CANADA'S GLOWING HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD- CSIS Lawyer Geoffrey O'Brian- to WATCH THE HEARING click HERE

CSIS lawyer and advisor on operations and legislation, GEOFFREY O'BRIAN , on a Public Safety Committee hearing today, March 31, 2009 talked about those countries that torture as:

"countries that have human-rights records that are not as glowing as ours"

Regarding CSIS use of information obtained through torture, Mr. O'Brian also claimed that:

"... there is no absolute ban on using intelligence that may have been obtained from countries with questionable human rights records on torture"

He went further saying that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service will use information extracted through torture if lives are at stake.

Some experts would disagree with Mr. O'Brian just because they value reliable intelligence.

In a recent article in the Washington Post ( Sunday, March 29, 2009) Former senior American government officials who closely followed the harsh interrogations (torture) affirm that :

" not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of tortured confessions. "

"Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated"

The article - "Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots" - by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick , Washington Post, Sunday, March 29, 2009,

can be read HERE

"Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads, Officials Say"
( to read the article, click HERE )

Also, an article where Dan Coleman, the FBI’s senior expert on al-Qaeda, revisits the CIA’s introduction of the torture program, after the successes recorded by the FBI , can explain why experts disagree:
The article:

"The Futility Of Torture and A Trail of Broken Lives"

(click HEREto read the article)

BUT GEOFFREY O'BRIAN , CSIS lawyer and advisor on operations and legislation, probably disagrees with an al-Quaeda expert and even with those senior officials who closely followed the torture of "high value" detainees:

Instead of a respectful and decent intelligence service, capable of gathering reliable information, his claim puts Canadian Secret Services side by side with those who practice barbaric medieval procedures like torture. Not to mention breaking Canadian Laws, the Geneva Conventions and so on..

But Mr. O'Brian still believes that Canada is different from those "others" when the refers to those "other countries" as :

"countries that have human-rights records that are not as glowing as ours".

GLOWING RECORDS ??? Canada has signed and ratified , among others, Nuremberg and Geneva and all international conventions and treaties that BAN TORTURE, making them Canadian law.

Is the Canadian human rights record still glowing that much after information obtained through torture is part of CSIS' intelligence gathering tool kit?

More or less complicity in torture ????!! More or less breaking the Law??? !!!

And still a GLOWING RECORD!!???

The torturers all around the world are having the day of their lives today, for sure!! Canada is a friend !

Canada has just joined the list of those who endorse "a bit of torture" and believe that information gathered in this way is OK!!

At least Mr. O'Brian candid assertions give a clear definition to the Canadian "glowing record" on human rights - some torture here , some torture there is OK!

The reason the cover up of the torture of Canadian citizens happened and a little bit here and there of the "indirect participation" of CSIS/RCMP in torture were well explained today by Mr. Geoffrey O'Brian!

Liberal Mark Holland said something important but why would Mr. O'Brian care?

"We're sending the message today that if it's good enough, that if you torture them well enough and you get information that is marketable enough, then we're going to buy it — we're in the market for information obtained by torture," he said.

"That's a dangerous message to be sending out there," Holland said.

To watch Mr. O'Brian at the Committee hearing and all those present , go to :
SECU Meeting No. 13 - March 31, 2009 at:

http://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Parlvu/ContentEntityDetailView.aspx?ContentEntityId=4326



More at: (some articles dated March 31, 2009)

MACLEANS: "Do We Endorse Torture? "
http://www2.macleans.ca/tag/geoffrey-obrian/

Globe and Mail : "CSIS won't rule out tips derived from torture"
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090331.wcsis31/BNStory/National/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090331.wcsis31

CTV : "Spy agency rejects complete ban on torture info"
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090331/CSIS_torture_090331/20090331?hub=Canada

The Canadian Press:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hwY1L_6m_leNu169qhKQ4y_r3W5w

The Star:
http://www.thestar.com/article/611114

March 31, 2009-CSIS, RCMP to testify before Public Safety Committee

Witnesses representing the RCMP, CSIS and the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) will testify on the Arar Inquiry recommendations and the Iacobucci Inquiry findings before the Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, March 31.

The hearing takes place from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., in room 253 Centre Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and is open to the public.

From Kerry Pither's Blog: ( to go to her Blog click HERE)

"CSIS and RCMP representatives should be asked, among other things, if they are prepared to apologize for the ways in which their agencies contributed to the detention and torture of Canadian citizens."

HEARING:
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
Room 253 - Centre Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa
Open to the public.

But...Will accountability come out of the hearings?Are RCMP/CSIS prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Are they prepared and willing to take responsibility for their acts?

Are they going to make accountable, on an individual basis, those who deliberately betrayed Canada and Canadians by getting into the “dark side” and covering up crimes?

RCMP/CSIS and others, at this point, stand side by side with secret services and police forces in criminal dictatorships, keeping criminal insiders protected for “national security” reasons . None of them have any moral standing to point fingers at criminals. Hopefully some accountability will come out of these hearings. If not, God Help Canada!

Canada, SIDE BY SIDE with the the American Torture Program? Is the worse still to be seen?

March 17, 2009 - Court Rules Again: Abu Ghraib Photos Must Be Made Public

Many and probably the most horrendous photos of the torture in Abu Ghraib were never released to the public.

And this is probably only a fraction of what the USA has been hidding when it comes to its Torture Program . Clearly, the true colours and depth of the American torture Program is still unknown to the public.

Is some of the worse done by the American government and its accomplices going to come out?

Hypocrisy and lies are still the rule even under the new administration. Do the majority of Americans care ?

It is still to be seen...

In the "North America" of today, accountability doesn't seem to be a priority. Secret Services in both USA and Canada, CSIS/RCMP, CIA/FBI and others have comfortably been covering up their wrongdoings with the help of "secret laws", "secret trial" and who knows what else.

Impunity to criminal activities and to criminals inside governments, in the same (or even "enhanced") old American Style that kidnapped, assassinated and tortured thousands in Central and South America only some years ago are, at least up to now, acceptable and part of the "North Americam life style".

As with Canadian "alignment" with the American Torture Program, complicity from neighbour countries , "indirect torture" or "torture by proxy", no matter what one wants to believe in, was already an American style of getting the job done. It is the same old , same old...

Central and South America were the so called “American Backyards”...Is Canada the new “American Backyard”? Passively and submissively “the mouse under the foot of the elephant” tainting its reputation in the name of some extra dollars for its “secret services”, some brand new SUV's and other “perks”? What could possibly explain the Canadian involvement in the abhorrent American Torture Program? Hopefully Canada will wake up from the illusion that the American “friendship” is more valuable than its own citizens. The future is dark if not !

(for more on the issue see "Killing Hope: U. S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II - by William Blum or visit the post on the Invictus Blog by clicking HERE )

The American way of torturing, kidnapping, murdering and more, along with its lies, secrecy and most of all, no accountability , as it looks like up to now, has come to North America .

But regardless the American way of covering up its and that of its accomplices wrongdoings, once in a while Courts take some action and on March 17, 2009:

"A federal court rejected a Bush administration request to reconsider a decision that ordered the Department of Defense to release photographs depicting the abuse of detainees by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the government's request to have the full appeals court rehear a decision from last September ordering the release of the photos as part of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking information on the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody overseas.

The Obama administration, which has not taken a position on the litigation, has 90 days to appeal to the Supreme Court if it chooses to challenge the September order.

"This decision is a stinging rejection of the Bush administration's attempt to keep the public in the dark about the widespread abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody abroad," said ACLU staff attorney Amrit Singh, who argued the case before the court. "These photographs demonstrate that prison abuse was not aberrational and not confined to Abu Ghraib. Release of the photographs would send a powerful message that the new administration intends to make a clean break from the unaccountability of the Bush years."

From:
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/03/17-3

To read more , click HERE or go to:

http://docudharma.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=12593

RCMP/CSIS - CIA/FBI - Canadian Complicit in what???

UK MI5 Complicity in Torture UNDER INVESTIGATION

UK police to investigate MI5 agent role in US detainee alleged abuse
Devin Montgomery at 12:53 PM ET - Jurist Legal News and Research- (go to the site)

[JURIST] UK Attorney General Janet Scotland [official profile] said Thursday that police would conduct an investigation [statement, PDF] into claims that an agent of the country's MI5 intelligence service took part in the allegedly abusive interrogation of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed [BBC profile; JURIST news archive]. Scotland said she determined the investigation was necessary after reviewing allegations that an MI5 agent gave US CIA agents questions that were asked of Mohammed during his alleged torture in Morocco. Mohamed, a native of Ethiopia who claims to have been transferred to Morocco for torture under a US program of extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive], said he obtained the documents through the US legal process while seeking his release from Guantanamo Bay.

Earlier this month, the UK government's independent reviewer of terror laws called for a judicial inquiry into British complicity in US rendition and torture. British media reported last week that UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak told British ministers that MI5 may have been complicit [JURIST report] in torture committed while detainees including Mohamed were in US custody. Mohamed was returned to the UK [JURIST report] last week following seven years of detention, including five at Guantanamo Bay, where he was held on charges of conspiring to commit terrorism. Those charges were dismissed [JURIST report] in October, but Mohamed remained in custody while US authorities considered filing new charges.

Public Safety Committee hearings THIS Tuesday - March 24 - 9 to 11 - OPEN TO THE PUBLIC - KERRY PITHER testifies

Open to the Public

Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security Hearing

March 24, 2009 - from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. -room 269 of the West Block on Parliament Hill

Kerry Pither will be testifying before the Committee

For more information , click HERE:

http://kerrypither.com/2009/03/public-safety-committee-hearings-this-tuesday/

EVENT POSTPONED TO APRIL -"Deportation to Torture: Past, Present and Future" - Press Conference at the Parliament of Canada

"Deportation to Torture: Past, Present and Future" - Press Conference at the Parliament of Canada - A NEW DATE WILL BE POSTED - - not on March 31, 12:00- 1:00 pm
Press Conference: "Deportation to Torture: Past, Present and Future"
Parliament of Canada.

Speakers:
MP Wayne Marston -NDP Human Rights Critic
Dr. Monia Mazigh -wife of Maher Arar
Yavar Hameed –Lawyer for Abousfian Abdelrazik
Sophie Harkat -wife of Mohamed Harkat
Alex Neve- Amnesty International Secretary General

Room 752, 131 Queen Street Building, Parliament of Canada
RSVP in advance by March 27: Contact Maria Al-Masani 613-614-1916

Michel Cabana - ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE - RCMP - Some information about recently promoted RCMP Assistant Commissioner

RCMP/CSIS Complicity in Torture: false information, torture, and PROMOTION ..

The National Post has recently revealed the promotion of Michel Cabana to RCMP assistant commissioner .

Full article source: National Post - March 17, 2009)

NATIONAL POST - March 17, 2009 - by Chris Boutet
OTTAWA — The RCMP officer who led the national-security unit that provided false information on Maher Arar to U.S. authorities has been promoted to the rank of assistant commissioner.
Michel Cabana was the inspector in charge of Project A-O Canada, a unit created in 2001 to investigate the alleged links of Abdullah Almalki to al-Qaeda. According to a report by Justice Dennis O’Connor, who oversaw a public inquiry into the matter, the RCMP team supplied information to U.S. Customs officials describing Arar as an “Islamic extremist” with links to al-Qaeda.
O’Connor concluded that the information likely led the United States to deport him to Syria, where he was tortured.

The investigation identified Arar as a “person of interest,” but Arar was never criminally charged and he has denied any wrongdoing. In 2007, the

Canadian government awarded him $10.5-million in compensation for the ordeal.

Cabana was previously a chief superintendent before being promoted to assistant commissioner, according to cabinet documents.

The RCMP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



Update Mike Cabana:

Recent News: National Post - May 7, 2012 - Gary Dimmock, Postmedia News | May 7, 2012

RCMP reputation on line after Ottawa man awarded new trial for 2000 contract killing


http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/07/rcmp-reputation-on-line-after-ottawa-man-awarded-new-trial-for-2000-contract-killing/

International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] Report 0n the American Torture Program - How far goes the Canadian Complicity in American Torture?

CSIS/RCMP have been "working" with the CIA as already reported in both the Iacobucci Inquiry, and the Arar Inquiry.

CSIS participation in interrogation in Guantanamo is well documented and even video taped.

The CIA use of torture is again brought to light by reporter and attorney Mark Danner who has obtained a copy of the International Committee of the red Cross’ report on the torture by the CIA (American Central Inteligence Agency)

According to this secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC], the United States tortured people.

The April 9, 2009, issue of The New York Review offers first view of American torture:

US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites-by Mark Danner (clik here)

The report details in specific and explicit terms the various methods and “enhanced techniques” the CIA used to interrogate prisoners in a secret “global internment system” set up at the direction of President George W. Bush.

kidnapping, murder, "enhanced techniques" etc...And more...

Danner gives us the Table of Contents of the report, which clearly evokes the nature of the CIA program:

Contents
Introduction
1. Main Elements of the CIA Detention Program
1.1 Arrest and Transfer
1.2 Continuous Solitary Confinement and Incommunicado Detention
1.3 Other Methods of Ill-treatment
1.3.1 Suffocation by water
1.3.2 Prolonged Stress Standing
1.3.3 Beatings by use of a collar
1.3.4 Beating and kicking
1.3.5 Confinement in a box
1.3.6 Prolonged nudity
1.3.7 Sleep deprivation and use of loud music
1.3.8 Exposure to cold temperature/cold water
1.3.9 Prolonged use of handcuffs and shackles
1.3.10 Threats
1.3.11 Forced shaving
1.3.12 Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food
1.4 Further elements of the detention regime….

Here is one excerpt of what the detainees relate to the Red Cross:

After the beating I was then placed in the small box. They placed a cloth or cover over the box to cut out all light and restrict my air supply. As it was not high enough even to sit upright, I had to crouch down. It was very difficult because of my wounds. The stress on my legs held in this position meant my wounds both in the leg and stomach became very painful. I think this occurred about 3 months after my last operation. It was always cold in the room, but when the cover was placed over the box it made it hot and sweaty inside. The wound on my leg began to open and started to bleed. I don’t know how long I remained in the small box, I think I may have slept or maybe fainted.

I was then dragged from the small box, unable to walk properly and put on what looked like a hospital bed, and strapped down very tightly with belts. A black cloth was then placed over my face and the interrogators used a mineral water bottle to pour water on the cloth so that I could not breathe. After a few minutes the cloth was removed and the bed was rotated into an upright position. The pressure of the straps on my wounds was very painful. I vomited. The bed was then again lowered to horizontal position and the same torture carried out again with the black cloth over my face and water poured on from a bottle. On this occasion my head was in a more backward, downwards position and the water was poured on for a longer time. I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless. I thought I was going to die. I lost control of my urine. Since then I still lose control of my urine when under stress.

I was then placed again in the tall box. While I was inside the box loud music was played again and somebody kept banging repeatedly on the box from the outside. I tried to sit down on the floor, but because of the small space the bucket with urine tipped over and spilt over me…. I was then taken out and again a towel was wrapped around my neck and I was smashed into the wall with the plywood covering and repeatedly slapped in the face by the same two interrogators as before.

I was then made to sit on the floor with a black hood over my head until the next session of torture began. The room was always kept very cold.

This went on for approximately one week. During this time the whole procedure was repeated five times. On each occasion, apart from one, I was suffocated once or twice and was put in the vertical position on the bed in between. On one occasion the suffocation was repeated three times. I vomited each time I was put in the vertical position between the suffocation.

During that week I was not given any solid food. I was only given Ensure to drink. My head and beard were shaved everyday.

I collapsed and lost consciousness on several occasions. Eventually the torture was stopped by the intervention of the doctor.

I was told during this period that I was one of the first to receive these interrogation techniques, so no rules applied. It felt like they were experimenting and trying out techniques to be used later on other people."

Danneralso gives its conclusion which makes it unequivocall that, in the ICRC’s view, the United States government committed major crimes through its “enhanced interrogation” program:

"The allegations of ill-treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

The article can be read HERE and comments on the issue by Stephen Soldz, psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist, can be read HERE.

The West should feel shame over its collusion with torturers

Published on THE INDEPENDENT - U.K. - March 14, 2009

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-the-west-should-feel-shame-over-its-collusion-with-torturers-1644918.html

Robert Fisk’s World: The West should feel shame over its collusion with torturers

I want to know why those complicit in Almalki’s ordeal are not tried in court

Saturday, 14 March 2009

I invited Abdullah Almalki to breakfast in Ottawa but he only took coffee. And while I wolfed down my all-English breakfast in the Chateau Laurier Hotel (beloved of Churchill and Karsh of Ottawa fame), he sipped gingerly at his cup with much on his mind. Snooped on by the Canadian secret service and then tortured in Syria while the Canadian authorities did nothing for him – save supplying his perverted torturers with questions – he had much to think about. A carbon copy of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who had his penis cut up while the Brits sent questions to his perverted Moroccan torturers.

In Abdullah Almalki's case, he wasn't renditioned. He simply flew into Damascus to see his Syrian family, got banged up in the city's secret police headquarters and was then beaten into submission, not much different from an even more famous case – that of Maher Arar, who was a Canadian citizen and got renditioned to Damascus by the Americans while the US authorities sent questions to his perverted Syrian torturers. Arar has received apologies from US senators – though not from the war hero George Bush (battle honours: the skies over Texas during the Vietnam conflict) -- and compensation from the Canadian government.

The details of each case are shockingly similar. Tim Hancock of Amnesty International has supplied similar information on Khaled al-Maqtari, a Yemeni man, who was apparently threatened with rape and beaten in chains by his perverted American torturers. Western nations simply assisted the perverts by providing them with pages of questions while their citizens/residents lay in agony, wishing they had never been born.

In the case of Abdullah Almalki, four interrogations by the Canadian "secret service" (its acronym – CSIS – inspires more laughter than fear) preceded his departure from Canada and the collapse of his business and subsequent residence in Malaysia. He and his wife had run an electronic components export business in Ottawa which prompted CSIS's suspicions. Was he sending funds or components to "terrorists" (the quotation marks are, of course, obligatory since CSIS was not worried about the "terrorists" who run the Syrian secret service and who were later to torture Abdullah Almalki on Canada's behalf).

For months, he was held in a secret service hellhole in Damascus and whipped with steel while the Syrians acted upon a Canadian letter to them (dated 4 October 2001) which stated that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were suggesting that Mr Almalki was linked through association with al-Qa'ida and engaged in activities that posed an "imminent threat" to the public safety and security of Canada. Readers who doubt this outrageous letter to the Syrian dictatorship can check page 400 of the Iacobucci report which was drawn up with government assistance after Almalki's release. The RCMP – the famous Mounties – also sent letters to Canadian government liaison officers in Islamabad, Rome, Delhi, Washington, London, Berlin and Paris, identifying Almalki as an "important member" of al-Qa'ida. For more information, you must read Kerry Pither's brilliant account, Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror, which is scandalously unavailable in Britain.

The purpose of setting out these awful accounts is not to piss on Canadians. Canada is a great and real democracy, albeit weighed down with too much political correctness. I once remember an immigration officer at Toronto airport explaining to an Asian visitor that he wasn't to allow himself to be interrogated by the police without a lawyer and that he was free to speak and move wherever he wanted in Canada. The finest immigration guy in the world, I thought to myself. The lads and lasses at the Heathrow immigration desks don't come up to that standard.

No, I don't think Canada as a nation is to blame for all this. But the West is. For it is our public servants in government and our secret service thugs who have been in league with all these perverted men around the world. Indeed, even when Almalki was freed from his Syrian prison, Canadian embassy officials in Damascus would not allow him to stay in their building and ordered him out when the embassy closed at 4pm. One of them reportedly later told Almalki that Canada regularly gave passports to the families of leading Syrian officials. Can this be true?

I do know that the Syrians quite recently complained mightily to the Americans as well as the Canadians. First, the West sent its prisoners to be tortured in Damascus – and then complained that Syria abused human rights! Quite so. Bashar Al-Assad has put a stop to quite a lot of torture in Syria and now that President Obama is sending his cohorts to woo the Syrians, they presumably won't be called on to do America's (or Canada's) dirty work any more.

But I want to know why those complicit in Almalki's torture – the letter writers, the composers of questions – cannot be tried in court. They are, at the least, accomplices to human rights abuses. So are the Brits who went to question tortured men in Guantanamo. Even more so are the American perverts who indulged in their own torture in Afghanistan and Iraq – and yes, I have noted that our dear President Obama is allowing the illegal detention of prisoners at Bagram in Afghanistan to continue. But what else would you expect from a man whose secretary of state, Lady Hillary, far from going to the Palestinians whose homes were going to be destroyed by the Israelis in Jerusalem and denouncing this outrage, said merely that the home demolitions were "unhelpful".

So, in the long term, is torturing prisoners. Abdullah Almalki drove me to Ottawa airport in the snow after our breakfast, admitting that he was still too mentally broken by his months of Syrian torture to find employment. CSIS doesn't follow him any more as he says it used to before he left Canada for Asia and then the the hell of Syria. No one tailed our car. No one says any more that Almalki is guilty. On the other hand, no one will say he is innocent. But there are an awful lot of men in Western governments who should be in the dock. They won't be, of course. And oh yes – just in case you missed it – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just admitted that Canadian troops in Afghanistan are not going to win a military victory there. Just think. All that torture – for nothing.

JUSTICE NOT TORTURE - The Case of ABOUSFIAN ABDELRAZIK - "PEOPLE'S COMMISSION ON "Security" Measures" - Project " FLY HOME"

CSIS -Canadian Secret Intelligence Service Complicity in Torture: "PRESENTE !"
The Case of ABOUSFIAN ABDELRAZIK

Canadian Secret Service (CSIS) statement regarding his torture :"We judge it unlikely that, should Abdelrazik's detention in Sudan become public knowledge, there would be the same sort of outcry that surrounded Maher Arar's arrest and deportation from the USA. "

Update on this torture case - for detailed information click on the link below:

Ticket bought for Abdelrazik, flight leaves on 3 April, 2009 !

Over one hundred people across the country have joined together to buy a plane ticket home for Abousfian Abdelrazik, even though the Canadian government has made it a federal offence to directly or indirectly finance or collect money to support Mr. Abdelrazik.

The plane ticket strips away another excuse the government has used to prevent Abousfian Abdelrazik from returning home. In December, the government stated in a letter to Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyer that he must present a fully-paid-for plane ticket before Passport Canada would agree to issue an emergency passport. Mr. Abdelrazik's passport expired while he was in prison in Sudan.

The flight leaves Khartoum on 3 April. An emergency passport can take less than 24-hours to issue. The government has three weeks.

• Document sent from the government of Sudan to Canadian Embassy letting them know that they have nothing against Mr. Abdelrazik

  "Thus, what have been arisen around the suspect was merely doubts on his general shape, beard, prayer's mark on his forhead [...] Based upon our investigations, we did not find any evidence that allow condemning him or punishing him."

Canadian/CSIS Complicity in Torture in Guantanamo - Documents on Line at University of California

CSIS Complicity in Torture in Guantanamo
The Report - the Canadian Officials participation in interrogation in the notorious Torture prison of Guantanamo:

The report is on line at:
The University of California Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA)
Foreign Affairs Building- Canada-Photo Credit: Wikimedia

http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project/index

Just click on the link above to read the Report , or on the link below:

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - Activity Number 00444030552023

PAGE 9 of the Report :(click here to read the original document) - Preparing the 12 year-old for the Canadian "visit" :

"6. In an effort to make him more amenable and w·iIIing to talk,(blacked out)_ has placed Umar
on the -frequent flyer program: for the three weeks before Mr(blacked out) ~s visit, Umar has not been permitted more than three hours in anyone location. At three hours intervals
he is moved to another cell block, thus denying him uninterrupted'sleep and a continued change of neighbours. He will soon be placed in isolation for up to three weeks and then he will be interviewed again"


Also on line:

Guantánamo's Children: Military and Diplomatic Testimonies

More information at:

"The Guantánamo Testimonials Project"

http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project/index

PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO the Joint Commission on Human Rights - UK

Complicity In Torture - UK - Hearing on March 10, 2009 - PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO :

jchr@parliament.uk

Asking that Craig Murray, British Ambassador in Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004, be allowed to give evidence of UK Complicity in Torture.

Craig Murray was UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan. The government there was (still is) torturing people and giving intelligence thus obtained to the CIA, which sent it to MI6 and the Foreign Office.

Craig sent a series of telegrams to the Foreign OFicce objecting to this policy of complicity in torture. The policy ended up being approved by Jack Straw and Craig , then the Embassador, was fired.

On Tuesday, March 10, 2009, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights in UK will discuss whether or not to hear Craig's evidence on the UK government's policy of using intelligence from torture.

Please email the UK's Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to be heard next Tuesday - March 10, 2009.

Please copy your email to craigjmurray@tiscali.co.uk.

In the email , urge that Craig Murray be allowed to give evidence on the subject of the UK government's policy on intelligence cooperation with torture abroad. Just a one-liner would be fine.

More on the issue at:

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED - http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03/your_help_neede.html

And at:

http://valtinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/let-craig-murray-tell-parliament-what.html

You can use the text:

"I urge that Craig Murray be allowed to give evidence on the subject of the UK government's policy on intelligence cooperation with torture abroad".

Free Workshops on National Security issues and Stopping Canadian Complicity in Torture

Join Amnesty International Carleton for an exciting day of free workshops on national security issues and stopping Canadian complicity in torture.

When: Saturday, March 14, 2009
Time: 10:00 AM - 4:00PM
Where: Carleton University, Loeb Building (Loeb Lounge)
Cost: FREE with lunch provided

In the past few years, cases of Canadian citizens who were tortured abroad have surfaced in the media and elsewhere. The O’Conner and Iacobucci commissions have confirmed that the Canadian government was complicit in the torture of at least four Canadians.

There is a wealth of information out there on Canadian complicity in torture, but all this information can be overwhelming and it is not always clear how we can use this information most effectively to pressure our governments to stop being complicit in torture.

Join us for a workshop to learn about this important and disturbing issue and how YOU can help make a change. The day will include two FREE workshops with experts on media literacy and lobbying techniques that regular people can use to pressure the Canadian government and prevent the torture of Canadian citizens.

Hilary Homes from Amnesty International Ottawa and Yavar Hameed (lawyer for Abousfian Abdelrazik and Carleton University instructor) will be some of the special guests for the workshops with others to be announced soon! A delicious FREE lunch will also be provided!

If you are interested in participating in the workshop, please reserve your spot as soon as possible by sending us your name and phone number to this e-mail address: amnestystoptorture@gmail.c

om. Contact us at this email for more information!

We hope to see you soon!

Amnesty Carleton