What happened:

Mohamed Harkat was arrested Tuesday afternoon by Ottawa police
accompanied by Canadian Border Services agents at his home in Ottawa.
CBSA alleges that Mohamed Harkat breached his bail conditions. In fact
no breach occurred. The crown has 48 hours to bring him before a
federal court judge. Mohamed Harkat is also already scheduled to appear
in court next week to argue for changes in his bail conditions.

What you can do:

A) We ask organizations to issue statements along the lines of the
following statement from the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee.

Statement from the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee

1. There was no breach of Mohamed Harkat's bail conditions. This,
despite the conditions imposed being the toughest in Canadian history.
2. The arrest's timing was highly questionable given the facts:
- Mohamed Harkat's bail is up for review next week;
- Bill C-3, the new Security Certificates law, is being debated this
week in the House of Commons.
This arrest could only have happened by order of a cabinet Minister -
which was confirmed to Mohamed Harkat by CBSA officials. It also
occurred on the eve of Adil Charkaoui's Supreme Court appeal.
3. The arrest constitutes harassment in the context of an
unconstitutional law.
4. The Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee continues to call for
release or a fair trial for the five Security Certificate detainees.

This statement has been endorsed by the following organizations:
Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee, BC civil liberties union, ACT for
the Earth, Global Justice working group - First Unitarian congregation,
Ottawa, PGA Ottawa, OPIRG- Carleton, Raging Grannies Ottawa, NOWAR-PAIX,
Student Coalition Against War, Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada,
Toronto Action for Social Change.

B) Support Mohamed Harkat in court.
- Watch your email for announcements of his court appearance for this
most recent arrest, on or before Thursday, January 31.
- Support Mohamed Harkat in his previously scheduled review of
conditions of detention on February 4 at 9:30 am at the Supreme Court
building, on Wellington in downtown Ottawa.

C) We are having an impact! Continue to keep the pressure on MPs and
senators to defeat Bill C-3 and abolish Security Certificates. For
resources, see justiceforharkat.com, www.adilinfo.org

D) To send endorsements or for further information: Justice for
Mohamed Harkat Committee, Christian Legeais, 613-276-9102,
sophielamarche@hotmail.com

----------------------------------------------------
Harkat’s re-arrest a political statement as Security Certificate law set
to expire
Andrew Duffy. The Ottawa Citizen. Thursday, January 31, 2008

Sophie Harkat accused the federal government yesterday of making a
“political” statement with its sudden re-arrest of her husband, a terror
suspect who has lived on strict bail conditions in Ottawa for the past 18
months. “I think it’s a political move,” she told the Citizen in an
interview yesterday, one day after agents with the Canada Border Services
Agency arrested Mohamed Harkat for an alleged bail violation. A spokesman
for the border agency, Chris Williams, refused to comment on Ms. Harkat’s
allegation.

Mr. Harkat will appear before Federal Court Justice Eleanor Dawson today
to answer the bail violation charge and seek his release from jail. Ms.
Harkat suggested yesterday the government wants to stir fear at a critical
time in the evolution of Canada’s national security laws. Bill C-3, the
government’s revised security certificate legislation, must be passed
within the next three weeks — or else all of the existing certificates,
including the one that brought Mr. Harkat before the courts, will be
quashed in keeping with last year’s Supreme Court ruling.

That ruling found the old security certificate system was unconstitutional
because it relied too heavily on secret hearings in which a lone judge
tested evidence. The court suspended its declaration for one year,
however, to give Parliament time to devise a new law. Ms. Harkat said the
timing of the arrest was curious, as the court is about to hear another
security certificate appeal.

Montreal terror suspect Adil Charkaoui will be in the Supreme Court today
to ask that his security certificate hearing be halted because the
Canadian Security Intelligence Service destroyed evidence in his case.
“This is no coincidence,” said Ms. Harkat. “If you put it all together …
it’s kind of weird, don’t you think?”

A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day’s office said that,
as a politician, he does not interfere in police operations, such as an
arrest. Federal agents and Ottawa police raided Mr. Harkat’s Heron Gate
home Tuesday afternoon while he showered. He was taken into custody and
charged with violating his bail, that among many other things, requires
him to “reside” with his wife, Sophie, and his mother-in-law, Pierrette
Brunette.

Ms. Brunette used to be in a relationship with the man, Alois Weidemann,
who owns the house in which Mr. Harkat now lives. But several months ago,
the couple split; Ms. Brunette has since begun a new relationship, which
means she doesn’t always sleep in the same residence. The federal
government will argue today that Mr. Harkat breached conditions of his
bail by failing to “reside” with Ms. Brunette and by keeping Mr.
Weidemann, one of Mr. Harkat’s sureties, locked out of parts of the house.

Mr. Harkat’s lawyer, Paul Copeland, said yesterday that, in law, Ms.
Brunette continued to reside in the Heron Gate home even though she spent
some nights at another residence. Mr. Harkat, he noted, has lived in the
community for a year and a half without incident. Mr. Copeland said the
government could have notified him of the alleged breach and dealt with
the issue in court next week, during a scheduled bail review. “Instead,
they do this major raid and go out and arrest him,” he said, adding: “The
timing of it is interesting.”

Mr. Harkat had been scheduled to appear in Federal Court on Monday to ask
that he be allowed to stay home unsupervised by a surety. Under terms of
his June 2006 release, Mr. Harkat must wear an electronic monitoring
device at all times; his mail is opened and his phone calls are tapped.
His house can be searched by authorities without a warrant. He cannot
leave Ottawa and cannot use a cellphone or computer. His house has
security cameras in front and back that record who enters and who leaves.
He’s allowed three four-hour excursions every week, in addition to daily
walks, but he must be in the company of a court-approved surety at all
times, inside and outside his house.

Ms. Harkat said the onerous bail conditions have caused significant
hardships. “I’ve been a prisoner in my own home,” she said. “It has
created extreme tension and stress among family members, between
relationships.” An Algerian refugee accused of being an al-Qaeda agent,
Mr. Harkat was in jail for three-and-a-half years on the strength of a
government-issued security certificate until being released on bail
because of delays in his deportation.

The Federal Court has upheld the certificate as “reasonable,” but most of
the evidence against him was presented to a judge in secret with neither
Mr. Harkat nor his lawyer there to challenge it.

-------------------------------
Few lawyers willing to work in controversial Security Certificate system
by Richard Foot. The Ottawa Citizen. Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The federal government is having trouble recruiting an experienced pool of
lawyers to work as “special advocates” on behalf of terror suspects under
Canada’s security certificate law. So far, only 50 have responded to a
month-long national recruitment campaign by the Justice Department aimed
at finding a list of experienced practitioners who can defend people
facing deportation in secret judicial hearings. Those 50 applications may
be enough from which to find a list of advocates, but they represent only
a tiny fraction of the 57,000 practising lawyers in Canada. Last week, as
a result of the poor response, the Justice Department extended the
application deadline from Jan. 15 to Feb. 1. “Given the nature of what it
is lawyers are being asked to do, it doesn’t surprise me that there hasn’t
been an overwhelming response,” says Lorne Waldman, a Toronto lawyer who
represented Maher Arar, who was wrongly accused as a terrorist .

Mr. Waldman says many lawyers are deeply conflicted about participating in
the controversial system. On the one hand, they feel a duty to ensure that
people have the best legal defence possible. On the other hand, they
consider the law an affront to civil liberties and don’t want to lend it
legitimacy by taking part. Some, he says, are worried about being labelled
as traitors by colleagues if they participate in the system. The Canadian
Bar Association and the Federation of Law Societies of Canada have
criticized the proposed security certificate law as unconstitutional.

Security certificates are an extraordinary immigration tool that allows
the government to detain and deport foreigners and permanent residents who
are considered a threat to national security. Suspects aren’t allowed to
see the evidence against them, or participate in the secret judicial
hearings to determine their fate. Three accused terrorists challenged the
system at the Supreme Court of Canada, which last year said the law was
unconstitutional — but necessary in an age of terrorism — and gave the
government one year to change the law to bring it in line with the Charter
of Rights.

The Conservative government hopes to do that with legislation to create
special advocates — independent, security-cleared lawyers — to act on
behalf of accused persons. The government says the advocates will be
allowed to see the evidence against suspects, but cannot discuss it with
them without a judge’s permission. Many critics say that kind of
restriction does not satisfy the Constitution and will not allow special
advocates to properly defend those accused under the law.

A similar system in Britain has been harshly criticized by politicians,
lawyers and human rights advocates, and also made it difficult for the
British government to retain a list of special advocates. In Canada, “the
low number of applications for special advocate positions may stem from
concerns about the proposed security certificate legislation, Bill C-3,”
says Vanessa Gruben, a law professor at the University of Ottawa. “There
are concerns among the legal community that the model proposed in Bill C-3
falls short of the constitutional standard set by the Supreme Court.”

Mr. Waldman says no defence lawyer wants to work in a system that
“fundamentally abrogates” the right of an accused to know the evidence
against them. He also says that to be effective, special advocates will
need skills and experience in the immigration field, plus an understanding
of the national anti-terror apparatus. “It’ll be extremely demanding
work,” he says. “I’ve talked to some of my close colleagues about whether
they’re applying. There’s a lot of concern about how it’s going to
operate, but there’s also a sense that qualified people should apply,
because if we’re going to make the system work, we have to have lawyers
with experience and commitment on that list.”

The current security certificate law will expire next month, unless
Parliament passes the new legislation before Feb. 23.