CPTnet
15 June 2011
CANADA: CPT supports de-listing of Abousfian Abdelrazik from U.N. Sanctions Committee list

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) is joining a delegation of Canadian civil society representatives travelling to the United Nations on 15 June 2011 to ask for the de-listing from a U.N. sanctions committee of a Canadian citizen named Abousfian Abdelrazik. Mr. Abdelrazik was put on a UN Security Council sanctions list in 2006 without charge, seeing the evidence against him, or right of appeal.

 Passed in 1999, the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee 1267 (named after the resolution creating the committee) is a “preventative measure” that imposes a travel ban and asset freeze on individuals thought to be associated with Al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Mr. Abdelrazik cannot travel, open a bank account, work or receive child assistance benefits. Under Canadian law, employing Mr. Abdelrazik or offering him any kind of financial or material assistance is a crime.

In 2003, Mr. Abdelrazik travelled to his native Sudan to visit his ailing mother. At the request of the Canadian government, Sudanese security forces arrested, tortured and interrogated him in the presence of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) agents. In 2006, the Sudanese government cleared him after two periods of imprisonment totalling twenty months.

 Like Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, Muayyed Nureddin and Maher Arar, Abousfian Abdelrazik was detained by a foreign government at the request of the Canadian government and tortured as part of the War Against Terror.

In 2007, after the CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) cleared him, the Canadian government formally asked for the removal of Mr. Abdelrazik’s name from the 1267 List. The UN Security Council denied the request without explanation.

 Citing the 1267 travel ban, the Canadian government refused to issue Mr. Abdelrazik a passport until a federal court ruled that the government was violating his constitutional right to return home and ordered it to repatriate him immediately. He finally reunited with his children in June 2009 after a separation of over six years.

Although two years have passed since his return to Canada, the UN Security Council sanctions (enforced by the Canadian government) make it impossible for him to resume his life.

 The United States may be responsible for putting Mr. Abdelrazik on the list. The primary allegation against Mr. Abdelrazik is in a  237-word “narrative summary” posted on the 1267 Committee website three years after he was put on the list. It says he is “closely associated” with Abu Zubaydah, a “lieutenant” of Osama bin Laden.

 The U.S. sent Abu Zubaydah to Guantanamo and waterboarded him eighty-three times. The United States now admits that Abu Zubaydah was never a member of Al Qaeda.

All fifteen members of the Security Council must agree before an individual can be taken off the list. Currently, 484 people are on the list.  In 2008, the Security Council acknowledged that it “is far easier for a nation to place an individual or entity on the list than to take them off.”

CPT reservist James Loney will be representing CPT on the delegation. Please click on this link for photos of past support actions.