Trying to get off U.N.'s terrorist list is Kafkaesque

Getting on the United Nation's terrorist list is easy. Getting off is next to impossible.

The blacklist created by Security Council Resolution 1267 in 1999 turns the listed into international pariahs. All U.N. member states are obligated to seize their assets, prevent them from traveling and prosecute anyone who gives them money beyond the absolute minimum for subsistence.

That's the situation Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik finds himself in. He has been marooned in Sudan for nearly five years because he is on the list and the Canadian government refuses to issue him a new passport.

Originally aimed at squeezing the Taliban when it was running Afghanistan, the U.N. list has been repeatedly changed and toughened until it has morphed into a long roll of people and groups secretively accused of belonging to or helping proscribed organizations, including al-Qaeda.

Yet few of the 370 individuals and 110 organizations on the terrorist blacklist have ever been charged. They have no right to know the allegations against them or who fingered them in the first place.

"It can fairly be described as Kafkaesque," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Security Program.

"Once you are on one of these lists, it is virtually impossible to get yourself off."

The U.N. list, compiled and run by a committee of the U.N. Security Council, is binding on all nations. Its reach is global and yet it is virtually unchallengeable.

All it takes to get on the list is an allegation -- not necessarily supported by any evidence -- from one of the more than 180 U.N. member states.

The accusations aren't made public, nor is any supporting evidence. The U.N. won't discuss how people get labeled as al-Qaeda or Taliban members. But several officials, speaking on condition that they not be identified, confirmed that the overwhelming majority of names on the list were nominated by a handful of nations. The United States, France and Britain are believed to have fingered most of those on the list. But other countries, including Malaysia and India, also seem to have made nominations.

One international official, familiar with the workings of the committee, said diplomats assigned to the panel almost never challenge those fingered by other committee members because they want to be sure that those they wish to label get placed on the list without difficulty.

"It would be bad enough if your name was just on a U.N. list, but that list then gets sent around to so many different places ... once your name is on one of these lists, there are so many consequences that flow," Jaffer said.

And because the Security Council trumps national law, no one can challenge a 1267 listing in a national court.

An application for delisting can be made either by individuals or their country of citizenship or residence. Once made, the application is circulated to the country (or countries) that originally labeled them a terrorist and to their country of citizenship and residence. However, applicants aren't told what countries are involved, whether they took a position on the application for delisting or what that position was.

Once a file is compiled, at least one of the existing 15 members of the committee -- the permanent five members of the Security Council plus 10 nations elected for two-year rotating stints -- must be willing to advocate bringing the delisting request to the entire committee.

If that happens, then all 15 members must endorse the request or it is rejected.

In practical terms, the process can be stunningly quick and completely obscure.

Abdelrazik, now granted "temporary safe haven" by the Canadian embassy in Khartoum, applied for delisting late last year. The request was delivered by Canada's diplomatic mission to the U.N. on Dec. 10. Eleven days later, it was rejected.

It remains unclear whether Canada -- not currently a member of the committee -- supported Abdelrazik's delisting. Although Foreign Affairs officials said in a letter to his lawyers that they did, they have also refused to show the lawyers the documents supporting that assertion.

"It's completely indefensible that there is no appeals procedure," Jaffer said.

Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and a human-rights advocate, said the U.N. 1267 process lacks "the three fundamental legs of basic fairness." There is "no right to know the case against you, there is no right to make submissions in your defense and there is no transparency to the process."

Only two Canadians are blacklisted as al-Qaeda members by the U.N. Security Council -- and one of them has been dead for five years.

The other, Abdelrazik, 46, denies any association with the terrorist group. He is currently living in Canada's embassy in Khartoum, under "temporary safe haven."

A cursory examination suggests the United Nations blacklist is riddled with errors and inconsistencies, although all countries -- including Canada -- are supposed to keep the Security Council informed of changes and details.

Abdelrazik's entry, meanwhile, includes no information on his whereabouts, although Canadian counterterrorism officers interrogated him in a Sudanese jail in 2003. Canadian diplomats have been meeting with him regularly for the past five years.

His birth date is wrong, although it is correct on his Canadian passport. His passport number is correct, but it has expired. He no longer has a valid passport because the government won't issue him one. The passport on the list has expired and was returned to Canada by Sudan years ago. Canada hasn't bothered to update the information held by the U.N. for years, despite its international obligations to do so.

(E-mail Paul Koring at pkoring(at)globeandmail.com)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)