Seven Oaks Magazine.

Amina Sherazee is a lawyer and social justice activist in Toronto, Ontario. She works with a number of organizations, including Lawyers Against War, the Muslim Canadian Congress, and the Canadian Arab Federation. She was recently in Vancouver, speaking at a conference, "Borders Within: Two-Tiered Citizenship in Post-9/11 Canada," at the University of British Columbia.

1. You have likened the current anti-terror legislation to the Nuremberg laws of the 1930s. Were you exaggerating to make a point?

I wasn't exaggerating because what you have, in international law, is a basic premise of equality. That equality principle implies that there can be no derogation from equal application and equal protection of the law to everyone irrespective of their race, their gender, their nationality, their religion. This is very important. So, you can have derogations from application of laws to specific groups of people, but never on those bases. So, when you have the targeting of a particular group because of their religion, then what you're doing is replicating what was done in the 1930s, when the Nuremberg degree was promulgated. So I don't think that's an exaggeration. I stand by that statement, that as long as you have derogation from the principle of equality then you get into trouble.

2. Would you say that there has been a qualitative change in terms of legislation post-9/11, particularity regarding immigrants and refugees, or is what we're seeing the culmination of a longer-running trend?

I'll tell you it's both. There's nothing new in terms of the security certificates that we've seen, because they've been around for ten years before September 11 th . And the lawyers who were doing them were always complaining that this was outrageous and comparing it to secret trials. But what we've seen is an escalation in the use of those provisions. But we're also seeing, as well, some differences, because the new immigration and refugee protection act - which was drafted and approved before September 11 th , but which came into force after September 11 th - that some provisions in there are truly focused on granting excessive powers to immigration for increased detention, based on suspicion, detention for extraordinary things that we would never detain people for, such as lack of identification. Misrepresentation, we don't detain people for lying. We might revoke their status, we might subject them to special proceedings, but we won't detain them because you only detain people if they represent a threat to the public to security. That's when you would need to isolate and detain them. You're finding detention of entire families, even children. So you've got this security agenda, which forms the justification for an increased use of penal type powers, but it's under immigration.

3. What do you think are the implications of the recent case of Mohamed Cherfi, where sanctuary was violated?

It's extremely dangerous, in the sense that it's setting a new precedent that refugees, regardless of where they are, and on what basis they're seeking sanctuary - there's nothing sacred about sanctuary anymore. What the police did in Quebec is very insidious. They used this really small minor technicality on the bail condition that he had to justify such an egregious violation of an international human rights norm, which is that if someone is seeking protection in a neutral space, such as a church, that has to be observed and that's been completely violated.

4. This anti-war movement today seems to have taken up issues like the war at home, issues like the occupation of Palestine, in a more serious way than previous movements. How encouraged are you by this trend, or do you see it as well in Toronto?

I do see the connection, and I think it's extremely important, because the form of domination is global. So, because the type of oppression comes through globalisation, the resistance also has to be similarly global. To see all this international solidarity, to hear people talk about the homeless in Toronto in the same breath as the homeless in the Gaza, to talk about the destruction of inner city housing here with the destruction of homes [in Palestine], to talk about colonization here in North America on First Nations land with colonization in Israel -that's really encouraging to see those links being made. So, yes, I am hopeful about it.

5. We often hear that social movements are only "anti," and don't put forward alternatives. Are there positive examples of social change, or governments, that we need to look to?

I think what's been encouraging has been the response to the bombings in Spain. That response shows that you can make a difference by choosing to affirm the fact that we don't want to have either domestic or foreign policy that's responsible for reigning terror on other nations and people. That we're more interested in promoting justice and equality, we're more interested in alleviating poverty.

6. These are issues that the left takes up, but in Canada at least, the left is often ghettoised, divided. What prospects do you see for political movements of the left in Canada?

Well, I don't know about the scene here in Vancouver, I hear that the NDP is doing pretty well provincially. But, I have to say, personally, I've been seeing politics as quite a game, particularly in light of the scandal after scandal that we're seeing both at the provincial and federal level. I almost feel that the only way to really address people's concerns and to bring about democratic institutions within the political process is to have a revamping of it. And I think, really, nothing short of revolution at this point.

7. Has being both a lawyer and an activist been what you'd expected, in terms of effecting social change? I'm assuming, of course, that you were an activist before taking up the law.

No, that's right, it was because I was an activist and I kept, you know, bumping up against a wall, and I realized I need to go to law school and learn about this very powerful institution, this very powerful tool that the corporate and power elite use. I find it really difficult; it's a challenge. Routinely I find that the reality on the streets doesn't get heard inside the courtroom and when you push for it to be heard, there's a lot of rejection of it. So all I can do is, you know, have one foot inside the courtroom and one foot outside the courtroom and when I'm in court I have to appeal to all the actors within the justice system to say these are our law and, ideally, we need to uphold them. But there are times when you have to go outside the courtroom and say, well, your laws, by the very manner which you've created them, are unjust. It's a fine balance and it's always challenging, but I think that it allows me to at least push the envelope a bit in more traditional institutions, such as the legal system.