Although the Liberals campaigned on a platform of government accountability, particularly after years of reaming Harper out for his shady dealings, Trudeau has decided to shut down any inquiry into Canada’s role of torturing Afghan detainees:
Many celebrated Justin Trudeau’s election, thinking the charismatic leader would turn a new page for Canada, especially for Canadian Muslims who overwhelmingly voted for the Liberals in 2015.
Yet the Liberals who presented themselves as open and transparent while in opposition have proven to be anything but in government.
While in opposition, the Liberals advocated for three innocent Canadian Muslims tortured in the Middle East with CSIS complicity.
One of them, Ahmad El Maati, spent more than two years languishing in Syrian and Egyptian prisons.
The 2008 Iacobucci report found that CSIS agents travelled secretly to Egypt, shared unfounded allegations that the men were al-Qaeda terrorists and provided questions to interrogators.
- Federal officials contributed indirectly to torture of Canadians: report
- Torture victims lose Supreme Court documents bid
The “confession” obtained through torture was used in Canadian courts to justify search warrants.
The three men demanded an apology and filed a $100-million civil lawsuit, which the Liberals supported while in opposition.
But now that he’s prime minister, Trudeau and his federal Liberals are continuing Stephen Harper’s legal battle against compensation, filing an appeal against the lawsuit and requesting retroactive blanket anonymity for spies in order to protect government officials complicit in torture.
Trudeau is also blocking an inquiry into Canada’s role in the torture of hundreds of Afghans despite the fact that he called for an inquiry himself while in opposition.
Forty-thousand pages of Afghan detainee records detailing Canada’s role in torture from 2010-11 still haven’t been released.
In 2011, 4,000 pages were released but were heavily blacked out, making the records unreadable. The inquiry was such a big deal that it was one of the reasons why Harper prorogued Parliament in December 2009.
In June, the Montreal daily La Presse produced new evidence, publishing a letter written by dissident Canadian military officers who accused high-ranking Canadian officers of ordering the abuse of Afghan detainees, many of whom weren’t Taliban fighters, but simply poor people illegally arrested during military sweeps.
“Nearly 50 per cent of those detained by the military police were people like you and me, husbands, fathers, farmers, who had done nothing wrong,” the letter read.
The letter explained that most detainees were released due to lack of evidence after spending about two months in prison. A secret agreement was made with Afghan forces for the detainees to appear as if they were under their guard, while they were all held in Canadian cells, the letter said. Under orders from high-ranking officers, they conducted “exercises” to terrorize the detainees.
Despite all this, Canada’s “badass” Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said an inquiry isn’t necessary.
Canada ranks Number 2 in arms exports to Middle East for the first time in history, second only to the United States. The ranking came days after Canada addressed the UN Security Council, stressing the importance of protecting civilians in conflict zones.
I think it is important to note that for all of the Conservative’s most repugnant moves on the international stage, the Liberals don’t seem to be particularly interested in stopping, reversing or examining those trends.
Trudeau, as ever, has better PR. But he seems to be continuing the foreign policy of Harper, despite criticizing that same policy as the Opposition. Maybe we should sign at the bottom of our new child benefit cheques “paid for in blood”?
-Shiv
Politicians have learned that, in modern pseudodemocracies, it only matters to get in the door and then you can do what you want. Consequently, we see amazing gyrations until they’re established and then a switch to the usual “fuck you I got mine.”