Canada's "Anti-Terrorism" Laws and Racial Profiling

In June 2002 the Canadian government revised its 25-year old Immigration Act. Among other measures, the changes gave the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) additional powers of detention, allowing it to hold people for longer periods without due process or disclosed evidence. A person could be detained simply on suspicion of being a potential security threat, without that threat having to be defined, or for being considered a flight risk. An example of how these expanded powers are being used was seen in mid-August, when 21 Pakistani and Indian nationals were arrested and detained, allegedly on suspicion of being part of an al-Qaeda "sleeper cell".

The arrests followed an investigation launched by CIC and the RCMP in February. Dubbed "Project Thread", it targeted 31 men, many of whom had entered Canada in 1999 as students at a school that was subsequently found not to be legitimate. A total of 400 foreign nationals entered Canada on student visas as registered students of the Ottawa Business College before it lost its accreditation in 2001. Records show that many Canadians were also registered at the school, some receiving Canada Student Loans to attend.

Last week, Muddasar Awan, one of the 21 detainees, through a lawyer presented his case to a detention review hearing in Toronto. He was not allowed to appear in person at the hearing but appeared on video link from jail. His lawyer's attempt to show that Mr. Awan was not a terrorist, by introducing and examining the document used by CIC to arrest him, was thwarted when the official presiding over the hearing would not allow the document to be introduced. She ruled that Mr. Awan must stay in jail until his next hearing on September 12, arguing that he is being held not because he is a security threat, but because he poses a risk of flight before his next hearing. This assertion was made despite the fact that he had actually turned himself in to the RCMP when he found out he was being sought.

To date, the only reason given by Citizenship and Immigration Canada for why these 21 men were arrested is that some of them were interested in the design of the CN Tower and that one man, who was training as a pilot, had flown over the Pickering nuclear plant. However, this particular flight path was one used by many students as part of their training. No additional information has been given to justify the arrests and detention. Nor does it appear that CIC has any further evidence on which to base their accusations. However, the almost total lack of evidence has not stopped the media from wild speculation about the threat of "terrorist" attacks on Canadian targets, claims based solely on the country of origin and religion of the detained individuals.