Saturday, August 15, 2026

Take 2 Minutes to Urge Repatriation of Canadian Muslim Men, Women and Children Illegally Detained in Syria, Iraq



Please spend 2 minutes to send a letter (template below) to help free 16 Muslim Canadian children, women and men illegally detained without charges for almost a decade in Syria and Iraq. 

Even though their captors (as well as the US State Department, the UN, and many human rights organizations) have repeatedly begged Canada to repatriate them, Canada has spent millions in court to prevent Canadians from enjoying their Charter-protected right to come home. 

For years, Canada’s Guantanamo Bay – where Muslims have been off-shored beyond reach of law & rights, respect & dignity – was in NE Syria. After the return of 32 long-detained women and children due to public and legal pressure, 16 Canadians – men, women & kids – remained illegally detained there under conditions the UN calls "akin to torture" because Ottawa refused to repatriate them. 

In the same way the Trump administration has used El Salvador as an illegal dumping ground – a policy condemned by a US Federal Court as the President wrongfully “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order” – Canada is behaving in a similarly illegal and unconstitutional manner. 

From Syria to Iraq 
As of February 2026, most of the Canadian men were illegally rendered to Iraq along with 5,700+ others in an act of mass rendition almost ten times the size of Guantanamo Bay. None of these men has ever been charged with an offence, much less faced an opportunity to challenge their arbitrary detention in a fair, impartial, transparent proceeding. 

Amnesty International has pointed out that Iraq remains a country rife with arbitrary detention, torture, a systemic failure to conduct fair trials, and execution in so-called national security cases. 

But Global Affairs Canada and Public Safety Canada continue to spend millions to prevent their return, while the women and children remain in a terrifying and volatile state of detention in Syria. Canada has refused to grant temporary residence permits to the two mothers of five Canadian children who remain detained, and on numerous occasions, the mothers have been given a sickening, forced family separation dictate by Canada: if you want your children to be free, you must stay behind, likely separating them forever. 

This is state-sponsored Islamophobia in action. The Federal Court of Canada concluded in 2023 there is absolutely no evidence that the men in the “BOLOH” (Bring Our Loved Ones Home”) case have ever been involved in acts of violence or criminality, but unfortunately, they have all been tarred with the same unsubstantiated security brush simply because as Muslim men they were in Syria at a particular time in history and had no way of escaping. The men have directly communicated to the government of Canada that if it has ANY concerns about them, they are happy to face allegations in a fair, open, transparent judicial proceeding in Canada. 

When the Two Michaels were arbitrarily detained in China, Canada started a global coalition against such detention and did everything under the sun to bring them home, as well they should. And yet when it comes to arbitrarily detained Muslim Canadians, the government has not only looked away. It has actively fought Canadian families to prevent their loved ones from exercising their Charter right to come home. 

Please follow the instructions below and send a letter. This human rights nightmare must be ended. 

Matthew Behrens 
Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture 

WHAT YOU CAN DO 
1. Write a letter to the Ministers of Public Safety, Immigration and Global Affairs Canada (template below, feel free to personalize) 

2. Sign and share this petition: https://www.change.org/p/canada-must-free-16-canadian-kids-women-men-illegally-detained-in-iraq-and-syria 

3. Learn more at https://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/, which holds a collection of archived stories on this human rights issue. 

Template Letter (feel free to personalize and CC your MP) 

To: gary.anand@parl.gc.ca; lenametlege.diab@parl.gc.ca; Anita.Anand@parl.gc.ca 

CC: rob.oliphant@parl.gc.ca; yasir.naqvi@parl.gc.ca; sameer.zuberi@parl.gc.ca; tasc@web.ca; Heather.McPherson@parl.gc.ca; Salma.Zahid@parl.gc.ca; Iqra.khalid@parl.gc.ca; pm@pm.gc.ca; ps.ministerofpublicsafety-ministredelasecuritepublique.sp@canada.ca; Anita.Anand@international.gc.ca; IRCC.Minister-Ministre.IRCC@cic.gc.ca; Minister@cic.gc.ca; Mark.carney@parl.gc.ca; Tricia.Geddes@ps-sp.gc.ca; Daniel.Mills@ps-sp.gc.ca

Subject: (Personalize the subject so it doesn’t look auto-generated. Suggestions: 
Please Repatriate the Canadians Detained in Iraq and Syria or 

Bring Home the Women, Men and Children Detained in Syria and Iraq or

I Urge you to Repatriate Illegally Detained Canadians in Iraq and Syria 


Dear Ministers, 

In December 2022, a Federal Court Judge declared about the Canadian detainees then in northeastern Syria: “Canadians are dying or at risk of dying every day this matter is adjourned.” Almost four years later, I am ashamed to learn that, despite the pleas of their captors in Syria and Iraq to repatriate Canadian children and men (and grant temporary resident permits to the mothers of those children), Canada continues to be complicit in their arbitrary detention. 

I find it completely unacceptable that Canada can stand on the world stage as an upholder of human rights while it denies a core Charter right to return home to this group of 16 people. 

I understand that the only reason 32 women and children have returned to Canada from years of arbitrary detention in Syria is because of public pressure and legal action (or the threat of such legal action). But Canadians should never be forced to go to Court to compel the government to uphold its human rights commitments and responsibilities to Canadians in distress while abroad. 

I refuse to condemn these individuals because of their faith, their heritage, or what you allege to be their political beliefs. Human rights are universal, and apply to all. If you think they have done anything wrong, you have the option of bringing them home and charging them here, as you have done in a number of the cases of adult women who have returned. 

It is difficult to accept your publicly stated position that you are not pursuing repatriation when Iraqi authorities have clearly asked you to bring back my fellow Canadians. I am equally concerned that you continue to inform the detained children that their freedom is contingent on possibly permanent separation from their mothers. Canada has a wretched history of forced family separation, and I am both saddened and angered to see this shameful practice remains a core Canadian policy. 

It is completely unacceptable that this human rights nightmare has gone on for almost a full decade when it could be so easily resolved. 

I urge you to immediately work with your US allies to bring back the Canadian men and children and to grant temporary resident permits so the children’s mothers can accompany them as a family unit. 

NAME/TOWN 
Postal Code
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Wednesday, August 5, 2026

Canadian Detainees in Iraq Plead for Repatriation in Surprise Calls from Baghdad


August 5, 2026 – The loved ones of Canadians who’ve been illegally detained first in Northeast Syria and now in Iraq have finally been allowed to receive phone calls from sons, brothers, and fathers whose voices they have not heard in almost a decade.

Over the past several weeks, calls from the Baghdad prisons where 7 Canadians are held – among the 5,700+ men illegally rendered to Iraq earlier this year from northeastern Syria – have communicated a singular message: Iraqi authorities’ prime interest is the repatriation to Canada of these arbitrarily detained men.

Ottawa lawyer Nicholas Pope, who represents most of the Canadian men, says “in those calls, my clients stated that Iraqi officials have stressed that they want the Canadians to be returned to Canada so they do not have to conduct any judicial processes. As we have shared repeatedly with the Canadian government, any trials will be patently unfair, biased, and likely result in the death penalty or a life sentence.  The jeopardy these men face due to the Canadian government’s inaction imposes a duty on Canada to respond affirmatively to the Iraqi authorities who are calling on Ottawa to accept them to be sent home.”

 

Since 2017, the Canadian government has actively interfered with any effort to repatriate its arbitrarily detained citizens, long held under conditions the United Nations described as akin to torture, and has only brought back 32 Canadian women and children when forced to by court action or the threat of litigation. When detained by Kurdish authorities in Northeastern Syria (from 2017 to early 2026), the men’s jailers repeatedly called on Canada to bring its citizens back, and the federal government fought such requests both in the Federal Court (which ordered the men home) and Federal Court of Appeal (which, despite finding no legal obligation to repatriate, nonetheless informed Canadian officials that the decision was not meant to “ be taken to discourage the Government of Canada from making efforts on its own to bring about that result.”)

 

While Global Affairs Canada has informed the families it will not seek repatriation due to unsubstantiated concerns about interfering with a judicial process, Iraqi officials have repeatedly asked for countries to allow their citizens to go home and to be dealt with, if needed, according to the laws of their own countries. 

 

Call Out of the Blue

John Letts, father of the longest-held detainee, Jack, recounts receiving a call out of the blue. “What do you say to the son you love when he suddenly calls you after 11 years of silence, torture and detention without evidence, charge or trial? We had two and a half minutes to catch up. When will you end this nightmare Mr. Carney? The Iraqis are begging Canada to repatriate Jack before any legal proceedings begin. So why is Global Affairs Canada still claiming that Canada ‘can’t interfere in the legal proceedings of a foreign country’? Is our Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms more than just words on paper? Jack’s detention is political and has nothing to do with national security or protecting Canadians.”

 

“Sumayyah,” who has spoken to her long-detained son on several occasions, similarly questions the nature of citizenship when it comes to the overseas detention of Canadian Muslims. “Hearing my son’s voice for the first time was a surreal experience. It was bittersweet in feeling both relief to hear his voice but concern to hear how much the suffering and stress has aged him. He described to us the extreme abandonment he felt from the Canadian government. His late father took the call from the emergency room, surrounded by doctors and specialists during his final days. He was finally able to speak to our son for the first time in many years, and what turned out to be the last time, as his father passed away 6 days later.”

 

Matthew Behrens, coordinator of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, which has led a campaign for repatriation, questions why Canada is refusing to accede to the requests of its Iraqi allies. “We have written to them time and again with clear statements from Iraqi officials, and they refuse to respond to them. We appeared before the UN Human Rights Committee earlier this year and they clearly called for repatriation. The famous Davos speech of Mark Carney informed the world that Canada would chart a newer path that respected the UN and international law, yet in these cases especially, it continues to stand in bold violation.”

 

Lengthy List of Iraqi Repatriation Requests

Behrens said his group provided a chronology to Global Affairs Canada earlier this summer to illustrate the pattern of Iraqi requests, and while the group contests the inflammatory language used in headlines and by some officials (indeed, some of the men opposed ISIS), the timeline speaks for itself:

 

·      On January 23, 2026, it was reported, “Iraqi PM Urges European Repatriation of ISIS Detainees Following Transfer Operation from Syria.”[1]

·      On February 13, 2026, it was reported that Moroccan officials were planning repatriations.[2]

·      On February 25, 2026, we learned of Russia’s intent to repatriate its nationals.[3]

·      On February 26, 2026, it was reported, “Baghdad has said it will try suspects on terrorism charges in its own legal system, but it has also repeatedly called on other countries to take back their own citizens from among the detainees.”[4]

·      On March 10, 2026, Canada’s Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Boehm reportedly met Iraq’s national security adviser Qasim Al-Araji. Al-Araji’s office issued a summary in Arabic and English stating that Boehm “indicated his government’s readiness to receive its nationals among the detainees who were recently handed over” to Iraq. But Global Affairs wrote in response to one family member: “This information is incorrect and Ambassador Boehm was unfortunately misquoted. Canada is not currently in the process of repatriating any detained Canadians from Iraq.”[5]

·      On March 17, 2026, Iraqi PM Mohammed Shia al-Sudani spoke about the need for repatriation with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.[6]

·      On April 2, 2026, 2026, the United Nations Human Rights Committee called on Canada to repatriate its male nationals, as well as the non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children still detained in northeastern Syria.[7]

·      On April 4, 2026, news reports indicated Russia, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, and Egypt were among countries that have indicated a willingness to repatriate their nationals. (https://shafaq.com/en/society/Iraq-probes-1K-ISIS-suspects-as-repatriation-deals-advance)

·      On April 14, 2026, Iraq  repatriated American and Finnish detainees.[8]

·      On May 10, 2026, it was reported that “Justice Minister Khaled Shwani said in March that Iraqi law applies to all Islamic State members regardless of nationality and that courts may issue death sentences. ‘If a state is keen that this terrorist not be tried under Iraqi rulings, we are ready to sign memoranda of understanding to return these elements to their original countries, and the United States supports us in this context,’ he said.”[9]  

“This has been a unique circumstance of Canadians detained abroad in which the jailers have consistently expressed their willingness to return our citizens home,” Behrens said. “Most of the time, as we saw with the Two Michaels, it is a struggle to release detained Canadians. In this instance, the key to those jail cells is held by the Canadians. By refusing to open those prison doors, we remain deeply complicit in their decade-long arbitrary detention.”

 

More info: Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, 2583 Carling Ave., Unit M052, Ottawa, ON K2B 7H7, tasc@web.ca 

 

 

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