AHMED ZAOUI

In New Zealand, an asylum seeker from Algeria is at the center of an intense discussion over the relationship between security measures, terrorism, asylum, and the criminal justice system [or, better, international cooperation with respsect to criminal justice]. Ahmed Zaoui, a professor of Islamic theology, former political candidate and activist with Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), accused by Algerian officials of being involved with the more radical Islamic Armed Group (GIA), and convicted of various crimes in Algeria for his alleged involvement with terrorism, was jailed in Belgium (and apparently went on hunger strike there), illegally migrated to Switzerland where he also got into trouble with authorities for his activities with FIS (see also here). The Swiss expelled him to Burkina Faso and paid the government there for accepting him. He was also tried in absentia in Paris and sentenced to three years in prison for relations with terrorist organizations.

After a little over a year in Burkina Faso, he made his way to New Zealand -- through several countries in southeast asia, including Malaysia, where he obtained a false passport -- and applied for asylum there under his real name. He was detained upon arrival and eventually classified as a refugee after a lengthy fact-finding process in which the NZ authorities determined to their own satisfaction that the charges in Europe were not as strong as the governments of Belgium, France and Switzerland had claimed; the charges in Algeria were also met with skepticism given the political nature of the relationship between FIS and the army. Yet he has been kept in solitary confinement for ten months because the New Zealand government issued a "National Security Risk Certificate" which declared him a threat to state security, the first such certificate to be issued in NZ history. The evidence on which the certificate was issued has not been made available to Zaoui's lawyers, who are appealing to the NZ High Court in order to challenge the Immigration Act provisions that allow for such certificates based on classified information. Just today Zaoui was moved out of solitary confinement. His lawyers weren't notified of the move [before it happened] but did express satisfaction that he is now out of solitary.

See also Amnesty's page on him, here. The New Zealand Green Party has also taken up his case. Read also this overview of the case from Naros (in French). Finally, the best overview of the case I've seen so far is this article by Alistair Bone that appeared in the New Zealand Listener in August. Bone's piece notes some additional complexities of the case, including the apparent connections between the GIA and the Algerian security services.

Lessons from this case:

1) other democratic countries are also having a difficult time navigating the line between freedom and security,

2) these kinds of cases are incredibly complex and fraught with matters of judgment, including what weight to give to the statements of interested foreign parties and how to evaluate the character of various actors (Zaoui is alternately described as a radical islamist and a peace-loving, tolerant friend of democracy and pluralism),

and 3) whatever the ultimate truth of the matter, human rights groups are doing a service by attempting to force the government to articulate reasons for their actions.