Opinion, May 2003, Al-Jazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
Arab immigration to USCanada dwindling, Nihal Kaneira
Toronto |
Due to Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida campaign
of terror, the number of Arabs and Muslims in North America is decreasing
gradually. Arab and Muslims numbers are already at an all time low in
immigration flows to the U.S. and Canada.
So are the numbers of Arab and Muslim students entering U.S. and Canadian
universities in pursuit of higher education. Holiday and business traffic
is in its worse shape ever. And, even among citizens and permanent
residents, the growing sense of disenchantment is at an unprecedented
level.
This is not surprising. Arabs and Muslims generally have a harder time
coping with the pressures of the new security environment in the
continent, which has become a fact of life after the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001. Nearly two years on, they see no let-up.
Every time, Al Qaida carries out a new suicide bombing in some corner of
the world, or the terror alert changes colour from yellow to orange in the
U.S., or the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, issues a new list
of terrorist suspects, it is the Arabs and Muslims who feel the heat
first.
More often than not, they are the ones who have to pay a price in some way
or other - either by way of the suspicious cloud that inevitably descends
on them, or by way of the discriminatory rules and regulations that
inevitably follow them, producing tension, frustration and alienation.
Suspicion. Fear. Discrimin-ation. Pressure to snitch on fellow Arabs and
Muslims. They all add up to make this a tough place for them to live.
Governments, which have become paranoid about Al Qaida and terrorism,
seemed to be predisposed to dislike them.
Consequently, there is a steady drift towards loading up the dice against
them. The systems, laws, practices have all undergone change. The allure
of safety and security, once the great attraction for a vast majority of
Arabs and Muslims, who chose a new life in these parts, is suddenly a
thing of the past. At least, that is the consensus among most university
officials, immigration lawyers, travel agents and Arab and Muslim
community leaders both here and in the U.S.
They say the number of Arabs and Muslims coming to Canada and the U.S. is
treading towards a sharp decline in the foreseeable future. Universities
and technology colleges still have doors open for Arab and Muslims
students, but not many are coming.
The prospects for attracting new immigrants are not good either, going by
the numbers applying. Even refugees and asylum seekers are down to a
trickle. As for Arab holidaymakers and business visitors, the drop is so
precipitous, airlines and travel outfits have practically given up selling
Canadian and American destinations in the Gulf and Middle East.
"The business is in a free fall just now," explains a travel
agency executive in Toronto. "The latest terrorist attacks in Saudi
Arabia and Morocco, the SARS outbreak in Toronto and mad cow fears in
Alberta, the new visa restrictions in the U.S., as well as word-of-mouth
publicity about lack of due process for Arabs and Muslims in the
post-September 11, 2001, environment in North America, are killing the
business."
According to several community leaders, nothing illustrates the travails
of Arabs and Muslims in Canada and the U.S. better than the case involving
Quebec Arab Adil Charkaoui.
As the suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco reverberated across the
continent, fuelling new fears of terrorism, Charkaoui, a landed immigrant
originally from Morocco, who had been investigated and freed several times
in the past year over suspicion that he is linked to an Al Qaida cell in
Montreal, was scooped up off a street once again and declared a security
risk and immediately ordered to be deported by the federal Immigration
Minister Denis Coderre.
The man has proclaimed his innocence. In an interview with the
French-language TVA network from jail, Charkaoui vigorously denied that he
was in any way linked with Al Qaida. The intelligence agencies have got no
evidence against him, he said. "It is nothing more than suspicion.
This is the new form of McCarthyism. It is a witch-hunt. There is no
proof," he asserted.
Charkaoui also alleged that Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
approached him for help to infiltrate the Montreal Arab community and he
refused.
The government is not budging. The CSIS insists that Charkaoui is an Al
Qaida suspect. According to the agency, the man was the subject of a
lengthy investigation, and that sufficient evidence has been presented in
a security intelligence certificate to the Solicitor-General and the
Immigration Minister, showing why his presence in Canada is a security
risk.
When a security certificate is issued, all other immigration proceedings
become automatically suspended until the issue is referred to a federal
court judge for a decision on the reasonableness of the certificate.
Charkaoui's only chance of staying with his family in Canada now rests
with the review by a judge. If he declares the certificate reasonable,
then the certificate becomes a removal order, and Charkaoui will be taken
to the airport and put on a plane to Morocco. The court's decision cannot
be appealed.
What worries Arabs and Muslims is that neither Charkaoui nor his lawyer
will get to see the purported evidence of his Al Qaida links. The judge
will hear the case in private because the government claims national
security is at stake.
Naturally, Arab and Muslim communities are peeved, and see it as an
attempt to railroad Charkaoui merely on suspicion rather than on evidence.
They say both the CSIS and the FBI had investigated him several times
before and found no evidence of an Al Qaida connection.
To arrest him once again and order his deportation on the basis of secret
evidence presented to a judge in secrecy by the CSIS smacks of an
overreaction by the authorities to the events in Saudi Arabia and Morocco,
in their view.
"We are really shocked and disappointed," says Salam Elmenyawi,
President of the Muslim Council of Montreal. "Deporting someone based
on secret evidence that neither he nor his lawyer is allowed to see is
totally unacceptable."
Unacceptable or not, this kind of thing is happening far too often. To be
sure, the number deported from Canada without due process under its
Anti-Terrorism Act is infinitesimal compared to the thousands thrown out
under the U.S. Patriot Act.
But enough people have been affected under respective draconian
legislation that Ottawa and Washington rushed through their legislatures
in the aftermath of September 11, to cause real concern in immigrant
communities in the two countries. Arabs and Muslims, who have suffered the
most, actually feel they are under siege.
Osama and his Al Qaida probably have to bear a large part of the blame for
bringing this situation on Arabs and Muslims. But, after nearly two years
of their operation, Canadian and U.S. governments must know that the
excessive power vested in the law enforcement agencies under these anti-
terrorism acts - and the authority provided to them to exercise that power
in secrecy - is causing more harm than good.
Perhaps it is time to examine their effect on civil liberties and amend or
pull the legislation.
The writer can be contacted at n.kaneira@gulfnews.com
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |