoth]

...do you want the Canadians to turn these guys loose, if they're the real deal?

Sure, why not? Put 'em on a plane to New York, drop a dime to the FBI, and we'll send them on to our new Iraqi allies for some discreet (ahem) "interrogation".

Calling Drew Michaels! Calling Drew Michaels? Hotmail Tech Support on Line 1!

(that's a private lil inside joke, don't worry about it, lol)

[lentulusgracchus]

[You, quoting dhonline.com story]

On Dec. 10, a federal appeals court in Ottawa ruled the procedure constitutional. To allow the men to be released would be "an abandonment by the community as a whole of its right to survival in the name of blind absolutism of individual rights," the court concluded.

A way has to be found of safeguarding civil liberties without betraying undercover government assets to the defense team or advertising them to the general public.

Fortunately, there is a way out. The jury, whether grand or petit, is The People empaneled, who have both a liberty interest in the proceedings of the Government and its treatment of the arrestees, and a security interest in the public peace.

The jurors also have a dispositive say in the outcome of the proceedings: they can guarantee the arrestees' liberty by no-billing them (grand jury) or returning a verdict (petit jury), which latter can be "guilty", "not guilty", or "innocent", which last would completely and for all time exonerate the defendants of any suspicion, even if a grand jury had returned an indictment on the representations of the Government.

[goldstategop]

Amen. Even Canadian Lefties get it. A Constitution is not a "suicide pact." Such common-sense reasoning contrasts sharply with the American Left's knee jerk denunciation of even minimal safeguards against a future terrorist attack on our shores.

[BobL]

It looks like the FreePers are back, yeah!!

[socialismisinsidious]

oh come on.

you really think that it is a good idea for the govt. to be able to pull people off the street without charging them, to hold them indefinitely without due process? jeez. feel safer-- until big brother taps you on the shoulder.