Friday, January 12, 2007

To: day.s@parl.gc.ca

Dear Stockwell Day,

My name is Timothy Schwinghamer. I am a graduate student at the University of Manitoba. I am contacting you because I am very concerned for the health of Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohammad Mahjoub, and Hassan Almrei. They are on a hunger strike in protest of the conditions of their detention. All five men were arrested under Security Certificates, a measure of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) that has been described by Amnesty International as fundamentally flawed and unfair. Security certificates and secret evidence reverse the fundamental rule of innocent until proven guilty. Neither the detainee nor his lawyer are informed of the precise allegations or provided with the full information against him. They are imprisoned indefinitely without charges on secret evidence and face deportation to their countries of origin, even if there is a substantial risk of torture or death. Please immediately close the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre; release Canada's secret trial security certificate detainees or provide them with a fair, transparent, open trial; end all proceedings to deport the Secret Trial Five (Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohammad Mahjoub, Hassan Almrei, Mohamed Harkat, Adil Charkaoui); abolish security certificates and end deportation to torture; immediately condemn the illegal Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

Secret trials are a wound to Canadian democracy.

Sincerely and respectfully,

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