Living with refugees and living as a refugee are totally different experiences. After spending almost all my adult life with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, only at the dawn of old age; I came to realize the agony of living as a refugee.

The agony deepens in post September 11 Canada, where every fresh news of secret trials forces one to the rude realization that he is not only a refugee, but a Muslim as well. Record of the secret trials confirms that one of the major qualifications is to be a Muslim. It further eliminates the distinction between citizens and refugees.

The uncertainty gives way to a slough of despondence for those who can tell from their personal experience as a native elsewhere that most of the Canadians do not feel the ever growing agony of the victims.

Afghans are Muslims. They speak the same language and share the same culture with Pakistanis in the North Western province. Despite such commonalities, there is a complete silence over Afghan refugees’ daily physical and psychological degradation. Their public beating and harassment at the hands of police is a norm. In the light of this reality, how could one expect the Canadians to feel the pain of Muslims, where humanity is the only bond between them?

It is, however, the Canadians’ respect for human rights that attracted many towards Canada. They preferred to live in a society that promotes and advances the values of democracy, freedom and respect of fundamental human rights.

Nevertheless, this is very unfortunate that Afghan refugees in Pakistan — without the privileges of social welfare assistance, legal aide, health coverage, and even without basic necessities such as clean water and sanitation in many cases — would feel more at peace than Muslim citizens in Canada, let alone the helpless refugees at this time.

The reason for Afghans being at peace in Pakistan is simple. What they face is not the result of any state policy. They are not victims of an institutionalized injustice. All they have to pay is Rupees 10, equivalent to 25 Canadian cents, to get rid of the police officers humiliating and harassing them. However, no one knows if paying top Canadian lawyers in thousands would save the Muslims facing security certificates in Canada.

The situation in Pakistan seems far worse because refugees cannot live without constantly paying the law enforcement officials. However, the government never poses a threat to their lives. On the other hand, imagine fate of those who are deported back to death from Canada without any consideration that things will be far worse, for political refugees in particular, upon return to their countries with the Canadian endorsement of their involvement in terrorism.

The fear among Muslims intensifies with each additional news of arrest and secret trials taking place somewhere in Canada. During my short stay in Canada, first came the news of Adil Charkaoui’s arrest, followed by the police brutality against unarmed immigrant protesters and a ban on his mother and daughter from protesting. The news of the government decision to deport Palestinian families without any consideration of the circumstances at their home front was another surprise in a situation in which, with a conservative estimate, more than 50 percent of the refugees are getting accepted with fake claims.

Last weak, the possibility of the RCMP passing information to American authorities came to light, which resulted in the arrest of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, in the U.S. last September. His subsequent deportation to Syria is as painless for the Canada to feel as the secret trials of others. The pain is left for his family which is not allowed to visit him for the last three and half months.

Then came the heart rending account of Mohamed Harakt secret trial without any access to the evidence against him. Matthew Behrens write up is sufficient to make one think many times to make sure that he is in Canada and not somewhere around Cuba.

The solid myth of the rule of law in Canada further shatters when one reads in the same report about Ahani, an Iranian refugee who spent nine years in Canadian prison on secret "evidence," without charges or bail, before he was deported back to Iran last year against the objections of the UN Human Rights Committee. He has disappeared.[1]

For many Canadians these may be trivial, isolated incidents. However, only those can feel the pain, who clearly see that Muslims and justice have become the main victim of 9/11. Logically speaking, when a Southern giant can kill more than 15,000 civilians and occupy Afghanistan indefinitely without producing a single shred of evidence, why cannot Canada haul away a few individuals, lock them up on the grounds of secret evidence for its security.

Irrespective of how much safer Canada would be after these trials, the very idea of secret trials — whether at Guantanamo bay or in Canada — is dangerous. The temptation to employ extrajudicial proceedings to deal with Osama bin Laden and his henchmen is understandable. But by ruling that suspects fall outside the norms of justice, the Canadian government has taken it upon itself to establish a prosecutorial channel that answers to none. The decision is an insult to the values of human rights and justice incorporated into the Constitution.

After a personal experience of interviews with the CSIS, I can safely conclude that the evidence against the detained individuals must be more than the apparent flimsy links, which the media presents as the ground of their detention. If it were for this much links alone, many would have ended up facing secret trials by now.

The need, however, is to make the evidence public, or at least make available to the accused and his lawyers. It would not only alley fears of Muslims but also save the rulebook of Canadian justice painstakingly assembled over the course of many centuries.

It is very hard to understand the logic behind the argument that properly charging the accused or presenting evidence would endanger Canadian security. To an impartial observer, it is no more than an attempt to substitute fair trials and due process with a crude system that any dictator would admire. Even the cruelest dictators that we are on the run from do not have any system like this in place. They go to the extent of killing its opponents, but these actions are not given the color of due process that makes thousands of others to live in constant fear.

Using secretive trials would ultimately undermine Canadian interests in the Muslim world by casting doubt on the credibility of a verdict against suspected Muslims. Moreover, if someone is guilty, what justification is there for deporting them to their respective countries? They may well be punished like the convicts of other crimes. No amount of spinning by public relation teams could overcome the impression that the verdict had been dictated before these trials began. Reliance on secret trials also signals a lack of confidence in the case against the suspects and in the nation's democratic institutions.

Since Muslims are the target of this abuse, I clearly observe the fear both among those who are in Canada since decades and those who have not yet been heard by the Refugee Board. All are equally unwelcome refugees before a system that may consider hearsay, and evidence, which the regular courts may deem illegally obtained, permissible in secret trials against anyone of them as a suspect.

Pakistan as a dictatorship and with no system to institutionally oppress refugees is out of comparison. The US has also kept prisoners for secret trial away from mainland USA. Regarding Canada, it is hard for many to decide if the train of their thought, or the Canadian government itself, is treading a fine line between Guantanamo and Canada.

A better way to administer justice must be found. In his opening statement at the trial of Nazi leaders, Robert Jackson, the chief American prosecutor, warned of the danger of tainted justice. "To pass those defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our lips as well," he said. Canadian government would be wise to heed those words.

Note:

[1]  Behrens, Matthew. "Democracy Desecrated: The Secret Trial of Mohamed Harkat in Ottawa," Montreal Muslim News, July 30, 2003. http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/harkattrial.htm