Dr. Monia Mazigh Calls on Trudeau: Free Jack Letts, Free ALL the 44 Canadians Detained in Northern Syria

"Twenty years ago, my husband, Maher Arar, was also detained in Syria. He was never charged with any crime and still the Canadian government didn’t help him to come back, and similarly they put all the obstacles to stop his repatriation. If it wasn’t for the will, determination and activism of people like the ones who are standing here, my husband would have died in his Syrian prison."  – Dr. Monia Mazigh, May 19, 2022

 

Text of a speech by Dr. Monia Mazigh in support of repatriation for Canadian Jack Letts and 43 other Canadian men, women and children arbitrarily detained in Northeast Syria.

 

May 19, 2022

 

 Today I am standing here in the stairs of the Prime Minister office with a group of Canadian citizens who are worried about the rights of other Canadian citizens.

 

We are worried to see the rights of Jack Letts and 43 other Canadians being disregarded ignored and abandoned.

 

Since 2017, there are 44 Canadian citizens who are held in Northern Syria by the Kurdish forces. They are held in conditions similar to torture. It is  estimated that there are two dozen Canadian children, most age 7 and under, unlawfully detained in these camps and prisons.

 

This is what Human Rights Watch said in their report: “Canada has an obligation under international law to take necessary and reasonable steps to assist nationals abroad facing serious abuses including risks to life, torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment. International law also grants everyone the right to return to their country of nationality, without their government throwing up direct or indirect barriers.”

 

Why is the government of Canada doing nothing to bring back its own citizens home? Worse, why is Canada putting obstacles for families of Canadians who are trying to bring their loved ones back home?

 

Where is Madame Mélanie Joly, Canadian foreign affairs minister? Why doesn’t she stand up for the rights of Canadian children?

 

Where is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who once declared “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”? Why doesn’t he stand up to bring home Jack Letts and 43 other Canadians detained in Northern Syria?

 

Twenty years ago, my husband, Maher Arar, was also detained in Syria. He was never charged with any crime and still the Canadian government didn’t help him to come back, and similarly they put all the obstacles to stop his repatriation. If it wasn’t for the will, determination and activism of people like the ones who are standing here, my husband would have died in his Syrian prison.

 

In the last twenty years, Canadians Muslims have been surveilled, spied upon, harassed in their workplaces and campuses, put under house arrest, had to wear electronic bracelets in their ankles to watch their movements, rendered to torture, kept for more than 10 years in Guantanamo, sent to prisons to disappear.

 

Canadian legislation was brought to criminalize Canadian Muslims. Very few courageous politicians and engaged citizens stood up against this systemic Islamophobia.

 

Today, we have 44 Muslim Canadians detained in Northern Syria. They were never charged with any crimes. Their Canadian families want them back home but the Canadian government is stopping them.

 

How come an American former diplomat, Peter Galbraith, is able to do more than the whole Canadian government? And still the Canadian government refuse to cooperate with him?

 

Today as a Canadian Muslim woman who went through Islamophobia and still suffer from what the Canadian government did to my husband, my children and myself, I am asking Prime Minister Trudeau to walk the talk and fulfill his promises of fighting hate and Islamophobia:

 

-       Bring Jack Letts home to his mother Sally Lane and his family.

-       Bring all the 43 other Canadians detained abroad including the children who can’t go to school, learn and live in healthy and safe environment.

-       Listen to what  organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International had mentioned in their report about the urgent need to provide consular services and repatriation assistance to these Canadians detained abroad.

-       Listen to Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism, who put Canada on a "list of shame" because it won't take active steps to repatriate its foreign nationals trapped in Kurdish-controlled camps in northern Syria.

 

 

As a country, we have no credibility when on one hand we champion the rights of Uyghurs detained in Chinese concentration camps but on the other hand we leave other Canadians detained by Kurdish forces.

 

Prime Minister Trudeau is probably scared of losing any political capital in returning home Muslim Canadians.

 

But this is not leadership.

 

Leadership isn’t a popularity contest.

 

It is about applying the laws and stopping the arbitrary detention and the abuse of human rights of ALL Canadians.

 

Free Jack Letts, free all the 44 Canadian detained in Northern Syria.

 

 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/un-rights-watchdogs-urge-canada-to-save-its-arbitrarily-detained-children-in-syria-1.5313818?cache=a+href%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue

 

https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/13/submission-committee-rights-child-concerning-canada

 

Dr. Monia Mazigh was born and raised in Tunisia and immigrated to Canada in 1991. She speaks Arabic, French, and English fluently and holds a Ph.D. in finance from McGill University. Dr. Mazigh has worked at the University of Ottawa and taught at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia.  In 2004, she ran in the federal election as a candidate for the NDP, gaining the most votes for her riding in the history of the NDP.

Dr. Mazigh was catapulted onto the public stage in 2002 when her husband Maher Arar, was deported to Syria where he was tortured and held without charge for over a year.  During that time, Dr. Mazigh campaigned vigorously for her husband’s release and later fought to re-establish his reputation and sought reparations. In January 2007, after a lengthy inquiry, her husband finally received an apology from the Canadian government and was offered compensation for the “terrible ordeal” his family had suffered. 

Dr. Mazigh has since authored a book called Hope and Despair, published with McClelland and Stewart in 2008. The memoir documents her ordeal after her husband was arrested and how she campaigned to clear his name.  Hope and Despair was shortlisted for the Book Award of the City of Ottawa. In 2014, her first novel, Mirrors and Mirages was published by House of Anansi. It was the finalist of the City of Ottawa Book Award and of the Trillium Award in its original French version. In 2017, Dr. Mazigh published at House of Anansi, her second novel, Hope Has Two Daughters. It was the finalist for the Champlain Book award. Dr. Mazigh presently lives in Ottawa with her husband and two children.

 

Ottawa Mother of Son Detained 5 Years in Syria Seeks Meeting with Prime Minister

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother’s Day, 2022 

 

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,

 

I am writing to request a meeting with you concerning the life-threatening situation of my son, Jack Letts, a Canadian citizen, who has been arbitrarily detained by the Kurdish authorities in NE Syria for the past five years. It was the fifth anniversary of his detention five days ago, on May 3, 2022. I have not seen Jack for eight years. 

 

To mark those five years, I will be outside your office in Ottawa for five hours on Thursday, May 19, hoping to meet with you and Prime Ministerial staff to discuss how we can free not only my son but also 43 other arbitrarily detained Canadian women, men and children. As has been made abundantly clear, Canada holds the keys to their freedom, yet refuses to unlock their cages. I would like to speak with you directly about how your government can stand up for and repatriate these 44 citizens.

 

For five years, Jack has endured conditions which the United Nations have described as meeting the “threshold for torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under international law.”  He has been held in a severely overcrowded cell, with little food or water, often in long periods of solitary confinement, with no access to the outside world or legal assistance. He has been charged with no crime. The only contact he has had with us, his parents, in five years is a handful of Red Cross letters, which are censored of any information his detainers do not wish publicised. We know that his physical and mental health have been severely damaged, and that medical attention in captivity is extremely poor or non-existent.

 

Five years ago, the Canadian government assured me that it was ‘doing everything it could to secure the release of [my] son.’ However, since then, Global Affairs Canada has provided a number of spurious excuses as to why they are unable to act. It is inconceivable to me, and to the family members of 43 other Canadians, including 23 child captives, why the Canadian government is unable to secure the release of its citizens from its allies, the Kurdish authorities. On numerous occasions over the past 5 years, these Kurdish authorities have declared that all they need for the repatriation of Canadian citizens is a simple request from their government. 

 

Their call for repatriation has been echoed by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations, the US State Department, Save the Children and, in a rare show of cross-party unanimity,  a Canadian Parliamentary Committee. 

 

Countries from Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Netherlands, Albania, France, the USA, the UK, Germany, Iraq and Russia have repatriated their citizens from these camps.

 

So why not Canada?

In March 2020, at the height of the covid pandemic, then Foreign Minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne claimed that his department had achieved the ‘largest repatriation effort in Canada's history in peacetime’. Forty thousand Canadians, who had been stranded abroad by the pandemic, were returned from 100 countries on 356 flights. In contrast, Jack and the other 43 Canadians - a total of 13 women, 23 children and 8 men - have been completely abandoned by their government in conditions described by Human Rights Watch as “filthy and often inhuman and life-threatening.”. Moreover, they have been given no indication as to how long this disgraceful situation will continue. 

 

Your government recently celebrated the second anniversary of the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention, but neglected to act on the fact that it is actively complicit in the arbitrary detention of 44 of its citizens. Your government also announced the imminent appointment of a special representative on combating Islamophobia, but said nothing about the fact that those detained in NE Syria are all Muslims. Would that account for the very different treatment they have received in contrast to your vocal advocacy for the two Michaels while they were arbitrarily detained in China? 

 

“There’s a really clear and compelling positive obligation on Canada to prevent serious harm to its nationals, which it is in a position to prevent,” UN Special Rapporteur Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin told MPs last year, adding that it was lack of political will, and not diminished capacity, preventing Canadians’ return. She pointed to Kazakhstan, among many much smaller and less-resourced nations, that have been able to do bring home their citizens with ease, noting: “There are a lot of countries doing it and doing it well. There isn’t a deficit of examples out there.”

 

I am not asking too much to demand that we meet to discuss how your government can immediately make the repatriation of Jack and all Canadian detainees – women, children and men alike – an urgent, high-level priority. In fact, all I am doing is what you urged us to do some three months after Global Affairs Canada learned that my son Jack had been tortured. In October, 2017, you clearly stated: “I hope people remember to demand of governments, this one and all future governments, that nobody ever has their fundamental rights violated either through inaction or deliberate action by Canadian governments. Nobody ever deserves to be tortured. And when a Canadian government is either complicit in that or was not active enough in preventing it, there needs to be a responsibility taken.” 

 

Does my son have to be brought back to Canada in a body bag before the Canadian government takes responsibility and recognizes that his life is in imminent danger? Jack’s life – and the lives of the other detainees – is worth so much more than the scant attention that’s been paid to him so far.

 

I, and all the other family members who have suffered for many years now, call upon the government of Canada to uphold its commitments under domestic and  international law, as well as the principles of morality and common decency, to immediately take charge of this situation and repatriate their citizens without further delay. The lives of 44 Canadians are dependent on it, and so is the faith of all citizens in the state of democracy in this country.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Sally Lane

Mother of Jack Letts