Opinion: Jack Letts and other Canadians held in Syria deserve proper justice

2024/03/27 Leave a comment

Not convinced, given the difficulty, if not impossibility, of successful prosecution in Canada. And Letts never had a meaningful connection to Canada and his parents, understandably, only approached when his UK citizenship, where he had lived virtually his entire life, revoked his UK citizenship, effectively dumping him on Canada:

When we met Canadian citizen Jack Letts in a prison in Northeast Syria last August, he asked if we thought he would still be there in 10 years. At that point he had been locked up in harrowing conditions without charge or trial for more than six years.

The letters, photos and books we were able to bring to him from his mother, who lives in Ottawa, were Jack’s first news of his family in years. Our visit was the first confirmation for his family in two years that he was even alive. He has no access to a lawyer. And he is not receiving any support from Canadian officials, as the Canadian government refuses to carry out consular visits in the region.

We paused before answering, not wanting to crush his sprits or give false hope. We told him it was unlikely he would still be in detention in 10 years, but that there was no prospect of short-term release. We told him we hoped he might be back in Canada in a year.

“Back in Canada,” of course, does not necessarily mean out of detention. If there is credible evidence that Jack has committed terrorism-related or other crimes, he would rightly be charged under Canadian law. Jack told us that he would willingly face any such allegation, as long as it involved a fair procedure. That, clearly, is not on offer in Northeast Syria.

We were cautiously optimistic because of a pending appeal application before the Supreme Court of Canada in a legal challenge brought by Jack and three other Canadian men unlawfully detained in Northeast Syria. Little did we know, however, that three months later the Supreme Court would inexplicably deny leave to hear that appeal, a deep disappointment. The court does not give reasons for leave decisions.

We have now passed the halfway point in what we hope will not prove to be misguided optimism of justice within a year. However, six months on, there is no sign that the Canadian government is readying to repatriate Jack.

Jack Letts is not alone. There are at least eight other Canadian men unlawfully imprisoned in Northeast Syria. We also know of one Canadian woman, 13 Canadian children and three non-Canadian women who are mothers of some of those children, who are held in a dangerous and overcrowded detention camp in the region, also with no end in sight.

And those Canadians are not alone. There are more than 50,000 prisoners, more than half of them children, unlawfully detained across Northeast Syria. Most are Syrian or Iraqi, but in all there are 60 different nationalities in the camps and prisons. Some have very likely been responsible for terrible abuses during the years that ISIL controlled that region, while others were themselves victims of or opponents to ISIL. All are denied any justice.

We met with one other Canadian male prisoner, all of the women, and six of the children while we were on the ground in August. The human rights violations they are enduring are extensive, and the Canadian government’s failure to take steps to protect them is a disgrace.

Last week, an exceptional application was filed with the Supreme Court, asking for reconsideration of the decision not to hear an appeal. Given the ongoing intransigence of the government, turning to the court, no matter how extraordinary the request, seems the only option. Past progress with repatriation has generally only happened under threat of possible court action.

That application has been brought because the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate, and the risks to these Canadians grow even more alarming. That is due in part to shifting political and military circumstances in the Middle East since the Oct. 7th Hamas attack in Israel and the humanitarian catastrophe unleashed by more than five months of unrelenting bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli military.

No doubt taking advantage of international focus being diverted to the Gaza crisis, the Turkish military has ramped up its deadly drone attacks in Northeast Syria. ISIL activity also appears to be increasing. And now there is talk that the U.S. military, whose presence in Northeast Syria has provided a minimal degree of stability, may be preparing to withdraw its troops. Notably, the U.S. government repeatedly calls on Canada and other countries to repatriate their nationals.

Things were bad enough when we were in Northeast Syria in August. The situation has only worsened since and seems slated to become more dire. What is needed is not protracted litigation. What is needed is a political decision to bring all Canadians home from there, to hold them accountable in our legal system if warranted. It is time for human rights to prevail.

Kim Pate is an Independent Senator for Ontario. Alex Neve is a Senior Fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Scott Heatherington is a retired Canadian ambassador and diplomat. Hadayt Nazami is an immigration and human rights lawyer in Toronto. They travelled to Northeast Syria as a civil society humanitarian delegation last August.

Source: Opinion: Jack Letts and other Canadians held in Syria deserve proper justice

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Removing Shamima Begum’s citizenship is a cruel, politically-motivated policy has done nothing to keep us safe

2024/03/09 Leave a comment

Revocation, without considering statelessness or “ownership” of problematic citizens, is indeed more politically motivated than justified.

As the case of “Jihadi Jack” illustrates, it also allows countries to export their problems to other countries in cases of dual citizens.

That ministers are prepared to do this to British kids shocks me every time I go there.

It is also where Shamima Begum has been imprisoned without charge or trial for the past five years.

Former Home Secretary Sajid Javid deprived her of British citizenship when she was 19 years old and mourning a third child, and she has been stuck there, stripped of all her rights, ever since.

Yesterday a group of United Nations legal experts weighed in on her case. “There is a credible suspicion that Ms Begum was recruited, transferred and then harboured for the purpose of sexual exploitation,” they said.

Last month, Britain’s own Court of Appeal referred to “the likelihood that she was a child victim of others who wished to exploit her for sexual or extremist reasons”.

It is well-documented that ISIS targeted vulnerable British girls and young women and that UK institutions failed in their duty to protect them.

Remember, Shamima was 15 years old and studying for her mock GCSEs when she was groomed. The idea that she should be sent into exile for the rest of her life because she was targeted by a trafficking gang runs contrary to good sense and basic humanity.

Former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption has made the point that depriving Ms Begum of UK citizenship leaves her stateless. The United Nations legal experts agreed.

The Government’s claim that she could be a citizen of Bangladesh, a country she has never visited and that has publicly stated it will not accept her, reveals a racist, two-tier citizenship regime.

Britain is alone among G20 nations in stripping citizenship in bulk. Only Bahrain and Nicaragua have deprived more people of citizenship in the last two decades.

This cruel, politically-motivated policy has done nothing to keep us safe – in fact security experts agree that the detention camps are ticking timebomb. That’s why every one of our allies is repatriating families from North East Syria.

Maya Foa is the Director of Reprieve

Source: Removing Shamima Begum’s citizenship is a cruel, politically-motivated policy has done nothing to keep us safe

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Mito: Canada needs to end repatriation of Islamic fighters

2024/02/26 Leave a comment

Understandable perspective of a Yezidi survivor. But revocation is problematic as countries will export their problems to other countries, as the UK revocation of Jack Letts, a former UK citizen who spent his life in the UK before becoming “Jihadi Jack,” became the subject of efforts by his parents to use his Canadian citizenship by descent to allow him to return to Canada.
I hope the courts are sensible in affirming the limits to repatriation:
As a Yezidi survivor of the 2014 genocide committed by the Islamic State (IS), I have serious concerns regarding public safety as Canada repatriates former IS terrorists. Since the IS’s defeat in Syria in 2019, the Canadian government has been grappling with cases involving Canadians who left to join the group. Some of these citizens have been repatriated, while others remain in IS camps under the control of Kurdish forces in Syria.
In 2015, the Conservative Party of Canada passed Bill C-24, a law allowing Canada to revoke the citizenship of Canadians who joined the IS. Some legal scholars oppose such laws, likening the revocation of citizenship to historical practices of exile and banishment. Countries, including Australia and the U.K., that have implemented similar laws have encountered legal challenges, as these laws can either render a person “stateless” (without any citizenship) or establish disparate treatment between individuals with dual citizenship and those with only one.
As a solution, the Liberals revoked the portion of Bill C-24 that allowed the stripping of citizenship from dual citizens who joined a terrorist organization. Without the power to strip citizenship, the government has opted not to repatriate Canadian citizens held captive by Kurds in IS camps. Government lawyers claim it would be “unprecedented and unprincipled” to assist these detained suspects and assert that “there is no legal obligation, under the Charter, statute or international law for Canada to provide consular assistance, including the repatriation of its citizens.”
However, a lawsuit has led the Federal Court to order the government to repatriate at least four men accused of being IS fighters. These individuals, who allegedly participated in crimes against humanity, knowingly left Canada to join IS. However, due to their use of false names and a pervasive lack of evidence, it remains doubtful that they will face justice in Canada or at the International Criminal Court if they return home for trial. The CBC quotes a former CSIS analyst as saying he “doubts any of the adults returning would face justice for any crimes they may have committed,” because “the witnesses aren’t here, the evidence isn’t here.”
Repatriating former IS members without prosecution is an injustice to Yezidis and all others who survived their crimes against humanity. The only path left for justice is for the government to reimplement Bill C-24 in full, allowing Canada to strip the citizenship of suspected IS members, leaving them in the prison camps where they belong. Further to that, Canada should pass a new law that does not require a legal conviction but rather a hearing in something equivalent to a closed tribunal. A legal process has too high a burden of proof in a war zone, such as the conflict in Syria and northern Iraq.
The situation Canada faces, whether to bring IS fighters back home, is not just about politics; it’s about real people who have suffered unimaginably. Canada must find a way to bring justice to survivors like the Yezidis and to protect its citizens. Putting Bill C-24 back into action and creating a special court-like system could help ensure IS members are held accountable without legally complicating things, given our government’s limited evidence against these fighters.

As someone who has experienced IS cruelty first-hand, I ask Canada to make careful and strong choices. We must ensure that those who cause suffering cannot just walk away, and we must remember and honour all the people who were hurt or lost.It is a tough path, but it’s the right thing to do.

Saif Mito is a Mount Royal University student in Calgary and a Yezidi survivor.

Source: Opinion: Canada needs to end repatriation of Islamic fighters

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Ottawa declassifies more details from Rodal report on Nazi war criminals in Canada

2024/02/05 Leave a comment

Of note:

As justice minister in the late 1960s, Pierre Trudeau opposed revoking the citizenship of a naturalized Canadian suspected of murdering 5,128 Jews in Latvia during the Second World War, over concerns about legality and social cohesion, long-redacted memos released on Thursday show.

…The previously redacted sections of Ms. Rodal’s report explore, among other cases, the case of F, from Latvia, a suspected firing-squad captain. He had been convicted in absentia by the Soviet Union. A 1965 memo by the legal division of External Affairs observed that the Soviet Union had requested his extradition to embarrass the Canadian government, but that at the same time, Canada had no reason to doubt the truth of the accusations. If true, the memo says, F was “an ardent Nazi lackey, not only cooperating actively with the occupying German forces but actually serving their Jewish and Gypsy extermination squads.” The memo said Canada had denied requests for extradition in at least four cases.

When the Canadian Jewish Congress asked in 1966 for a re-examination of the legal possibilities for action, a meeting across government departments was held. Two ideas for addressing war criminals were rejected: the revocation of citizenship for failing to disclose details of their past, and therefore not being of “good character” as required in citizenship applications; and retroactive legislation to allow for trials in Canada. There was a caveat: If a major war criminal such as Martin Bormann, who was once suspected of being in Canada, turned up, retroactive laws might be considered.

Mr. Trudeau later wrote, in a memo to Paul Martin Sr., who was secretary of state for external affairs, that nothing in Canadian law suggests a citizenship application is “in the nature of a confessional, requiring the applicant to disclose all prior conduct.”

On the subject of F, the alleged firing squad captain, Mr. Trudeau added that while anxiety in the Jewish community was understandable, “it would be most ill-advised for the government to undertake this venture, which would involve publicly accusing a Canadian citizen of having committed crimes in Latvia in respect of which he has been convicted, in absentia, in Russia.” Such a move, Mr. Trudeau said in a separate memo, could suggest widespread revocations of citizenship ahead.

…..Mr. Matas said Mr. Trudeau has since been proven wrong on his legal concerns, as the courts have allowed the revocation of citizenship for intentional non-disclosure.

Source: Ottawa declassifies more details from Rodal report on Nazi war criminals in Canada

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Israel Must Not Revoke Their Citizenship – Haaretz Editorial

2023/11/06 Leave a comment

Of note. Hopefully one outcome of the war will be the replacement of the Netanyahu government and these extreme ministers:

On October 7, the Israeli Arab actress Maisa Abd Elhadi published two posts. In one, she captioned an image of Yaffa Adar, 85, being abducted by Hamas from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, with the text, “The lady is going on the adventure of her life.” The other showed a tractor breaking through the fence, captioned “Let’s go Berlin style.”

A few days later she was arrested, and last week she was charged with incitement to terrorism and expressing solidarity with a terror organization.

Interior Minister Moshe Arbel was not content with that, and called for the revocation of her citizenship. On Thursday, he approved the publication of a draft law he wrote with Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the architect of the government’s judicial coup, that would enable the revocation of citizenship or residency of a citizen or resident who incited to terrorism or expressed support for terror during wartime.

Levin and Arbel want to expand the list of acts for which citizenship can be revoked. According to their proposal, citizenship could be revoked from anyone who supported terrorism, incited to terrorism or sympathized with a terror organization “while a special situation had been declared in the home front, due to the aggravated severity attended to the commission of such acts at wartime.”

The list of acts included under this definition includes the publication of statements of praise, support or sympathy, waving a flag, displaying or publishing a symbol or displaying, playing or publishing of a slogan or anthem in order to express solidarity.

Arbel and Levin are arming Israel with a weapon that allows it to embark on a literal witch hunt, particularly after Arab citizens. A situation of war does not justify such hysterics. Revocation of citizenship is a draconian step (the practical upshot of which is deportation, or leaving a person stateless) that should not be used, let alone for offenses such as incitement or the expression of identification. We also must not lose the critical distinction between someone publishing a post and those committing or aiding a terror attack.

In addition, according to the bill the person authorized to revoke the citizenship of a person convicted of such offenses will be the interior minister, acting on the recommendation of an advisory committee and the concurrence of the justice minister. Judicial review, according to the draft law, will take place after the decision is made.

In other words, Arbel and Levin will be able to revoke citizenship without court involvement. This is unlimited power, worse than that envisioned by the coup. The government is not a punitive agency; that is the role of the courts. The government coup was stopped, but under the cover of war Levin has continued his fight to eliminate the separation of powers.

This bill could contribute to the silencing of entire groups within Israeli society at best and to political persecution, revocation of citizenship and mass expulsion at worst. Such power cannot be placed in the hands of the government, not even in wartime.

Source: Israel Must Not Revoke Their Citizenship – Haaretz Editorial – Haaretz

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Australia cannot strip citizenship from man over his terrorism convictions, top court says

2023/11/02 Leave a comment

Of note:

Australia’s highest court on Wednesday overturned a government decision to strip citizenship from a man convicted of terrorism.

The ruling is a second blow in the High Court to the law introduced almost a decade ago that allows a government minister to strip dual nationals of their Australian citizenship on extremism-related grounds.

The ruling also prevents the government from deporting Algerian-born cleric Abdul Benbrika when he is released from prison, which is expected within weeks.

Source: Australia cannot strip citizenship from man over his terrorism convictions, top court says – The Associated Press

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Israel broadens law to strip ‘terror’ convicts of citizenship

2023/02/17 Leave a comment

Of note:

Israel expanded Wednesday its policy of stripping citizenship over “terrorism” offences, with parliament announcing lawmakers had passed legislation targeting those who receive funds from the Palestinian Authority.

The bill, which passed with 94 votes in favour and 10 against in the Knesset, also paves the way for Israel to expel people from the country or annexed east Jerusalem.

A rights group said the move was “in violation of international law”, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed it on Twitter as “our answer to terrorism”.

A statement from parliament said lawmakers had approved “the revocation of citizenship or residency of a terrorist operative who receives compensation (from the PA) for committing an act of terrorism”.

The Palestinian Authority gives stipends to numerous families of prisoners, or detainees themselves, including those convicted of killing Israelis.

Israel says making payments to the families of attackers encourages further violence, but for some Palestinians such payments are a key source of income.

Adalah, an organisation that advocates for Palestinians’ rights in Israel, said the law “not only creates an additional avenue for the revocation of the citizenship of residency of Palestinians… under the Israeli regime, but also facilitates their expulsion”.

“The law explicitly and exclusively targets Palestinians as part of Israel’s entrenchment of two separate legal systems based on Jewish supremacy,” the group charged in a statement.

The law may affect hundreds of east Jerusalem Palestinians and dozens of Israeli citizens, according to Dani Shenhar, head of the legal department at Israeli rights group HaMoked.

“The threshold is very low, so we’re very worried about it, especially the effect on east Jerusalem,” he told AFP when the bill was tabled last month.

The text approved by lawmakers lays out a judicial procedure for denying legal status following a request by the interior minister.

– ‘Conditional citizen’ –

Most Palestinians living in east Jerusalem hold Israeli residency permits rather than citizenship.

The new legislation allows deportation “to the territories of the Palestinian Authority (in the occupied West Bank) or the Gaza Strip”.

Gaza, controlled by Hamas Islamists, has been under an Israeli-led blockade since 2007.

Israel has occupied the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Ahmad Tibi, an Arab opposition lawmaker, denounced the law as discriminatory.

“When an Arab commits a crime, they are a conditional citizen, whereas when a Jew commits even a more serious crime, revoking their citizenship is unheard of,” he said during Wednesday’s debate in parliament.

Lawmakers on Wednesday also approved in a preliminary vote a bill to allow the deportation of family members of those convicted of “terrorism”, in cases in which they are found to have supported the crime or known about it and failed to report it to the authorities.

Israel has previously stripped residency and citizenship, including that of French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri who was deported in December.

The Jerusalem resident had been arrested and jailed on several occasions by Israel, which revoked his residency permit citing ties the outlawed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

In 2017, an Israeli court revoked an Arab citizen’s nationality over an attack against Israelis.

That was the first time an amendment passed in 2008 had been used to revoke an Israeli citizenship.

Also in 2017, Israel announced it was stripping citizenship of 20 people who had allegedly joined the Islamic State group.

Human Rights Watch said Israel has stripped 15,000 east Jerusalem Palestinians of their right to residency since 1967, warning the practice may constitute a “war crime”

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/02/israel-broadens-law-strip-terror-convicts-citizenship#ixzz7tSJe8PQY

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British Muslims’ #citizenship reduced to ‘second-class’ status, says thinktank

2022/09/13 Leave a comment

Similar to arguments against the Conservative government’s C-24 citizenship revocation provisions (repealed by the Liberal government), but the absence of due process in the UK example is particularly egregious:

British Muslims have had their citizenship reduced to “second-class” status as a result of recently extended powers to strip people of their nationality, a thinktank has claimed.

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) says the targets of such powers are almost exclusively Muslims, mostly of south Asian heritage, embedding discrimination and creating a lesser form of citizenship.

The IRR’s report was published on Sunday amid renewed controversy over the case of Shamima Begum, who was smuggled into the hands of Islamic State aged 15, and in the wake of the Nationality and Borders Act – that allowed citizenship to be stripped without notifying the subject, coming on to the statute books.

Frances Webber, IRR vice-chair and report author, wrote: “The message sent by the legislation on deprivation of citizenship since 2002 and its implementation largely against British Muslims of south Asian heritage is that, despite their passports, these people are not and can never be ‘true’ citizens, in the same way that ‘natives’ are.

“While a ‘native’ British citizen, who has access to no other citizenship, can commit the most heinous crimes without jeopardising his right to remain British, none of the estimated 6 million British citizens with access to another citizenship can feel confident in the perpetual nature of their citizenship.”

Webber said before being used against the Muslim preacher Abu Hamza in 2003, no deprivation of citizenship had been authorised for 30 years. But since then there have been at least 217, with 104 removals in 2017 after the collapse of Islamic State in Syria.

Despite government claims that powers are only used against those who pose a grave threat to national security, or who have committed abhorrent crimes, the “Citizenship: from right to privilege” report argues the effect is that certain people have a “second-class, disposable, contingent citizenship”.

Webbersaid: “These classes of citizenship were brought in to target British Muslims of south Asian and Middle Eastern heritage. Such divisions act as a constant reminder to minority ethnic citizens that they must watch their step, and reinforce racist messages about ‘undeserving’ racialised groups unworthy of being British.”

The report describes the criteria for deprivation of citizenship as “nebulous and undefined” and warns of a risk of its use for political purposes, with Webber highlighting Begum’s case as an example. It was recently alleged Begum was rtrafficked into Syria by a spy working for Canadian intelligence.

“It raises the question: was Begum’s citizenship removed to divert attention from western agencies’ prioritisation of intelligence gathering over safeguarding vulnerable trafficked girls?” said Webber.

Citing the Prevent counter-terrorism programme, which has been dogged by claims of being a cover to spy on Muslim communities, the report said citizenship-stripping is “just one aspect of measures targeting Muslim communities, in Britain and abroad, in the past two decades, which have helped to turn British Muslims in the UK into a ‘suspect community’”.

The latest change to citizen-stripping powers in the Nationality and Borders Act, heightened public awareness – and criticism – of the existing rules as well as the additions, provoking public protests, opposition from campaigners as well as some MPs and Lords.

The Home Office said the legislation did not target ethnic minorities or people of particular faiths, and that the test for deprivation was clearly set out.

A spokesperson said: “Our priority is to ensure the safety and security of the UK. Deprivation of citizenship only happens after careful consideration of the facts and in accordance with international law. It is used against those who have acquired citizenship by fraud and against the most dangerous people, such as terrorists, extremists and serious organised criminals.

“We make no apology for doing whatever is necessary to protect the UK from those who pose a threat to our security.”

Source: British Muslims’ citizenship reduced to ‘second-class’ status, says thinktank

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Tatour: Israel can now strip away 48 Palestinians’ #citizenship

2022/07/27 Leave a comment

Of note, even if reference to broader “ethnic cleansing” is overstated:

Last week, in a precedential decision, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the state had the power to revoke the citizenship of a person convicted of offences that amounted to “breach of loyalty”, even if the person would become stateless as a result and in violation of international law.

The decision deliberated on the case of Alaa Zayoud, a Palestinian who holds Israeli citizenship. In October 2015, Zayoud rammed his car into a bus station and stabbed three Israelis. In 2017, a year after his conviction, the minister of interior notified Zayoud of his intent to revoke his citizenship, in accordance with the Citizenship Law.

The importance of this decision cannot be overstated. Its implications are grave and will be seen in the near and far future

The administrative court in Haifa approved the decision. Zayoud appealed and the case ended up in the Supreme Court.

In its decision, the Supreme Court determined that: “No constitutional defect in the arrangement that allows the revocation of the citizenship of a person who committed an act that constitutes a breach of loyalty in the State of Israel, such as: an act of terrorism; an act of treason or serious espionage; or the acquisition of citizenship or the right of permanent residency in a hostile state or in hostile territory.

“This is so, even if as a result of the revocation of his citizenship, the individual becomes stateless, provided that if the individual becomes stateless, the interior minister must grant him a status of permanent residence in Israel or another designated status.”

The importance of this decision cannot be overstated. Its implications are grave and will be seen in the near and far future. This decision has created a legal path for revoking the citizenship of the 48 Palestinians (also known as Palestinian citizens of Israel), a stepping-stone in Israel’s efforts to advance the ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Palestinians.

‘Terrorist intent’

On a practical level, the court has cleared the way for what would become the routine denaturalisation of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, making them vulnerable to deportation, something Israel has long aspired to.

The decision to substitute citizenship with a so-called permanent residency status might enable individuals to continue to have access to some social services, but it strips them from the utmost protection that citizenship is designed to grant: the right to remain at home.

Israel knows that to make 48 Palestinians vulnerable to expulsion, it has first to revoke their citizenship. The court’s decision facilitates just that.

And it is Israel and its security services who define what constitutes a “breach of loyalty”, which according to the Citizenship Law creates the grounds for revoking citizenship. At the moment, Israel defines a “breach of loyalty” based on Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Law, which permits it to classify different offences as terrorist acts.

Israel routinely applies “terrorist intent” when it comes to Palestinians. For example, in the aftermath of May 2021’s Unity Intifada, Israel arrested thousands of Palestinians and filed indictments against hundreds of protesters, with 167 of them charged with terrorist offences, based on the Counter-Terrorism Law.

Following the Supreme Court’s recent decision, all of them face the threat of having their citizenship revoked. Palestinians know all too well what this could potentially mean: expulsion from their homeland.

The act of revoking citizenship would leave the affected Palestinians stateless. Israel already made all Palestinians stateless in 1948 with the nullification of Palestinian citizenship under the British Mandate. Many Palestinians remain stateless. The Palestinians who remained after the Nakba (the Catastrophe) in 1948 received Israeli citizenship in the first two decades of the state.

Now Israel is threatening to make them stateless again.

Although this decision clearly violates international law, the court still determined that it was constitutional to denaturalise Palestinians, stating – falsely – that the condition of statelessness could be remedied through the extension of “permanent residence in Israel or another designated status”.

A secret plan

The experience of Jerusalemites teaches us that there is nothing permanent in “permanent residence” when it comes to Palestinians. Since 1967, Israel has regularly revoked the residence of Jerusalemites, effectively banning them permanently from their city and homes. So far, over 15,000 residencies have been revoked, as part of the ongoing effort to eliminate Palestinians from the city.

Israel has never made peace with the existence of its Palestinian citizens. It pursued plans for the mass expulsion of 48 Palestinians in its first decade. The Kafr Qasim massacre of October 1956, in which the army executed 51 Palestinians, was part of a larger secret plan, called Operation Hafarperet, to oust the Palestinian population from the Little Triangle.

In addition, in the early 1950s, Israel attempted to advance a plan for the expulsion of 10,000 Palestinians from seven villages in the Galilee, as well as other plans for the resettlement of Palestinians in Argentina and Brazil.

The quest to expel Palestinians persisted. It re-emerged in the Israeli public and political landscape during the 1980s with the rise of Meir Kahane, an American-born ultra-Orthodox nationalist rabbi, and his fascist party, Kach. Kach advocatedthe denaturalisation of Palestinian citizens and their transfer, as well as the expulsion of Palestinians in the occupied 1967 territories.

Proposed plans to reduce the number of Palestinian citizens are now an integral part of the Israeli mainstream political discourse

Since the 2000s, there have been significant efforts to make the citizenship of Palestinians more easily revocable. Proposed plans to reduce the number of Palestinian citizens are now an integral part of the Israeli mainstream political discourse and are supported by most of the Israeli public.

We have seen calls to demand that 48 Palestinians sign an oath of allegiance to the Israeli state as a Jewish state; the adoption of the Nation-State of the Jewish Peoplein 2018; and the advancement of what is known as the “population exchange” plan– the planned transfer of Little Triangle villages and their estimated 300,000 residents to the Palestinian state against the will of the Palestinians in these areas.

Instrument of sumud

In an alarming development, in recent years Israel has been revoking the citizenship of Palestinian Bedouins in the Negev in an apparent test case for a wider project of denaturalisation of Palestinian citizens. In 2010, the Ministry of Interior began a review of the citizenship status of the Bedouin.

Its report concluded that thousands of Bedouin had been erroneously registered as citizens. Subsequently, Israel denaturalised hundreds of Bedouin in the Negev, rendering them stateless.

It is no coincidence that Israel began with the Bedouin – the most vulnerable and marginalised population among 48 Palestinians.

It is no secret that Israel wants to see all Palestinians, including 48 Palestinians, vanish. Even though the latter were granted Israeli citizenship, Israel sees 48 Palestinians as guests whose presence is not only undesirable, but always conditional.

Israel sees in their citizenship a gesture, not a right – and gestures can always be undone – as articulated by Israel’s former transport minister, Bezalel Smotrich: “We are the landlords of this land. This land has belonged to the Jewish people for thousands of years. God did promise us all of the Land of Israel, a promise he kept. We’ve just been the most hospitable people in the world since the days of Abraham and so you’re still here. At least for now.”

We need to see it for what it is: Israel is working step by step to create legal paths for making denaturalisation, and thus the expulsion, of 48 Palestinians possible. For 48ers, Israeli citizenship has been an instrument of sumud or steadfast perseverance.

It guarantees – for the most part – their continued presence in their homeland. For 48 Palestinians, citizenship means survival.

Source: Israel can now strip away 48 Palestinians’ citizenship

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Australia: Man suspected of joining Islamic State wins High Court challenge against government decision to strip him of his citizenship

2022/06/09 Leave a comment

Of note, significant curb on Ministerial discretion:

A key plank of the federal government’s foreign fighter laws has been struck down by the High Court, with the nation’s top judges ruling that suspected terrorists cannot be stripped of their citizenship by the Home Affairs Minister.

The case before the court involved Delil Alexander, who was jailed in Syria after allegedly joining Islamic State.

He claimed he could not be released from jail because he had nowhere to go, after the Australian government stripped him of his citizenship in July 2021.

Mr Alexander left Australia for Turkey, where he also holds citizenship, in 2013.

He told his family he was going to arrange a marriage and would return, but travelled to Syria where he is thought to have joined Islamic State.

The High Court noted an assessment by intelligence agency ASIO at the time found he was reported to have travelled to Syria with a group being helped by a known Australian Islamic State member.

In November 2017, Mr Alexander was arrested by a Kurdish militia and in 2019 was jailed for 15 years by a Syrian court.

He has since been pardoned by the Syrian government but has remained in jail because he cannot go back to Turkey, and Australia cancelled his citizenship.

No one, including Mr Alexander’s family and his lawyers, has heard from him since July last year.

Only judges can decide to strip citizenship if person hasn’t faced trial in Australia, court rules

The main issue in the case was whether the law allowing the Home Affairs Minister to strip him of his citizenship was valid under the Constitution.

“That sanction by the parliament may be imposed only upon satisfaction of the minister that Mr Alexander engaged in conduct that is so reprehensible as to be deserving of the dire consequence of deprivation of citizenship and the rights, privileges, immunities and duties associated with it,” the lead judgement in the decision said.

“The power to determine the facts which enliven the power to impose such a punishment is one which, in accordance with [Chapter 3] of the Constitution, is exercisable exclusively by a court that is a part of the federal judicature.”

Effectively the High Court ruled that while the government of the day could pass laws relating to citizenship, the consequence of stripping someone’s legislation without them facing trial on Australian soil was so serious it should only be handled by a judge.

Six of the seven justices agreed, with only Justice Simon Steward dissenting.

The new federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said they were still assessing the impact of the ruling.

But the pair played down the significance it may have for other foreign fighters who may pose a risk to Australia if they returned, arguing other measures, including Temporary Exclusion Orders, could prohibit people from returning to Australia for up to two years.

Government sources have told the ABC there are only two people who have had their Australian citizenship cancelled under the specific part of the Citizenship Act, which has now been struck down.

Mr Alexander, and the other individual, are both in jail.

It does not affect people such as Abdul Nacer Benbrika, who had his citizenship cancelled after being convicted of terrorism offences by an Australian court.

Mr Alexander’s lawyer disputes he had been involved with Islamic State

Mr Alexander’s lawyer, Osman Samin, said his client should never have had his citizenship stripped by the government and disputed the assessment by intelligence agencies that Mr Alexander had been involved with Islamic State.

He argued the evidence Syrian authorities relied upon to initially convict him was deeply flawed.

“We potentially have a person who was arrested in a part of Syria, which is not a declared area,” he told the ABC.

“Other than these purported admissions made by Mr Alexander under extreme torture, there is no other evidence that suggests he in any way participated in any terrorism-type conduct.

Mr Samin said there could have been far-reaching consequences if the legislation had not been struck out by the High Court.

“The concept in the legislation was that citizenship may be repudiated by disloyal conduct,” he said.

“Now, importantly, what constitutes disloyal conduct amounting to repudiation can be defined by parliament — so, therefore, while the laws were initially limited predominantly to terrorism-type conduct, if the law was deemed valid there is really no limitation on what the government in future could define as ‘disloyal conduct’.

Mr Samin said Mr Alexander’s sister, who was running the case on his behalf, was “extraordinarily relieved” but “equally anxious” about the circumstances her brother found himself in, languishing in a jail in Damascus.

“There are so many stories of foreign prisoners being killed in this particular prison that, of course, the family at the moment are only concerned with his welfare, and simply want to know whether he’s still alive essentially.”

Source: Man suspected of joining Islamic State wins High Court challenge against government decision to strip him of his citizenship

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