Actualité - Small victory, big disappointment

Franc-Parler publie un communiqué de la Coalition Justice pour Adil Charkaoui. Franc-Parler s'attarde et s'attardera à lutte pour les droits démocratiques du peuple contre les attaques racistes de l'État. Nous exprimons notre haine la plus profonde contre le profilage racial, les attaques contre les minorités nationales et toutes les tentatives pour saper les luttes démocratiques. La Cour a refusé d'alléger la plupart des conditions de libérations d'Adil Charkaoui. Avec quatre autres accusés qui sont présentement derrière les barreaux, ils vivent depuis plusieurs mois sous la menace d'un certificat sécurité. Ils sont considérés comme "menace à la sécurité" et de "potentiel terroriste" à l'intérieur d'une procédure où la preuve est tenue secrète par les Services canadiens de sécurité et de renseignements (SCRS). Nous denonçons ces mesures d'impunités et ces attaques contre les minorités qui visent à créer un climat de terreur.

Montreal, 4 May 2006 - Disappointment greeted today's Federal Court ruling on Adil Charkaoui's latest bid for freedom. During court hearings on 6 and 7 April, Mr. Charkaoui urged that the severe court conditions which were placed on him without charge or trial be dropped, in accordance with his fundamental rights to liberty, security of the person, and equal treatment. Today the court granted Charkaoui three slight modifications, but refused to remove the restrictions altogether, citing the fact that the Court has not ruled on the validity of the allegations against Mr. Charkaoui.

"This is a law which overturns the principle of innocent until proven guilty," said Katherine Ramsey. "Mr. Charkaoui has a right to be released from these restrictive conditions until he is accorded due process. Under the 'security certificate' process, not only is the order reversed, but the Court never will rule on the validity of the allegations. The judge is only mandated to decide on the 'reasonability' of the allegations - whether they could possibly be true - in a process which also permits secret evidence." Ramsey, who works at the Point St-Charles and Little Burgundy Legal Aid Clinic, was one of 15 people who came forward in support of Mr. Charkaoui and his family by offering to accompany him if this condition remained in place.

Charkaoui will now be permitted to enter the back garden of the apartment block he shares with his parents without accompaniment, will be able to stay out until 10pm and leave his home by 7am, and is permitted to go to Ottawa to attend the Supreme Court hearing on the constitutionality of security certificates on 13 June. Other requests were denied or ignored. The ruling confirmed that Charkaoui has scrupulously followed all of his conditions since his release from prison in February 2005. It also commended his various achievements of the past year, accomplished despite the loss of liberty, including successfully continuing a Masters degree at the University of Montreal.

"Once again, I am left wondering on what basis I am being prevented from carrying out the simplest acts of freedom, such as leaving my home alone," stated Mr. Charkaoui, a Permanent Resident of Canada since 1995. "Unproven allegations, secret suspicions that are not tested in an open court, hearsay, gossip, information obtained under torture . If the government has any serious evidence against me, why is it that they have not charged me, as they would do with any citizen?"

As part of the struggle for the rights and security of non-citizens, the Coalition for Justice for Adil Charkaoui is organising a rally on Saturday, 13 May to protest the opening of a new prison for security certificate detainees in Kingston Ontario. The rally against "Guantanamo North" will take place at Complexe Guy Favreau and will begin at noon.

(Coalition Justice pour Adil Charkaoui)