[R-G] Canada: 'Anti-terror' arrests aimed at anti-war movement

[gregory meyerson]

thanks for all the material on israel; it's been of immediate use to me 
and others.
On Jun 30, 2006, at 2:22 PM, shniad at sfu.ca wrote:

> http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/673/673p20c.htm
>
> Green Left Weekly      June 28, 2006
>
> Canada:
>
> 'Anti-terror' arrests aimed at anti-war movement
>
> By Ian Angus, Toronto
>
> On June 2, a combined force of local, provincial and federal police 
> arrested
> 15 young Muslim men, including five minors, in the Toronto area. Those 
> 15,
> and two others who have been in jail since last August, are accused of
> plotting terrorist attacks on various targets in Ontario. If 
> convicted, they
> could be sentenced to life in prison.
>
> The arrests were conducted in the name of "stopping terrorism", but a 
> close
> look at the facts suggests that they were actually the opening salvo 
> in an
> intense propaganda campaign to divide Canada's Muslims, build support 
> for
> the federal government's draconian "anti-terrorism" laws, and push 
> back the
> considerable opposition in Canada to Ottawa's war policy in 
> Afghanistan and
> elsewhere in the Middle East.
>
> The arrests were carefully orchestrated to ensure that the stories 
> concocted
> by police received maximum publicity. The arrests took place on a 
> Friday
> evening. This meant the men could be held incommunicado through the 
> weekend,
> giving the police maximum opportunity to get their story out.
>
> Friendly journalists and politicians were briefed before the arrests 
> took
> place. Details of the police allegations were made public at a press
> conference the following morning, before the accused and their lawyers
> received any information at all.
>
> Trial by media
>
> All normal standards of decency or concern for accuracy were abandoned 
> by
> most journalists in the following days. Most reports based on a
> police-prepared eight-page "synopsis", a document normally given only 
> to
> defence lawyers.
>
> Prominent criminal lawyer Julian Falconer told CBC Radio that such 
> synopses
> are "notoriously acts of fiction" that seldom bear any resemblance to 
> the
> evidence eventually presented at trial. Despite that, newspapers across
> Canada reported every lurid accusation. Most devoted several pages a 
> day to
> the "plot".
>
> No allegation was too nonsensical to get front-page treatment. The men 
> were
> said to be planning to take over parliament, hold MPs hostage, and 
> behead
> politicians one at a time until Canada withdraws from Afghanistan.
>
> Other reported targets include the CBC, the Toronto Stock Exchange, 
> and the
> Toronto offices of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
> Toronto's Globe and Mail daily raised fears of a 9/11-style attack by
> reporting that the accused were taking flight training. In fact, one 
> of the
> men took one semester of an aircraft maintenance course that involves 
> no
> flying at all.
>
> The media coverage reeked of racism - article after article featured
> references to the arrested as "Canadian-born" (rather than simply
> "Canadian"); to "brown-skinned young men"; and to sinister goings-on in
> mosques.
>
> Meanwhile, the 17 accused, five of whom are minors, were held in 
> isolation
> cells with the lights on 24 hours a day, denied the right to consult 
> lawyers
> in private, denied visits from their families.
>
> When they were taken to court, the police put on a show. Some 30 
> officers
> with machine guns surrounded the building while sharpshooters patrolled
> nearby rooftops. The accused, none of whom has been accused of 
> committing a
> single violent act, were brought in wearing leg irons.
>
> No evidence
>
> There is no reason to believe any part of the police story. Less than 
> two
> years ago, Toronto police arrested 19 young men from South Asia, and 
> the
> press was filled with charges that 19 planned to blow up the CN Tower 
> - the
> world's tallest building - and the Pickering nuclear plant. The entire 
> story
> was false - no charges were ever laid.
>
> The latest arrests in Toronto occurred just before police in Britain 
> were
> forced to apologise for a heavily publicised raid on a London 
> apartment that
> they wrongly claimed was a storage site for chemical weapons - a young
> Muslim man was shot and seriously injured during that attack.
>
> Even if every word of the bizarre police synopsis is true, it's clear 
> that
> this was not a sophisticated terrorist cell plotting to rain 
> devastation on
> our "pluralistic Western society". What the synopsis actually 
> describes is a
> group of devout young Muslim men, angry at Canada's increasingly 
> active role
> in the international war against Islam, venting their frustration in 
> wild
> online chat and "plots" that were mostly fantasy.
>
> They may have wanted to strike out, but they had no skills, no 
> realistic
> plans, and no resources. As Toronto-area imam Ally Hindy told Newsweek
> magazine, "I just think these people were bullshitting".
>
> The police say they have been watching these young men for nearly two 
> years
> - tapping their phones, reading their emails, interviewing friends and
> employers.
>
> Until now the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] and CSIS have 
> claimed
> that their policy is to break up groups like this before anything 
> actually
> happens. Such heavy-handed police interventions have long been standard
> procedure against political activity the cops regard as threatening.
> According to the June 7 Globe and Mail, an RCMP/CSIS briefing paper
> presented to the new federal cabinet in February bragged that these 
> federal
> agencies have carried out 12 such disruptions in the past two years.
>
> This time the cops changed tactics. Someone, undoubtedly with cabinet
> approval, decided that rather than simply intimidating the young 
> dissidents
> into inactivity, they should arrange for an anti-terrorist propaganda 
> coup.
> So the cops orchestrated a sting, setting up the young men to buy 
> fertiliser
> from an undercover cop, allegedly to build giant bombs.
>
> It's not yet clear to what extent the cops used agents or provocateurs 
> to
> promote the purchase. Entrapment is standard police procedure in this 
> type
> of case, and there's no reason to think that the RCMP and CSIS have 
> clean
> hands now.
>
> In any event, it's not illegal to buy fertiliser in Canada, so the 
> police
> have fallen back on charges of "plotting" and "conspiring" - the usual
> resort of prosecutors when hard evidence is weak or non-existent.
>
> The arrested young men are being used as pawns to promote Ottawa's 
> pro-war,
> anti-immigrant policies. The evidence against them is virtually
> non-existent; the media coverage is a blatant witchhunt; and the police
> propaganda campaign has so poisoned the atmosphere that they are 
> unlikely to
> get a fair trial.
>
> The weakness of the police case was demonstrated on June 12, when the
> prosecution sought (and a judge granted) a complete publication ban on 
> court
> proceedings, over the objections of defence lawyers.
>
> "After they've had 10 days with the media, feeding the media whatever 
> they
> want to feed the media, denying us disclosure of any evidence and 
> doing what
> they need to do to conduct a trial in this parking lot of this 
> courthouse,
> they now have the audacity to request a blanket publication ban of all
> proceedings from today's date", said Rocco Galati, lawyer for one of 
> the
> accused.
>
> The cops were eager to get their unproven "synopsis" allegations out 
> to the
> widest possible audience, but when it comes to court-tested evidence, 
> well,
> that's different. It's hard not to conclude that the actual evidence 
> is even
> less convincing than what we've seen so far.
>
> Why now?
>
> The police could have moved against this small and poorly organised 
> group at
> any time. The decision to move now was driven by the cops' political 
> bosses,
> who wanted a dramatic event they could use to build support for the
> government's pro-war and anti-immigrant policies.
>
> Galati told reporters that the government's goal is "a show trial for
> political ends" designed to influence the Supreme Court's review of the
> legality of security certificates under which five Muslim men have 
> been held
> without trial for as long as five years. He also said that the arrests 
> and
> publicity aimed to build support for cabinet's plan to renew the
> Anti-Terrorism Act, which eliminates important civil rights, including 
> the
> right not to testify.
>
> That law, which was rushed through Parliament in the wake of the 9/11
> attacks, will expire this year unless parliament votes to extend it.
>
> But the number one goal of the June 2 arrests and the subsequent 
> propaganda
> campaign is to intimidate opponents of Ottawa's growing war in 
> Afghanistan,
> where 2200 Canadian troops are participating in the NATO occupation 
> force.
> On May 18, a motion to extend Canada's "mission" until 2009 passed in 
> the
> House of Commons by only four votes, and anti-war sentiment has been 
> growing
> across the country.
>
> The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expanding Canada's
> partnership with Washington's imperial war drive, but it fears that 
> growing
> domestic opposition will block its ambitions. The war is not going 
> well in
> Afghanistan for the Canadian invaders, and large numbers of people at 
> home
> are opposed to it. With these arrests, Canada's rulers are renewing the
> fraudulent claim that the illegal invasion and occupation of 
> Afghanistan is
> somehow connected to stopping terrorist attacks in Canada.
>
> The anti-terrorist propaganda barrage has had a short-term impact on
> anti-war sentiment. In May, a Strategic Counsel poll found that 54% of
> Canadians opposed Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, while only 40% 
> were
> in favour. Three days after the arrests, the same polling company 
> found 48%
> in favour and only 44% opposed. That's a substantial shift - but 44%
> opposition is still very strong, and support for the war will certainly
> erode again as people realise the destructive effects of the war on 
> both
> Afghanistan and Canadian society.
>
> Opposition to the war is particularly strong among Muslim Canadians, 
> most of
> whom correctly see Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan as 
> part and
> parcel of Washington's war in the Middle East.
>
> The June 2 arrests and the subsequent propaganda campaign are part of a
> concerted effort by the government to isolate the Muslim community, to 
> split
> that community itself by pressuring "moderate" Muslims to condemn 
> "radicals
> and extremism" - and to block the developing alliances between Canadian
> Muslim organisations and anti-war activists, particularly in Toronto.
>
> The message is very clear: support the government, refrain from 
> criticism,
> and keep your head down - or you might be next. But the government's
> campaign of intimidation can be countered. Opponents of the war must 
> defend
> the right of everyone in Canada to speak out against the war, against
> "security certificates", and against all attacks on civil rights.
>
> We must condemn every attack on immigrants and refugees, and ally 
> ourselves
> unconditionally with the Muslim community in their fight against
> discrimination and religious or racial profiling by the police. And we 
> must
> build the anti-war movement, which opposes Ottawa's imperial ambitions 
> in
> the Middle East.
>
> Canadians are dying in increasing numbers in Afghanistan, and working 
> people
> at home are suffering as the government diverts money from education, 
> health
> care and social programs into increased military spending. Ottawa's
> demagoguery about "supporting our troops" must be countered with an
> unequivocal demand that Canada end its participation in the occupation 
> of
> Afghanistan now.
>
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