2 things

#1

Lic. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza
Procurador General de la Republica
Procuraduría General de la República
Paseo de la Reforma nº 211-213, Piso 16,
Col. Cuauhtémoc, Del. Cuauhtémoc
México D.F., C.P. 06500, Mexico

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Dear Attorney General,

I am writing to you today because I am concerned for the safety of Lydia Cacho. Lydia Cacho is a journalist and the author of Los Demonios del Edén.

On May 7th, Lydia Cacho escaped what seems to have been an attempt on her life.

I call on the authorities to order a full review of the protection provided for Lydia Cacho, in order to guarantee her safety. Please launch a full, impartial, and prompt investigation into the apparent attempt to cause the vehicle in which she was travelling to crash. Please ensure the results of this investigation are made public.

Sincerely and Respectfully,

Timothy Schwinghamer

654 Upper Leitches Creek Road
Upper Leitches Creek NS B2A 4B5

Cc:
His Excellency Emilio Goicoechea Luna, Ambassador for Mexico, 45 O'Connor Street, Suite 1000, Ottawa ON K1P 1A
Centro Integral de Atención a las Mujeres - CIAM Cancún A.C., Calle 12 poniente · 66 SMZA 63 Cancún, Quintana Roo 77500, México

#2

To: Finley.D@parl.gc.ca, Day.S@parl.gc.ca
Cc: justiceforadil@riseup.net

Dear Diane Finley and Stockwell Day,

I am writing to express my urgent concern about Adil Charkaoui and call on you to conduct a fair and transparent review of the security certificate that was issued against Adil Charkaoui in May 2003.

The security certificate against Mr. Charkaoui has never been upheld by any court. Mr. Charkaoui's case has been suspended since March 2005 when the government was forced to withdraw a key decision on the risk Charkaoui faces if deported to Morocco.

What is known of the case against Mr. Charkaoui rests largely on information apparently provided by three individuals to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. In 2004, the Federal Court agreed to set aside information from Abu Zubaydah in Mr. Charkaoui's file in light of testimony and reports that Zubaydah had been tortured while in US custody in Afghanistan and later held in a secret site with no oversight or accountability. In Feb 2005, Radio Canada made public a letter from Noureddine Nafiaâ, a second informer in Mr. Charkaoui's case, who wrote from a prison in Morocco recanting his confession, stating that he had signed his 'confession' blind-folded and under torture.

Finally, two weeks ago, it was revealed that Ahmed Ressam's information against Mr. Charkaoui was fabricated. Ahmed Ressam wrote a letter published by the Journal de Montréal on 20 April 2007 that information he provided against Mr. Charkaoui was false: "What I said to the investigators... was not true... I was confonted with difficult psychological circumstances, I did not know what I was saying."

Thus all the publically disclosed information against Mr. Charkaoui has been discredited, making it impossible to retain confidence in CSIS’s case and the highly secretive Security Certificate regime, which denies non-citizens their basic right to due process.

Mr. Charkaoui spent almost two years in prison (from May 2003 to February 2005) and has spent a further two years under conditions that Amnesty International has qualified as "among the most restrictive ever imposed in Canada" and that affect the freedom of his entire family. Four years without charge, under an unconstitutional process, on the basis of evidence that lacks all credibility, is far too long. It is time for the Ministers to act. As you have the power to act on this matter, I demand that you conduct a fair and transparent review of Charkaoui's file in order to withdraw the faulty certificate, to lift the restrictions on his liberty, and to clear his name. This is clearly warranted in light of Ahmed Ressam’s retraction and considering that previous evidence on file was produced by torturous means. Furthermore, given that the Supreme Court of Canada decision found the security certificate regime to be unconstitutional, I demand that the government act immediately to completely abolish the fundamentally unjust security certificate regime.

Sincerely,