Paranoid Vision?

That accusation has been launched against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service by the lawyer of an Egyptian man who had sought refugee status in Canada and had been accepted back in 1995.  CSIS, of course, is tasked as a national intelligence and security agency, to ensure that this country is not infiltrated by those interested in penetrating the country's borders for the purpose of obtaining information useful to those interested in mounting attacks on the country.

Or themselves interested in attacking the country, its infrastructure, its government agencies, its population. Or using stealth means to attempt to suborn the nation's democratic values.  Or acting as agents whose purpose in the country might be to recruit potential members of terror or jihadists to fight abroad, then bring back to the country as Canadian citizens, the skills learned on the job to threaten the civil stability of the country through those means.

In 2000, Egyptian-born Mohamed Mahjoub was identified by CSIS as a security risk.  A national security certificate was issued, and Mr. Mahjoub has either been in prison or under house arrest in Toronto since that time.  It is obviously no way to live.  The intention is to have the man's legal status in Canada withdrawn and he returned to his country of birth.

But Mr. Mahjoub has fought deportation to Egypt, claiming he would be tortured there.  Given the new government in Egypt one would have some trouble envisioning Mr. Mahjoub being incarcerated and tortured because of a belief that he is an Islamist, one formerly associated with al-Qaeda.  He is said to have been involved with the Vanguards of Conquest, an Egyptian group linked to al-Qaeda.

My goodness, the terrorist group Hamas is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, as an offshoot of the Brotherhood, an Islamist group.  The new Egyptian government is clearly in a mode of protection for its own.  Is it likely to imprison and torture Mr. Mahjoub?  The intelligence that identifies Mr. Mahjoub as someone linked to al-Qaeda is said to have been obtained through torture, and that information handed to CSIS through a foreign intelligence network.

Mr. Mahjoub had worked at one time on an agricultural project located in Sudan and operated by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s.  Bringing to mind another Canadian-Egyptian who worked for a 'humanitarian' organization with direct links to fund-raising for a-Qaeda, named Khadr.  All the evidence held against Mr. Mahjoub, according to his lawyer is tainted, and CSIS' claims against him are lacking in morality.

No evidence exists, she claims, to show that the farm owned by Osama bin Laden was anything other than legitimate business.  The government of Canada is attempting to convict Mahjoub on the basis of whom he had contact with.  Guilt by association. 

But, in fact, this is precisely the criteria that Canada uses in determining, often after the fact, that citizenship should be revoked once it has become known that the holder was in the employ of or with the military of an repressive or war-torn government.