Canada: Have a Change of Heart, Bring Home Jack Letts and all the Detainees in NE Syria
DATE: Sunday February 13th
TIME: 12:30pm
Canada House, Trafalgar Square, London, UK
Please could you let me know asap if you think you can make it so we can liaise and plan!
BACKGROUND
Before flower sellers and Hallmark Cards discovered it, St. Valentine's Day was a time to remember all those unjustly persecuted and jailed. St. Valentine was a priest who was persecuted, tortured, jailed and decapitated by Roman Emperor Claudius because Valentine defied the prohibition on conducting marriages for young people. Claudius was concerned that married men would be less willing to give their lives in battle. Valentine's last note from prison, "from your Valentine," eventually became the basis for Valentine greetings.
WHO IS JACK?
As an idealistic and compassionate 18-year-old, Jack traveled to Syria to assist victims of the Assad regime’s brutal war against its own people, and was caught up in the chaos that followed. He condemned ISIS in messaging from within the IS ‘state’, was prosecuted for opposing their teachings, and after risking his life to escape, was arrested, tortured and held in brutal conditions for 5 years by those he ran to for safety.
Jack has not been charged with any crime, and no evidence has been presented that he did anything wrong. In fact he has been victimized by the wrongs of others: a victim of a libelous press, slanderous politicians and an Islamophobic political climate under which horrific yet baseless allegations have been thrown against him with no meaningful and safe opportunity to respond; a victim of a cowardly UK government that illegally stripped him of his citizenship, and of a Canadian government that promised to bring him home and has subsequently spent years refusing to do so; a victim of arbitrary detention and conditions tantamount to torture; a victim of direct acts of torture, including extended periods of solitary confinement; a victim of a world that headlines hate and profits from dehumanization.
WHY THIS VIGIL
This vigil is a critical reminder that Jack Letts is loved. He is loved by his family, by his friends, by a growing community of international supporters who recognize that the desire to go abroad to try and fix the world’s problems is no crime whatsoever, but rather an expression of what many people aspire to be. It is also an opportunity to live out the prophetic words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls ‘enemy’, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers [and sisters].”
This vigil is also a public expression completely in line with the long-standing and growing list of calls for repatriation of all detainees in Northeast Syria. In late January, 2022, the International Committee of the Red Cross clearly declared: “States must repatriate their own citizens. Not just children. Children, women and men.” Similarly, Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of the Kurdish administration’s foreign office, reiterated in late January what the Kurds have been saying for years: “Every country should take its citizens back.”
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations and the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development have all similarly called for repatriation of those arbitrarily detained.
We also gather at Canada House because Jack’s UK citizenship has been illegally stripped away from him. His only option is to be repatriated by Canada.
BRING YOUR HEARTS
Wear red, bring some large hearts with expressions like “Free Jack” and “Free the Detainees”, and help magnify the message that we refuse to ignore and forget about the plight of Jack and thousands of other detainees who need to be brought home.
Thank you all and hope that some of you can make it !