Immigration Detention and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Working Group

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Working Group: The inability of a state party to carry out the expulsion of an individual does not justify detention beyond the shortest period of time or where there are alternatives to detention, and under no circumstances indefinite detention, said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, according to The Star. Although the Canadian government is not bound by the UN opinion to release Mvogo, the End Immigration Detention Network hopes it can pressure Ottawa to change its current immigration detention policy and align with other countries by limiting the detention to 90 days and Canada should immediately release a man who has been imprisoned for eight years over immigration violations, says a United Nations human rights monitoring body. The opinion, released this week, is in response to a complaint by advocates on behalf of the immigration detainee, Michael Mvogo, who has been held since his arrest in 2006 at a Toronto homeless shelter. It is the first such opinion issued in a case involving Canada since 1994, when records started. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.