Mohammad Mahjoub is an Egyptian refugee and torture-survivor who has been held without charge in prison and under house arrest for the past twelve years in Canada on the basis of a security certificate.
He has just completed a 4-city speaking tour – to Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and Victoria – in which stops were either endorsed or attended by Council of Canadians activists.
After the fall of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak regime last year, it became clear that the allegations against Mr. Mahjoub are based on information provided by Mubarak-regime security forces. For example, Mr. Mahjoub was said to be associated with the Vanguards of Conquest. That organization does not even exist and was reportedly conjured up by Mubarak’s regime to persecute political dissidents.
Like other parts of immigration law, a ‘security certificate’ allows the government to detain people indefinitely on the basis of secret information about their profile and eventually deport them, relying on a process that has been very broadly condemned as unjust and unconstitutional.
His website – www.supportmahjoub.org – also notes that, “Mr. Mahjoub is expecting a court decision in the next weeks which could see the certificate against him finally thrown out.”
The Council of Canadians has long spoken out against the use of security certificates as a violation of fundamental civil liberties in Canada.
