Abousfian Abdelrazik has made it back to his home and family in Montreal, but is still campaigning for his freedom.

The Sudanese-Canadian man was imprisoned fall 2003 in Sudan on unfounded suspicion of terrorist involvement. He has since made it home after struggles with the Canadian government, but still remains on the United Nations 1267 list of alleged terrorists. This list is monitored by the UN Security Council and implements a travel ban, an arms embargo and an assets freeze on those listed.

Abdelrazik was in Saskatoon Nov. 17 to speak at the Augustana Lutheran Church as part of his cross-Canada “Breaking the Silence” tour. The tour asks for public support in pressuring the Canadian government “to immediately lift sanctions against Abdelrazik, to ask all UN Security Council members to support delisting Abdelrazik, and to withdraw from the unjust and unconstitutional 1267 sanctions regime,” according to the press release.

On Sept. 12, 2003, Abdelrazik was arrested and imprisoned but not charged while visiting his mother in Khartoum, Sudan.

“There were no charges. There was nothing,” said Abdelrazik. “It was [an unfounded] allegation.”

According to the Globe and Mail, his arrest likely came at the request of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service — the documents cited in the Globe do not clarify whether CSIS ordered his 2003 arrest, his 2005 arrest or both arrests.

It was a situation of outsourced torture, said Mary Foster, a representative from Project Fly Home — a public project supporting Abdelrazik in his attempt to be delisted — who is accompanying him on tour. CSIS wanted to keep their hands clean but also take the opportunity, while he was there, to arrest and “interrogate him in a situation of pressure.”

In the 11 months Abdelrazik was held, he was denied his basic human rights and no one came to investigate his case.

“I asked the Sudanese why I was there and they said they didn’t know. I asked for a lawyer; they said no. I asked if I could go to the court to face charges against me; they said no.”

He emphasized that the Sudanese guards continued to torture him in spite of their ignorance of why he was there.

They beat him, they tied him to the door frame, they kicked and slapped him, they pushed his head against the wall and they chained him to the bed.

According to the Project Fly Home website, a Sudanese official “realized that keeping an innocent man in detention was a human-rights violation.” Abdelrazik was released after spending 11 months in prison.

He was scheduled to fly home but in the final moments before the flight, the U.S. placed him on their no-fly list. Though this should not have affected his flight from Sudan to Canada, Canadian bureaucrats followed the U.S. example and did not grant flight permissions — even refusing Sudan’s offer to transport him to Canada in a private jet if Canada helped pay for the costs.

Worse, he was arrested and imprisoned again without charge in October 2005 — in spite of Sudan’s Minister of Justice formally exonerating him and stating there was no evidence that linked him to terrorism. When he was released 10 months later, the Canadian government still refused to provide a passport or travel permissions.

Following this release, the U.S. quickly declared him a terrorist and he was placed on the U.N. 1267 list. This froze his personal assets and put him on a no-fly list.

“That served as a pretext for Canada for the next three years to refuse to give him a travel document to come back,” said Foster.

Abdelrazik’s supporters argue that the exemption to the flight ban that allows those on the list a flight home during legal situations was ignored. This forced him to stay in Sudan.

Being forced to stay in Sudan was not safe for Abdelrazik because he was constantly monitored by the Sudanese government.

“The Sudan Security Intelligence did not leave me alone and I feared being arrested again,” he said. “For example, I was supposed to have my photo taken for a story being published in Canada. The SSI called me on my cell phone and said, ”˜Be careful; don’t meet this photographer. Tell him to go. If you want to go to the prison again, just meet him.’ ”

In May 2007, Abdelrazik asked for accompaniment from the Canadian Embassy consular in Sudan during an interview with the FBI, but the federal government refused the consular’s attendance during the interrogation.

“The FBI wanted me to work with them to spy on the Muslim community in Canada,” he said, noting that the FBI admitted their lack of evidence against him.

“They offered me money and marriage to go back home. They said, ”˜If you don’t work with us you are going to live in the streets of Khartoum forever.’ But I refused to work with them.”

By the end of November 2007, CSIS and the RCMP had released statements that they had found no information proving Abdelrazik as a terror suspect or a criminal. But CSIS refused to update their terrorist list.

According to the Globe and Mail, in April 2008, an undisclosed Transport Canada official stated that “government of Canada officials should be mindful of the potential reaction of our U.S. counterparts to Abdelrazik’s return to Canada as he is on the U.S. no-fly list.”

Both Abdelrazik and Foster claim the entire list is too politically subjective.

“As a political tool, the list can be very useful. As soon as you start talking about terrorism you enter into a political discourse where it is in [a nation’s] interest to expand the definition of terrorism so it captures a lot of activities,” said Foster.

For an individual to be listed on the 1267 list, a name must be recommended by one U.N. Security Council member and then discussed by the remaining members.

“The U.S. wants to work with the Taliban as part of its pacification program in Afghanistan, so what it’s done is remove all the Taliban from the list,” said Foster. “They moved five Taliban government ministers from the list last year in order to help them gain control of the country.

“The 1267 list came out with a summary three years after Abdelrazik was listed on it. The main allegation was their claim that he was associated with this guy, Abu Zubaydah, who they claimed is al-Qaeda’s second-in-command,” she added. “U.S. has now reversed their position, saying Zubaydah has nothing to do with al-Qaeda, but Abdelrazik is still on the list on that basis.”

In 2007, following CSIS and the RCMP’s findings of Abdelrazik’s innocence, the Canadian government requested his delisting to the Security Council. The request was denied for undisclosed reasons.

The “Breaking the Silence” tour, therefore — while it does hope to remove his name from the list — also hopes to push Canada to reject the 1267 regulations.

“His lawyers just launched an action to strike down the 1267 regulations entirely in Canada. If that happens [if his name remains on the list] he won’t be able to travel but he’ll be free in Canada,” said Foster. “Sometimes public awareness goes hand-in-hand with legal strategy.”

The United Kingdom rejected legislation to implement the 1267 list in January 2010 and Switzerland is currently attempting to withdraw from the list’s regimes.

In spite of all this, Abdelrazik harbours no anger towards Canadian citizens and, like most Canadian citizens, is sure to distinguish the government from the people.

“Now, when Canadians travel abroad, they see the damage made for the face of Canada because of the bad political practices of the Stephen Harper government. We were refused to have a seat in the Security Council because of his political practices,” he said. “I distinguish the government from the people; the Canadian people are very nice and gentle.”

CSIS refused to comment on the tour, stating that Abdelrazik’s case still “remains before the court” — he is suing the Canadian government for the arrests and alleged torture and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon for the role he played in preventing his flight home.

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image: Dominic Popowich/The McGill Daily