Monday, February 23, 2009

First they came for the Muslims

Following up on Dr Dawgs post of this morning about Abousfian Abdelrazik.

He is a Montreal man who has been, not so secretly harassed, by both the Canadian and US governments, secret police for the last 8 years. He has no charges against him, he cooperated in the successful conviction of Ahmed Ressam, the Millennium Bomber, someone he knew in Montreal.  Yet he is still stranded in Sudan and has not seen his wife and child in over five years.
Here is some background from his page at the Peoples Commission.

Documents obtained under the Privacy Act seem to indicate that Mr. Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, was incarcerated in Sudan on the request of Canadian officials. While in prison in December 2003, he was interrogated by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), despite Canadian doubts about Sudan’s human rights record. Mr. Abdelrazik was held without charge and eventually released. Since his release in July 2006, he has been blocked from returning home to Montreal.

The ridiculous part of this is that the Sudanese who had incarcerated him twice (at least once on our governments bequest) and who are definitely not known for their human rights record, finally released him, stating that they would no longer persecute an innocent man. Yet our government continues to put up road blocks preventing his return to Canada.

Here is the latest one reported today.

As Dawg pointed out this not just a Harper thing, (well maybe the latest bull shit is), this started when the liberals were in power. It is the after 911, the world has changed effect where you are guilty by association and where we as citizens are supposed to just sit back, quietly and accept the fact that our collective rights and freedoms are being secretly taken away for the greater good.

If you are a Muslim living in this country, you are taking your chances if you decide to leave Canada to visit the country of your birth. Hell, even if you are an old, white, atheist, who was born here, you can end up on someone's watch list and never know it. One of the main reasons why I am Just Another Willy Loman.
What can you do for Mr. Abdelrazik, not too damn much. The press has been beating the drum for about a year with the most comprehensive article being this one from the Globe back in April. Even Romeo Dellaire got into the act, but the day before they were to meet in Sudan, Abdelrazik was arrested for the second time. 
There are some deep CSIS and Homeland Security hands involved in this and any politician that gets too close, more innuendos and secret accusations are quietly revealed. That unfortunately is the way that it works or at least on television. Besides it would take the opposition to raise the issue and I have my doubts that the Liberals would really want to highlight their role in this.
JAWL

2 comments:

susansmith said...

Once again liberals-conservatives working together - now let's talk about human rights - and all that nice fluffy stuff - when it's happening in lands imperialists want to invade, make war, and control "precise" resources for their consumption.
This is all about human rights for a few and when one can score brownie points - you are right - when they come for you.

Beijing York said...

Someone should keep a tally of all the tragic outcomes of the War on Terror. Destruction of property and infrastructure, torture, unlawful detention, entrapment, extraordinary rendition, maiming and death. Have we reached a million victims yet?

I guess Mound was right

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