The Story Of Mohammad Mahjoub

Mohammed Mahjoub, who was for years held captive by the federal government but never charged, is using his newfound freedom to tour the country and shed a light on what he says is the abuse and torment he suffered at the hands of Canadian authorities.

In Calgary earlier this week, Mahjoub spoke of how he originally fled his native Egypt, where he was a victim of abuse and repression, only to allegedly be subjected to more of the same in his newly adopted land.

Notes from underground

After 12 years of detention and house arrest, without charges or trial, Mohammad Mahjoub takes his first subway ride as a free man.


As Mohammad Mahjoub exited the federal court building on Queen West on Feb. 1, he carried in a plastic bag the GPS tracking anklet he’d worn since April 12, 2007. That morning, a federal judge struck down severe house-arrest conditions against Mahjoub, and he was heading to the nearby Osgoode subway entrance for his first ride in 12 years. Government officials claimed the GPS wouldn’t work underground, so Mahjoub had been effectively banned from the subway. But now that he’d been given the freedom to cut the anklet off himself, he wanted to ride.