Faisal Kutty is a Canadian lawyer, academic, writer, public speaker, and activist focused on human rights, civil liberties, international law, comparative law, international affairs, media bias, and national security. He served as an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and is an Associate Professor of Law Emeritus at Valparaiso University. He has previously taught at Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law of Barry University and guest lectured at dozens of universities around North America.
His columns regularly appear in The Toronto Star, Newsweek, Al Jazeera English, Middle East Eye, Zeteo, The Hill Times and Madhyamam. His columns previously appeared in the National Post and The Express Tribune. He previously served as the Canadian correspondent for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
He blogged at the Huffington Post. His articles have appeared in other publications around the world, including The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star,"The Toronto Star – Faisal Kutty" Arab News, Counterpunch, The Indian Express, The Jakarta Post, Al-Ahram Weekly and Al Jazeera.
Early life
Faisal Kutty is a Canadian. His parents are Shaikh Ahmad Kutty and mother Zuhra Kutty. According to his website www.TheMuslimLawyer.com he grew up in Kerala, Montreal and Toronto. He also spent some time in Ottawa.
Career
Kutty first practiced law with a major downtown Toronto law firm, and on his own before co-founding a law firm with Khalid Baksh. They appear to have parted ways and Kutty was joined by Naseer (Irfan) Syed and Akbar Mohamed. Kutty was in the forefront of a number controversial and high-profile legal issues, including the introduction of anti-terror laws in Canada, the Maher Arar fiasco, the no-fly list (Passenger Protect), the religious law arbitration controversy, the 2006 Ontario terrorism plot, and the Niqab controversy, among others. His strong positions on controversial topics has attracted both admirers and critics.
Kutty served as the first Islamic culture and practice content consultant for Little Mosque on the Prairie, a Canadian sitcom that aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Kutty was responsible to provide advice and feedback on accuracy in terms of the portrayal of Islamic normative practices and Muslim culture.
Meeting with House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence
On July 17, 2006, Kutty was invited by the Consulate General of the United States in Toronto to meet with four members of House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Republicans Rob Simmons of Connecticut and Jim Gibbons of Nevada, along with Democrats Zoe Lofgren of California and Donna Christensen of the U.S. Virgin Islands.Robert Benzie, "U.S. gets lesson on fighting terror" July 18, 2006, Toronto Star, NEWS; Pg. A04. The group on a "fact-finding" mission met with senior officials of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Provincial Police for technical briefings on the operation that led to the 2006 Ontario terrorism plot arrest of 18 suspects in an alleged "homegrown" terrorist cell.
According to a Toronto Star report the politicians also spent time with several members of Toronto's Muslim community, including Faisal Kutty, who was vice-chair of the Canadian Council on American Islamic Relations and general counsel for the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association.Robert Benzie, "U.S. gets lesson on fighting terror" July 18, 2006, Toronto Star, Toronto Star, NEWS; Pg. A04. At the one-hour meeting at the Royal York Hotel, they were told that "Canada is neither a breeding ground nor a safe haven for terrorists." Kutty told Robert Benzie of the Toronto Star that "we basically said you have to look at the root causes of these things." He added that you can have security concerns, "but if you don't (act) within the confines of the rule of law and due process and within a democratic model, you're going to breed more terrorists and not less," said Kutty.
Toronto Terror 18 case
Kutty was active in the 2006 Ontario terrorism plot case. Initially he represented an individual who negotiated with the RCMP and CSIS to serve as a witness for the state against one particular accused. He was later retained by various family members and community organizations to assist with the Canadian Coalition for Peace and Justice (CCPJ). The CCPJ filed submission on behalf of some of the arrested with the United Nations Human Rights Council, Fourth Universal Periodic Review Canada (2008). Kutty, alleged on behalf of the CCPJ that Canada was in breach of its international commitments pursuant to various provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners adopted by the First United Nations Congress in 1955; and the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1990. He called on the Human Rights Council to investigate these allegations.
Kutty told The New York Times that whatever the outcome of the current trial, police and national security agencies have lost the trust of many Muslims in Toronto. "They've gone from one plus one equals two to one plus one equals five," said Kutty, "We're not questioning their right to try these individuals, if there's evidence. But there is an ethical issue here about taking troubled young teens who had certain beliefs and thoughts and then sending in someone who is young and charismatic to egg them on."
Canadian Security Intelligence Service and terrorism
Kutty has been a spokesperson and advocate against the excesses of anti-terror legislation and policies. He co-founded the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association in 1994 while still a law student. He helped co-found and served as legal counsel and vice chair of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), a Muslim civil liberties & advocacy organization in Canada. The NCCM was previously known as the CAIR-CAN, the Canadian Council on American Islamic Relations.
He has been critical of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He attacks CSIS practices targeted at the Muslim and Arab communities, and includes police, the government and the media:
Kutty along with his partner Akbar Sayed Mohamed acted for the CMCLA and CAIR-CAN in their intervention in the Commission of Inquiry into the investigation of the bombing of Air India Flight 182.
Kutty was also involved with the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian accused of terrorism by the United States and held without charges in both the United States and Syria. A Canadian commission later cleared Arar of any links to terrorism, and the government of Canada later settled out of court with Arar. He received C$10.5 million and Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized to Arar for Canada's role in his "terrible ordeal". At the time Kutty argued that: Arar settlement in Canada does not close the book. It only opens a new chapter of a book that is about more than Maher Arar — it is about the erosion of civil and human rights in Canada as a result of the "War on Terror." The Arar saga brought into focus the unintended victims of draconian laws and policies hastily enacted post 9/11 in Canada and south of the border. It also shed light on the potential of religious and racial profiling inherent in such laws and practices. We can only hope that Arar's second wish which was to "make sure this does not happen to any other Canadian citizens in the future," will also come true. For this to happen, however, more people must realize that due process and fundamental rights must be respected at all times and more so during times of real or perceived crisis when society has a tendency to overreact.
Passenger Protect
He is an opponent of Canada's no-fly list, known as Passenger Protect. At the time of its enactment, he filed submissions against the initiative on behalf of more than two dozen groups titled "Too Guilty to Fly, Too Innocent to Charge?" He also wrote an 'op-ed' about the ineffectiveness of the no-fly list.
"Islamic law" in North America
In 2003, a group of Muslims in Ontario attempted to set up a tribunal to help Muslims resolves disputes using Islamic principles under the Arbitration Act. A huge outcry resulted and the Ontario government appointed former Attorney General Marion Boyd to look into the matter. In December 2004, Marion Boyd released a study that recommended that the Ontario government permit the adoption of sharia tribunals for Muslims who wished to have family arbitration disputes settled in that manner. Canadian Bar Association National Journal Kutty commented on this report on behalf of various Muslim groups.Faisal Kutty. COMMENTARY: "Boyd's recommendations balance needs of religious communities with rights of vulnerable" . lawyersweekly.ca. He wrote that the purported banning of faith-based arbitration was a delayed opportunity for the indigenization of Islamic law in the North American context.
Link to Islamists
Some critics claim that he is an Islamist supporter and terrorist sympathizer. He has acted for or represented many individuals and groups accused of terror connections."Convicted British terrorist had links to accused in Toronto 18 case: U.K. court documents" IRFAN-Canada, an organization that had its charitable status revoked was represented by another lawyer associated with Faisal Kutty and KSM Law, Naseer (Irfan) Syed. The group is appealing the decision and the designation."IRFAN-Canada charitable status appeal put on hold"
Some point to his invitation in 2007 to serve as international trial observer at military trials of political dissidents who were allegedly members of the then banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood. He was reportedly invited by the opposition members of the Egyptian Parliament, International Human Rights Groups and the Egyptian Lawyers Syndicate. Initially 226 were going to face these military trials but the number was reduced to 40. On April 15, 2008 a military tribunal at the Haikstip military base on the outskirts of Cairo sentenced Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Supreme Guide Khairat el-Shater and 24 other civilians, seven of them in absentia, to prison terms of up to 10 years. The tribunal acquitted 15 others. The court also ordered the seizure of millions of dollars in assets belonging to the convicted men and their businesses. When Faisal was in Egypt he told a press conference:
"I came here as an independent Human Rights monitor, an independent Human Rights lawyer from Canada to provide my support to make sure that this will come to an end. We want Egypt to have more respect to the International community, and much more respect to Human Rights. And my support here is not to any political party or political movement at all, it’s rather for human rights, the universal principles of Human Rights which Egypt, in my opinion, transgressed in 1982, and is doing that again now for political aims."
During the visit he reportedly met with Mohamed Morsi who went on to become the fifth president of Egypt and was subsequently deposed by the military. His Facebook also shows that he met with Mohamed Beltagy a member of parliament from 2005 to 2010, and current the general secretary of the Freedom and Justice Party which is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Facebook photos also reveal that he met with Dr. Dr. Ahmed Abu Baraka the Freedom and Justice Party's former legal adviser and a senior party leader at the time; Prof. Islam Lofty a former MB youth leader who has since been excommunicated; and other leaders of the movement.