Urgent Request From Hassan Diab Support Committee

Image from Journal Pioneer: Dr. Hassan Diab


UPDATE: July 31:

CBC Podcast tells the whole story: Link
How a failed terrorism case derailed one Canadian's life

• On Front Burner, CBC senior reporter David Cochrane breaks down one of the most intensely fought extradition cases in Canadian history.
  

July 30:
Urgent Request From Hassan Diab Support Committee

Previously on YYC: Justice for Hassan Diab -- Preserve the Rights of Canadians Under Extradition Law.

IT IS URGENT that we voice our dissatisfaction with the Segal report and demand an independent and transparent public inquiry into Hassan’s wrongful extradition, as well as serious reform of the extradition law, so no one in Canada would be subjected to the deeply flawed and unfair extradition process.

This Thursday and Friday (August 1 and 2), please call Justice Minister David Lametti and urge him to launch an independent public inquiry into Hassan’s extradition and reform Canada’s extradition law.

Minister David Lametti's Office: (613) 992-4621

When you call, please give your name and where you are calling from. You may be talking to an answering machine. You can leave a message to this effect:

“Minister Lametti, I am profoundly disappointed with Murray Segal’s report on the wrongful extradition of Hassan Diab. Due to the limited nature of Mr. Segal’s mandate, there are many questions about Dr. Diab’s extradition that remain unanswered. We need full transparency and accountability to ensure that the injustice that happened to Hassan never happens again. I urge you to launch an independent public inquiry into Dr. Diab’s extradition and to reform Canada’s extradition law.”

You can also write to Mr. Lametti at:

The Honourable David Lametti
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
284 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H8
Canada

Email: mcu@justice.gc.ca

* * * * *

Donald Bayne, Hassan Diab’s lawyer, reacted to the Segal report saying: “This is basically a report that says nothing wrong was done by anybody. If Canadian prosecutors and the justice system all got it so right, why then did Hassan Diab languish in solitary confinement over three years, an innocent Canadian in a French jail? The standards we are using are clearly wrong. Anything goes in an extradition, and you can't defend yourself. This will happen again.”

Josh Paterson, Executive Director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, wrote: “If Canada’s horrendous treatment of Dr. Hassan Diab was legal, then Canada’s extradition law is severely broken and must be changed. This [Segal] report makes clear that our extradition laws are deeply unfair… Dr. Diab was shipped off for lengthy imprisonment in a foreign country on a flimsy case, without even having the right to see and to respond to the evidence against him. Canada’s laws must be changed to prevent anything like this from happening again in the future.”

Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, remarked: “That this review effectively concludes ‘no problem here’ is the strongest possible reason why this cannot end here and there absolutely must now be a proper judicial inquiry into what happened to Hassan Diab… Nowhere does the [Segal] report ask the absolutely vital, central and obvious two questions in this case (not surprisingly, because the government did not include them in Murray's Segal's Terms of Reference): (1) how did those ‘laws, practices and policies’ fail to protect Hassan Diab from years of agonizing human rights violations; and (2) what needs to be strengthened or entirely reformed, urgently, to ensure no one else goes through such a cruel and anguished experience. Those are the questions Hassan Diab, his family and all Canadians deserve and need to have answered.”

More information:

VIDEO: Press conference and text of Hassan Diab’s statement reacting to Segal report, July 26, 2019

VIDEO: CBC News - The National:  Hassan Diab reaction to report concluding government acted properly in his extradition case 

Post by Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, commenting on the Segal report, July 29, 2019

BCCLA reacts to release of report into the extradition of Dr. Hassan Diab, July 27, 2019

CBC News - June 20, 2018: “France told Canada key evidence did not exist in Hassan Diab terrorism case”, CBC News, June 20, 2018

CBC News: “Canada helped France dig up evidence to extradite Ottawa man later freed on terror charges”, May 1, 2018