Listen to an interview with Mahjoub!

3 October 2011

Mohamed Mahjoub Court Hearing
Federal Court, 180 Queen Street, 6th floor, Toronto
Monday, 3 October 2011, 9:30am
and continuing 4 and 11 October

Tomorrow, Mohamed Mahjoub's legal team will ask the Federal Court to permanently suspend proceedings against Mr. Mahjoub. Mr. Mahjoub, a Toronto-based father of two, has been fighting a "security certificate" since June 2000. The motion asks for Mr. Mahjoub's unconditional release.

In July 2011, Department of Justice staff took privileged and confidential documents belonging to Mr. Mahjoub's legal team from a confidential "break out room" at the Federal Court in Toronto. Department of Justice staff handled, viewed, read, and mixed this material with their own documents. It is not clear whether CSIS and CBSA also had access to the confidential materials. This constitutes a violation of Mr. Mahjoub's right to communicate in privacy with his lawyers. See Mr. Mahjoub's affadavit here.

This violation is aggravated by the fact that CSIS and CBSA have repeatedly violated Mr. Mahjoub's solicitor-client privilege by listening to, recording, analysing and using Mr. Mahjoub's conversations with his lawyers. In December 2010, a CSIS official admitted in court that, from about 1996 to 2006, this illegal practice took place in accordance with CSIS policy OPS 211.

Mr. Mahjoub's legal team will argue that, coming on top of these earlier abuses, this latest violation of Mr. Mahjoub's rights to solicitor-client privileged communication can only be rectified by permanently stopping the process and finally freeing Mr. Mahjoub from this interminable nightmare of abuse.

Court hearings are currently scheduled for 3, 4 and 11 October (but dates are subject to change, so best to confirm at justiceformahjoub@gmail.com before attending). Please come out to show your support for Mr. Mahjoub and firm opposition to racist security certificates.

1 December 2009

After Mr. Mahjoub reviewed the detention review decision with his lawyers, he confirmed that he would stop his hunger strike and begin the process of regaining his health in order to be well enough to be released.

30 November 2009

The Federal Court ordered that Mr. Mahjoub be transferred to house arrest, under a detailed and immensely complicated list of conditions. Mr. Mahjoub remains in Guantanamo North, and could remain there for weeks or months as the final details are worked out and surveillance apparatus prepared for his transfer.

9 November 2009

33 health professionals send letter to Minister Van Loan and other government officials expressing concern that Mahjoub is at risk of death.

Read the letter here.

1 June 2009

Mohammad Mahjoub began a hungerstrike to protest conditions in Guantanamo North prison, calling for an independent review process at the prison.

• Groundwire radio piece with Mona El-Fouli, Mohammad's wife, speaking about the hungerstrike
• Past Parliamentary Standing Committee reports on Guantanamo North, recommending the need for an independent review process:
  • Report 10 - Issues raised by the use of security certificates under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, Adopted by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on February 6, 2007. Can be found at
  • Report 12 - Detention Centres and Security Certificates, tabled on April 16, 2007. It is attached and the relevant recommendations are 9 to 25, starting on page 24 with:

    "The committee recommends ... That the Government of Canada mandate the Office of the Correctional Investigator, which has jurisdiction over all federal inmates but not the detainees held at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre, to assume jurisdiction over the KIHC, and investigate current and ongoing complaints of those detained at the KIHC."

18 March 2009

Mohammad Mahjoub re-entered Guantanamo North Prison. Mahjoub felt he had no choice but to re-enter prison after a condition review hearing made the his situation of house arrest even more insane and Kafka-esque than before.

Feeling that his family could no longer stand the pressure of 24-hour surveillance, scrutiny, visits, calls, strict restrictions on all their comings and goings and doings, he made the decision to return to the Kingston detention centre. A last minute emergency hearing in front of Federal Court Judge Simon Noel failed to find another solution and . It was a terribly sad and tear-filled day.

More information at Homes not Bombs

December 2008

In December 2008, CSIS revealed that it had been illegally wiretapping phonecalls between Mahjoub and his lawyer, in contravention of solicitor-client privilege. Jaballah and Mahjoub filed a joint motion arguing that the conditions of their house arrest were unreasonable; stating their tracking-bracelets, wiretapped phones and curfews were acceptable intrusions on their lives, while having their family photographed and physically followed at every opportunity and their mail seized were unreasonable. Judge Anne MacTavish ruled against this motion.

February 2007

In February 2007, Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, responded to a prolonged hungerstrike by the Guantanamo North detainees by saying that at the KIHC "there is a large kitchen where any detainees have their own washer and drier, microwave, refrigerator stocked with a variety of juices, soups, soy milk, chocolate sauce and honey".

Here is a response to this and other misrepresentations by Day. (French version here)

December 14, 2006

Decision to Deport Secret Trial Detainee Mohammad Mahjoub to Egypt Found to be "Flawed, Perverse, Patently Unreasonable" (PDF)

Chaire de recherche du Canada en droit international des migrations

Further background: Homes Not Bombs: Secret Trials