Pedestrians look on at Almrei supporters at the corner of Ste. Catherine and McGill.
PHOTO Ion Etxebarria
Human rights activists denounced Hassan Almrei’s detention for seven years without trial under an immigration security certificate.
Demonstrators built a “solitary confinement cell” at the corner of Ste. Catherine and McGill where bystanders could enter and observe sketches reproducing torture techniques.
Almrei was granted convention refugee status in June 2000 but was arrested in October 2001 under an immigration security certificate, a legal mechanism that allows the federal government to detain non-citizens without charge and keep all evidence from the detainee for security purposes.
In November 2003, an internal memorandum to the Minister of Foreign Affairs stated “the evidence against [Almrei] does not meet the threshold for criminal charges to be laid against him in Canada.”
Almrei risks deportation to Syria, where his father was sentenced to death in absentia and Canadian citizen Maher Arar was tortured.
Almrei is currently the only detainee at Kingston Immigration Holding Centre, also referred to as Guantanamo North.
The Link Volume 30 Issue 25