[R-G] CSIS endangering `lives of my sons'

[Anthony Fenton]

CSIS endangering `lives of my sons'
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/591039
Colombian union activist says agency gave media family addresses
Feb 21, 2009 04:30 AM
Lesley Ciarula Taylor
Immigration Reporter

The case of a 53-year-old Colombian refugee fighting deportation on  
evidence she is forbidden to read has taken a chilling turn with  
something she can read.

A Colombian newspaper, citing Canada's security service as the source,  
printed her sons' names and locations, making them targets in the  
country's bloody civil war.

"This was shocking to me," said Amparo Torres. "This puts in danger  
the lives of my sons. If they are killed, the responsibility belongs  
to CSIS."

Torres survived a wave of bloodshed that left 3,000 Patriotic Union  
members dead and destroyed the movement in Colombia. "But I have no  
defence against this."

Torres, a well-known trade union activist, has been through years of  
deportation hearings and Federal Court challenges, most recently  
invoking the Supreme Court of Canada decision that security  
certificates used to invoke secret evidence to try to deport non- 
citizens as security threats were unconstitutional.

Neither she nor her lawyer, Raoul Boulakia, is allowed to see the  
evidence against her.

Torres had fled Colombia for Mexico and then Canada in 1996, a  
political refugee who had survived a kidnapping. Canada gave her  
refugee status and permanent residence. At the time, she admitted her  
brother and former husband were leaders of FARC, the Revolutionary  
Armed Forces of Colombia, and that she helped create Colombia's  
Patriotic Union Movement, a consortium of left-wing political parties.

When she applied for citizenship in 2000, the government asked CSIS  
for a formal security clearance. CSIS countered that Torres herself  
belonged to FARC but refused to give her more than a summary of its  
evidence.

"We came to Canada to protect our lives," said Torres, who lives in  
Etobicoke with her second husband, a retired University of Toronto  
professor. "It is very surprising to me that Canada would do this  
because it is famous for respecting human rights. That is the reason I  
am in Canada."

Torres's first deportation hearing went on for a few years, said  
Boulakia, but just as a decision was due, the Immigration and Refugee  
Board official retired. "We had to start all over again a year ago."

This time, because the Supreme Court in February 2007 had struck down  
a law allowing the government to use secret evidence, Torres could  
name a special advocate to examine and challenge the classified  
documents on her behalf.

Her special advocate, Lorne Waldman, has himself represented the last  
of the five men held in prison on security certificates as part of the  
government's anti-terrorism campaign. A legal challenge to those  
certificates led to the high court ruling allowing special advocates.

Waldman said he expects to soon have a date to review the evidence.

In three interviews, Torres said, CSIS asked about her brother, her  
sons, her politics. "They talked to me very ruthlessly, with shouts  
and insults and accusations." She denied belonging to FARC, which  
Canada declared a terrorist organization in 2003, and denies it still.

A summary of one interview said she "argued for violence." Her friends  
in Canada have been questioned. But late last year, "they did the  
worst that they have done, something very dangerous."

The largest newspaper in Colombia, El Tiempo, published an article  
about what it called the children of FARC living in comfort while  
Colombians were being killed. The article named Torres's two sons,  
Canadian citizens previously unknown to the Colombian media and  
university graduates, ages 24 and 26, and described where they were  
working and studying.

A spokesperson for CSIS, Manon Bérubé, said yesterday, "CSIS does not  
provide such information to any news media outlet." As to whether the  
information came via CSIS to Colombian security, she said, "CIS does  
not divulge details of information shared with any foreign entity."