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Wednesday, February 4, 2009 5:38 PM

Remember those redacted Afghan detainee files?

Bill Curry

The back story behind allegations of a federal cover up related to the Afghan detainee controversy will play out Thursday in Federal Court.

Amir Attaran, a University of Ottawa law professor, is in court demanding the department of Foreign Affairs hand over its annual human rights reports for 2001 to 2006 relating to Afghanistan, after failing to do so through the Access to Information Act.

"This application concerns the right of Canadians to use the Access to Information Act to discover crucial information regarding human rights abuses in the world," writes Prof. Attaran in his submission to the court. "It also involves the decision of the Respondent [the federal government] to cover-up the government's knowledge that persons in Afghanistan are tortured – at a time when that would have been highly embarrassing to the Respondent."

The government will argue it was correct to release only a heavily-redacted version of the report because section 15(1) of the Access Act allows exemptions of material that "could reasonably be expected to be injurious to the conduct of [Canada's] international affairs."

At this point, the professor is largely fighting to block the government from using that exemption to block future human rights reports. Mr. Attaran and others found out what was behind the document's black lines in April 2007, courtesy of a front-page story in The Globe and Mail by our Washington correspondent, Paul Koring.

The blacked out sentences included this line: "Extra judicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial are all too common."

Attached are the submissions to the court from Prof. Attaran and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Court is not expected to deliver a ruling this week.

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Ottawa Notebook Contributors

Jane Taber, senior political writer

Jane Taber

Jane Taber has been on Parliament Hill since the Mulroney days, first writing for the Ottawa Citizen in 1986. Since then, she's reported for a small television network, WTN, and for the National Post before joining The Globe’s parliamentary bureau in 2002. She is the senior political writer and also co-host of Question Period, which airs Sundays on CTV.

 
John Ibbitson

John Ibbitson

John Ibbitson started at The Globe in 1999 and has been Queen's Park columnist and Ottawa political affairs correspondent. Most recently, he was a correspondent and columnist in Washington, where he wrote Open and Shut: Why America has Barack Obama and Canada has Stephen Harper. He returned to Ottawa as bureau chief in 2009. Before joining The Globe, he worked as a reporter, columnist and Queen’s Park correspondent for Southam papers.

 

Steven Chase

Steven Chase has covered federal politics in Ottawa for The Globe since mid-2001. He's previously worked in the paper's Vancouver and Calgary bureaus. Prior to that, he reported on Alberta politics for the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun, and on national issues for Alberta Report. He's had ink-stained hands for far longer though, having worked as a paperboy for the (now defunct) Montreal Star, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Vancouver Sun and the North Shore News.

 
Deputy Ottawa bureau chief Campbell Clark

Campbell Clark

Campbell Clark has been a political writer in The Globe and Mail’s Ottawa bureau since 2000. Before that he worked for The Montreal Gazette and the National Post. He writes about Canadian politics and foreign policy. He stopped being fascinated by ShamWow commercials after that guy’s nasty incident in Florida, but still wonders if one can really pull a truck with that Mighty Putty stuff.

 

Bill Curry

A member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1999, Bill Curry worked for The Hill Times and the National Post prior to joining The Globe in Feb. 2005. Originally from North Bay, Ont., Bill reports on a wide range of topics on Parliament Hill. He is very protective of the office’s brand new copy of O’Brien & Bosc, the latest Parliamentary rule book.

 

Gloria Galloway

Gloria Galloway has been a journalist for almost 30 years. She worked at the Windsor Star, the Hamilton Spectator, the National Post, the Canadian Press and a number of small newspapers before being hired by The Globe and Mail as deputy national editor in 2001. Gloria returned to reporting two years later and joined the Ottawa bureau in 2004. She has covered every federal election since 1997 and has done several stints in Afghanistan.

 

Daniel Leblanc

Daniel Leblanc studied political science at the University of Ottawa and journalism at Carleton University. He became a full-time reporter in 1998, first at the Ottawa Citizen and then in the Ottawa bureau of The Globe and Mail. While he likes the occasional brown envelope, he is also open to anonymous emails.

 

Stephen Wicary

Stephen Wicary has been with The Globe since 2001, working on the news desk as a copy editor, page designer, production editor and front page editor. During the U.S invasion of Iraq, he pulled a three-month stint as overnight editor of the website. He moved to the parliamentary bureau at the end of 2008 to bolster online political coverage.