NEWS RELEASE posted on September 6, 2010 by dawn

Project Samosa Anti Terror Arrests: A spiced up and deep fried narrative

by NOII - Vancouver

Originally posted on NOII-Vancouver's website.

No One is Illegal-Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories is a grassroots
anti-colonial migrant justice group with leadership from members of
migrant and/or racialized backgrounds. As a movement for
self-determination, we challenge the racist ideology inherent to the War
on Terror that is intrinsically linked to repressive immigration controls.

In late August, four men were arrested, three in Ottawa, as part of a
2-year investigation entitled “Project Samosa” (cultural sensitivity
training seems to have missed the fact that not many Pakistanis and
Indians actually like samosas). According to reports, Misbahuddin Ahmed,
Hiva Alizadeh, and Dr. Khurram Syed Sher have been charged; a fourth
person has been arrested but not yet charged; while three to four others
are overseas suspects and co-conspirators.

The men must be presumed to be innocent, both in the court process and in
public consciousness. Media sensationalism, government statements, and
public commentaries have revealed that the men are being considered and
treated as guilty terrorists. This is despite the fact that defence
counsel Anser Farooq has said that he knows almost nothing about the
specifics of the case and that the charges are vague.

In a press conference, law enforcement official Mr. Juneau-Katsuya
articulated high-tech detective skills: “We've got red flags everywhere
and you can trip one of those flags anytime. If you're travelling to
Pakistan, that's a red flag...When you've got enough red flags, then you
become a person of interest. My understanding is they were caught from the
Internet.” Juneau-Katsuya also stated that one of the alleged targets was
the Montreal transit system. However Isabelle Tremblay, a spokeswoman for
the Montreal transit authority, said there have been “no threats, and no
information regarding this claim. If something like that occurs, we're
informed. On this matter, there's nothing.” In an extensive Globe and Mail
interview Rizgar Alizadeh, Hiva’s older brother, described the allegations
against both him and his brother as “a pack of lies” and said he was
neither angry nor fearful because his “conscience is clear”.

The mainstream corporate media has played a crucial role in stirring
public frenzy by uncritically parroting government rhetoric such as
“homegrown terrorists” and “Jihad generation” and that the suspects were
“inspired by Al Qaeda”, without providing any evidence to substantiate
such a claim. Such stigmatizing statements will have a permanent damaging
effect on the men and their families and their “guilt” will surely
continue even if the charges are dropped or the men are acquitted.

Seven years ago in 2003, over twenty South Asian- predominantly Pakistani-
Muslim men were arrested in Toronto in a sweep called “Operation Thread”
for allegedly being an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell. None of the allegations were
proven to be true and not one of the men was ever formally charged, let
alone convicted. Yet most were deported and their lives destroyed by the
unsubstantiated allegations linking them to terrorism. Four years ago,
eighteen men and youth were arrested in the Toronto 18 terror plot. Seven
subsequently had all charges dropped, while others were convicted or had
to plead guilty under excruciating circumstances, including the pre-arrest
existence of well-paid police informants pushing and heavily influencing
activity amongst youth, and post-arrest the detainees having to endure
conditions of isolation and segregation in high-security prisons for
several years. These are reasons enough to remain vigilant. As Alex Neve,
the secretary general of Amnesty International has said “the main lesson
here is that there can easily be a great deal of hysteria. But there have
been previous cases that have collapsed or proved not to be as
advertised.”

Despite the fact that the men arrested are all residents and citizens of
Canada, the questioning of their “Canadian-ness” reveals a shallow
multiculturalism and reinforces the racialized national space. Stories
about their Otherness abound: “the suspect with a full, long beard”,
“there was nothing that seemed too out of the ordinary except neighbours
noted the women wore a niqab or burqa”, or “she said the couple talked
openly about their Muslim beliefs”. Profiling is a hateful double standard
by which individual members of communities are judged and held responsible
for acts or behaviours based on their culture, race, ethnicity, and/or
religion. In contrast, white Christian middle-aged men aged 18-45 did not
suffer the indignities of suspicion and stereotyping after the bombings of
Oklahoma City. Their “ability to integrate” or their positioning within
North American society was not challenged. In a media statement after the
arrests, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews singled out immigrant
communities to be ‘vigilant and to report any suspicious behaviour of
homegrown extremism’. Of course he did not ask white people to be vigilant
against the growing presence and extremism of white supremacists and
neo-nazis who have brazenly been taking to the streets over the past few
years.

These arrests will also provide further justification for the policing and
security apparatus, which since 9/11, has already resulted in pervasive
government and media censorship of information, the silencing of dissent,
legislation granting intelligence and law enforcement agencies much
broader powers of intrusion, and increasingly exclusionary and racist
immigration policies. Over the year, $2 billion security budgets for the
Olympics and G20 summit have led to increased law enforcement, coordinated
operations of unprecedented mass arrests, and creeping surveillance
technologies. Currently the Canadian government is strengthening the false
association between migrants and terrorists in their dehumanizing
treatment of 492 Tamil refugees, including women and children, who arrived
to the coast and are all currently being incarcerated. CSIS has recently
revealed it is tracking more than 200 individuals in Canada with possible
terrorist links.

The discourse of the War on Terror is rooted in a deliberately-cultivated
fear and paranoia, which reduces our capacity to think and debate
critically. In the past few years, Canada has re-invented itself as an
aggressive and crusading Western imperialist power with an increasing
presence of occupation forces in Afghanistan, while strengthening ties to
the apartheid state of Israel. Meanwhile, Omar Khadr continues to languish
in Guantanamo Bay, facing a military trial where evidence gained through
torture is admissible. The historical and present reality is that Canadian
state policies have been far from peaceful or benevolent. The foundational
values of the Canadian state locally are self-evident through residential
schools, the Komagatamaru incident, the Indian Act, Japanese-Canadian
internment, forced sterilization, the Chinese Head-Tax, and countless
other realities.

We commit ourselves to continuing to defend our communities against the
demonization of being “The Enemy Within” that is justifying increasingly
repressive and racist policies. We struggle for the elimination of all
forms of oppressive violence waged against the peoples of the world,
particularly the never-ending War on Terrorism which is bringing the
greatest degree of terror and fear in the lives of the world’s majority.
We place ourselves within the broader movement for global justice
struggling against capitalism, homophobia, imperialism, occupation,
patriarchy, poverty, racism and other forms of domination because we
recognize that these are interconnected systems. We envision and actively
strive for a humanity where everyone has the right to sustenance and the
ability to provide it, where we are free of misery and exploitation, and
are able to live meaningfully in relationship to one another and in
reverence for Mother Earth that sustains us.