Please sign this NEW and URGENT letter campaign to save Mohamed from deportation to torture. Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale has the power to stop this now, however CBSA is pushing through. 16 years is long enough. Please share, and if you are part of a union/local/group, please ask them to sign as well. It only takes one minute.

Mr. Harkat, a United Nations Convention refugee who has lived in Canada for 22 years, faces deportation to Algeria under a highly controversial security certificate. Security certificate hearings take place in secret, which means neither he nor his lawyers have ever been allowed to confront and cross-examine his accusers.

In 2002, under a problematic regime of security certificates that the Supreme Court unanimously ruled unconstitutional in 2007, Mr. Harkat was imprisoned in maximum security for 43 months. He spent years under house arrest, and was placed under some of the most severe bail conditions in Canadian history. All of this without ever having been charged with a crime. The original “evidence” against Mr. Harkat was destroyed by CSIS, and the allegations against him are based on the testimony of an informant who failed a lie detector test and was never cross-examined in court. 

The Harkats have also described how the conditions imposed on them and the harassment they have faced from Canada Border Services Agency agents amounts to “psychological torture.” This is unacceptable.

On October 26, 2017, Prime Minister Trudeau clearly stated: “Nobody ever deserves to be tortured. And when a Canadian government is either complicit in that or was not active enough in preventing it, there needs to be responsibility taken.”

Today, your government has an opportunity to live up to those words by taking action to end Mr. Harkat’s ordeal, and avoid implicating your government in his torture. I urge you to abide by both Canadian law as well as Canada’s international obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture (which outlaws deportation to torture under any circumstances, without exception) and to uphold Mohamed Harkat’s rights by immediately putting a stop to his deportation.

Both the UK and Ireland have recently seen cases of deportations to Algeria being stopped because of the risk of torture. There is no reason why Canada should not follow suit. 

Under the law, Minister Goodale has the power to allow Mr. Harkat to stay in Canada.