Support Abousfian Abdelrazik as Canadian Complicity in Torture Goes on Trial (Online and in Ottawa)

Join us in court beginning October 21 in Ottawa or online as the six week trial proceeds.

To register online to observe proceedings, visit: https://cas-satj.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fSbwmniiRZ2f7_T7xFLkGg 

To receive court location details for Ottawa, contact tasc@web.ca

Abousfian Abdelrazik is “the victim of a series of gross injustices attributable directly or indirectly to Canadian state actors, including arbitrary and illegal detention, prolonged solitary confinement, torture, and forced exile and separation from his home and young children. These breaches of the Plaintiff’s fundamental human rights were flagrant, extreme and continuous over a period of six years. Most egregiously, many senior Canadian officials were fully aware that Canada could have ended the Plaintiff’s cruel and unjust ordeal at any moment by simply securing a flight home to Montreal. In this action, he seeks redress and compensation that vindicates his Charter rights and is proportionate to the unprecedented seriousness of this wrongful state conduct.” (from his lawsuit).

Paul Champ, Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyer, recalls: "I was in the room in July 2009 when Mr Abdelrazik was reunited with his children in Montreal. It was a moment I’ll never forget. When he later asked if I would help to bring a claim for damages for these egregious violations of his rights, I agreed. I didn’t imagine I would still be fighting this case over 15 years later."

Canada has a loathsome history of rendering Muslim citizens to torture abroad and being complicit in their torture. The case of Abousfian Abdlerazik is the first time such a case is scheduled for a trial.

When a combination of civic action and a court action successfully brought him home in 2009, Abdelrazik told the Globe and Mail a “ chilling account of six years of imprisonment and forced exile abroad… Mr. Abdelrazik recounted stories of interrogation and alleged torture. He told of Canadian Security and Intelligence Service agents laughingly saying "Sudan will be your Guantanamo" when he begged to be allowed to return home.

His ordeal - described as Kafkaesque by the federal court judge who ordered him repatriated - is far from ended. But the Harper government made it clear that Mr. Abdelrazik couldn't expect any support in his efforts to remove his name from the UN list.

Mr. Abdelrazik said one of the two CSIS interrogators was the same agent who questioned him at his home two days before he flew to Khartoum in March of 2003. Mr. Abdelrazik said he had called the Montreal police to get the CSIS agents to leave.

"One of them, he turned and said to me, 'You will see…' " he said.

Although CSIS denies it arranged for Mr. Abdelrazik to be imprisoned in Sudan, heavily redacted government documents say he was arrested "at our request," meaning Canada's.
After months in solitary with little food and occasional torture, Mr. Abdelrazik said one day his Sudanese jailers told him the "Canadian muhabarat want to talk to me," using the feared Arabic term for secret police.

Mr. Abdelrazik says he was taken to a room with a table laden "with cakes and fruits and juice and bottles of water," but before he could say anything, one of the CSIS agents said, "Remember I told you in Montreal that 'You will see,' … and now, you will see."

Mr. Abdelrazik said he begged to be allowed to go home and offered to face any charges the agents wanted to press.

"I am not going to help a terrorist," the CSIS agent replied, according to Mr. Abdelrazik. The agent added that Mr. Abdelrazik was "Sudanese, not a Canadian, and should stay in Sudan forever."

"My country doesn't need you," the CSIS agent said. After the two left, Mr. Abdelrazik said the worst period of torture and abuse began.

Stay in touch at Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, tasc@web.ca 

https://www.facebook.com/events/856041686712579

Some background videos and history:

In May 2009, 225 people defied Canadian law and purchased an airline ticket for Abousfian Abdelrazik. He had been tortured in Sudan with Canadian complicity. He was prevented from coming home by Ottawa because of CSIS lies about state security. CSIS had told Abdelrazik "Sudan will be your Guantanamo." Ottawa issued a warning: anyone providing financial support to Abdelrazik risked prosecution and 10 years imprisonment.

As Abdelrazik occupied a cot at the Canadian embassy for over a year, groups like Project Fly Home and Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture worked to bring him home. Finally, when then Global Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon refused to issue travel documents (and failed to have us charged), Mr. Abdelrazik's law\yers (Yavar Hameed, Paul Champ, Audrey Brousseau, Halid M. Elgazza) went to Federal Court and won a repatriation order. Canadians have a right to return home.

The day before court, the Wizard of Oz characters took to the streets with hundreds to chant There's No Place Like Home, including Murray Lumley (Tin Person), Tom Smarda (Scarecrow), Beth Guthrie (Glinda the Good Witch), Matthew Behrens (Cowardly Lion) and Kirsten Romaine (Dorothy Gale).

Video of that event:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMIvK4AFMDw&t=265s

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ-BKbR6pmw

Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62sGo6AHvW8

Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2ZjygBoLC0

Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gTjSZhPcCM

Part 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVuOoaiqSeM

An Ottawa Rally at the same time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stLm8c1vhq0

Abdelrazik arrives in Canada: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoN7LXisOUE

Interview with Abousfian after he was home and trying to get off the UN 1267 List: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftG47TXoh_E

Abousfian speaks at House of Commons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xxZTmzrJlM

When the CLC gave Abousfian a sanctions-busting salary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egRcxb0FAYU

Abousfian Abdelrazik talks about why he should be taken off the United Nations' terror watch list as shown to the UN sanctions committee in New York: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aD46CTW0KI

Documents suggest Canada's spies lied to Sudan to keep an innocent man in prison, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewb4WzS0DFI

Part 1of the Abdelrazik Speaking Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7tm322hFRg

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVX2nbA7mHI

Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7lcWYWvIA4

Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvIn4hHwxP0

Prism TV Documentary, 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih19ndPVaTs

A Midsummer Night's Request to Support Homes not Bombs' Work with Refugees, Detainees, Survivors of Male Violence and more!

Friends,

As MPs gather for self-congratulatory BBQs, we remain busy on a number of projects to stop deportations, win entry permits for Afghan refugees, push the Canadian government to end its “None is Too Many” policies preventing the evacuation of Palestinian Canadians’ loved ones from Gaza, repatriate 20 Canadian men, women & children held under conditions akin to torture in Syria, and supporting those wrongfully forced behind bars because they are Indigenous or women who have chosen to survive against male violence. As always we remain committed to transforming our war economy into one that meets human needs. 

 

This is our daily work, and we put our hearts into it. So much so that we rarely find the time to fundraise. We survive on a shoestring, but the shoestring in 2024 is stretched thin and frazzled.

 

Our caseloads are higher than they have ever been, and our all-consuming campaign work is exhausting our limited resources. Despite its lofty rhetoric, the federal government continues to perpetuate misery for far too many.

 

This is why we are sending out this rare mid-summer appeal for your financial assistance to help us keep going.

 

For over 25 years, the Homes not Bombs campaigns have been an indispensable bulwark against state-sponsored injustices. 

Our Women Who Choose to Live campaign supports women criminalized because they defended themselves against male violence.

The Rural Refugee Rights Network pursues creative strategies to open more doors for those fleeing violence and persecution while preventing the detention and deportation of those who have every right to stay. The Anne Frank Sanctuary Committee opens safe spaces for those being forced back to situations of grave danger.

The Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture campaign has taken a lead role in confronting Canada’s shocking complicity in the arbitrary detention and torture of 20 Canadians illegally detained for years without charge in Northeast Syria (32 have been brought back due to intense campaigning), while continuing its work to end secret trials and deportations to torture of security certificate detainees.

Homes not Bombs has always worked to eliminate the roots of institutional and interpersonal violence through education, nonviolent direct action, and accompaniment with the most vulnerable. For many years, that has meant focusing on creative means of ending Canada's contribution to global inequality and violence (an insidious combination that includes massive Canadian corporate investment in the Global South accompanied by the production and sales of weapons to "protect" those investments and maintain global inequality.)

Much of our work has sought to transform the institutions that create displacement while we work directly with the displaced – refugees fleeing violence, women and kids fleeing male violence in the home, Indigenous land and water defenders facing the ongoing dispossession of their lands, and the disproportionate numbers of Indigenous people caged in Canadian prisons. 

 

We are a modest outfit that makes a big difference through education, solidarity, and direct action. With your support, we can continue doing so.

 

We hope you can consider a donation to get us through to the end of what will remain a very busy year. You can send an etransfer to tasc@web.ca or mail a cheque to Homes not Bombs at 2583 Carling Avenue, Unit M052, Ottawa, ON K2B 7H7.

 

Thanks as always for your support. We promise to stay in trouble – good trouble!

 

Peace

 

Matthew Behrens

Homes not Bombs

 

PS: The picture below is of my mother, Deborah Cass, a troublemaker and brilliant performer (here at the Stratford Festival in A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1960) who would approve of this appeal. There is so much rich language in Shakespeare, and I share this quote from that play since it reminds me of the work that we do: dreaming and then creating things that we have been told are illegal, impossible, impractical. But we know better. Which is why we keep going on. 

 

 “The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.”

 

Pick a Day to Join the Chain Fast to Free the Canadian Captives June 1 to 19, 2024

“Feed the Hungry. Visit the Sick. Set Free the Captives.” – Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him)

 

(Details on how to join the fast for a day or more are below, as are actions you can take even if you are not fasting!)

INTRODUCTION
Please pick a day to fast in support of immediately freeing and bringing home 19 arbitrarily detained Canadian Muslim men, women, and children, including the longest-held detainee at 7+ years, Jack Letts. All of them are illegally held without charge in northeastern Syrian jails and prison camps under conditions the United Nations describes as meeting the “threshold for torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under international law.” 

 

Their jailers have called on Canada to come and take these long-suffering detainees home. Yet Canada refuses.

 

Justice Henry Brown of the Federal Court stated in December 2022: “Canadians are dying or at risk of dying every day this matter is adjourned.” Every moment of delay increases the risk for the children, men and women.

 

This 19-day chain fast will represent the 9 men, 3 women, and 7 children who belong in Canada. Due to public and legal pressure, Canada has repatriated 32 people from NE Syria, but refuses to budge on the remaining detainees, despite the April, 2024 report of Amnesty International that finds detainees "are facing systematic violations and dying in large numbers due to inhumane conditions.” 

BACKGROUND

US President Joe Biden, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations, the US State Dept., leading United States generals, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Save the Children, and even a House of Commons committee have called for repatriation of all detainees. But a Canadian government long complicit in the torture of its Muslim citizens held abroad has refused to lift a finger to help, even as far smaller and less resourced countries from Kazakhstan to Bosnia and Herzegovina have had no trouble bringing their nationals home. 

 

Ottawa has rightfully invested $3 million towards the repatriation of Iraqi citizens detained in Syria, but when it comes to its own citizens, Ottawa’s only response has been to create a bureaucratic “framework” marinated with insufferable bafflegab that makes it impossible for anyone to come home.  

 

When it comes to Canadian Muslims detained abroad under conditions of torture, Canada has always assumed guilt and been a complicit partner in criminalizing and torturing them. Two judicial inquiries and numerous Federal and Supreme Court decisions have found Canada complicit in the torture of Canadian Muslims abroad over the past two decades. 

 

In addition, the Canadian government, taking a page from its own history of genocidal violence against Indigenous people, is engaged in an insidious process by which it seeks to separate the imprisoned babies and young kids from their moms and dads. Family separation – especially based on racist lies – is never acceptable.

 

As a result, it’s up to those of us who can speak up to do so with public actions like this chain fast.  The chain fast will run during the final few weeks of this Parliamentary sitting.

WHY A FAST?

Fasting has long been a tool to raise awareness both in our communities and within ourselves. When you fast, and your body asks when nutrition will eventually arrive, it is a reminder of a cruel reality. Unlike those of us who fast for a day – and know that what we need for our health is coming soon – for many who hunger for justice, they simply do not know when the decision that will soothe their souls and provide peace of mind will arrive. That uncertainty, which can be indefinite, produces anxiety and trauma. When you fast in support of the Canadian captives, it provides moral support to the families of the detainees and reminds them that they are not alone. It also sends an important message to the Canadian government that you recognize the humanity and the rights of those detained (the very things Canada wants us to dismiss). It also helps spread the word about an injustice that needs to be remedied as soon as possible.


HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CHAIN FAST
a) Pick a day (or a series of days) to fast during June 1 to 19, 2024 and email your name and town to tasc@web.ca so we can add it to the list.

 

b) A list of open dates and names is available at https://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/2024/05/pick-day-to-join-chain-fast-to-free.html

c) More than one person can fast on the same date.

d) Fast according to your preferred tradition (a full 24 hours, liquids only, sun up to sun down).

e) The fast is open to anyone (you can join even if you are not living in Canada). Even if you cannot fast, we encourage you to do these actions below!


On the day they fast we encourage you to:

1.  take a selfie with a simple message (ie, #FreeThe19, Free the Canadian Captives, Canada Complicit in Arbitrary Detention, Bring Our Loved Ones Home etc.) and share that image via social media, explaining why you are fasting on that day. Email us the image at tasc@web.ca so we can share it too.

 

b. Write an email (sample below) to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Global Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc to explain why you are fasting. Also, please call Joly at 613-992-0983 and urge her to put an end to this humanitarian nightmare for 19 Canadian men, women and children in NE Syria, and finally bring them home.

 

c. Write a letter to a local newspaper about why you are fasting.

 

d. Fast for an hour in front of your MP’s office.

e. Share this petition: You can copy and paste this link on your social media and email it to your friends as well! https://www.change.org/p/canadians-are-dying-free-jack-letts-43-canadian-kids-women-men-in-syria

 
Thanks for your support!

 

Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture 

 

++++++++++++

 SAMPLE EMAIL (be sure to include the CC-ed MPs and add your own MP if they are not already listed below!)

 

(Feel free to personalize with your own statement imagining what it would be like to know your loved ones are condemned to these brutal camps and prisons and the Canadian government is refusing to lift a finger for them. Use a creative subject line as well that does not make your email look like it is computer-generated!)

 

To: Melanie.Joly@parl.gc.ca, Melanie.Joly@international.gc.ca

CC:  pam.damoff@parl.gc.ca, rob.oliphant@parl.gc.ca, michael.chong@parl.gc.ca, yasir.naqvi@parl.gc.ca, sameer.zuberi@parl.gc.ca,  Stephane.Bergeron@parl.gc.ca, Rachel.Bendayan@parl.gc.ca, Hedy.Fry@parl.gc.ca, tasc@web.ca, Heather.McPherson@parl.gc.ca, alistair.macgregor@parl.gc.ca , Randeep.Sarai@parl.gc.ca, Chandra.Arya@parl.gc.ca, Peter.Schiefke@parl.gc.ca,  Kamal.Khera@parl.gc.ca,  Salma.Zahid@parl.gc.ca, Iqra.khalid@parl.gc.ca, Joel.Lightbound@parl.gc.ca, Ruby.Sahota@parl.gc.ca, Majid.Jowhari@parl.gc.ca,  pm@pm.gc.ca,  ps.ministerofpublicsafety-ministredelasecuritepublique.sp@canada.ca , jagmeet.singh@parl.gc.ca, marc.miller@parl.gc.ca, dominic.leblanc@parl.gc.ca

 

Dear Ministers Joly and Leblanc,

 

I am fasting today as part of a 19-day Chain Fast to Free the Canadian Captives who remain illegally detained in NE Syria because you refuse to bring them home. You must make immediate arrangements to bring home these long-suffering children, women and men.

 

Notably, 32 Canadians have been brought home, but almost always because of the threat of court action. For the remaining 19, they continue to suffer appalling conditions of arbitrary detention, with the April 2024 Amnesty International report finding detainees "are facing systematic violations and dying in large numbers due to inhumane conditions."  

Eighteen months ago, Justice Henry Brown of the Federal Court stated in December 2022: “Canadians are dying or at risk of dying every day this matter is adjourned.” Every moment of your delay increases the risk for the children, men and women, not only from the effects of arbitrary detention but also from ongoing bombings of the area by Turkish drones and fighter jets.  

 

Canada has the necessary contacts on the ground in northeast Syria. It has the support of the world’s most powerful military, American Forces who remain on the ground. Most importantly, it has the consent and clear request of Kurdish authorities who hold the Canadians. 

 

In addition, you and your colleague, Immigration Minister Marc Miller, must also grant temporary resident permits to bring to Canada the non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children, since your notorious Policy Framework clearly states you will not separate children from parents. I was horrified to learn that Global Affairs Canada has delivered four separate, traumatizing ultimatums to these mothers to either give up their children and possibly never see them again, or to keep them in these camps where conditions are akin to torture.

 

I am also disappointed that the Canadian government has repeatedly used unsubstantiated “national security” concerns to justify its failure to assist these Muslim Canadians in coming home. Justice Brown clearly wrote, “Notably the [government] Respondents do not allege any of the Applicants [detainees] engaged in or assisted in terrorist activities. The Respondents affirmed this position at the hearing.” He also stated there was no evidence before the court that anyone had committed offences contrary to Canadian law. Last month, we learned from media reports that Canada would not bring home a mother of six simply because there was nothing to charge her with!

 

“The primacy of the right to return to Canada is reinforced in Canadian law,” Justice Brown wrote in his January 2023 decision. “This is also a critical factor in this Judgment. Simply put, there is no known offence in Canada that carries with it exile or banishment as a penal consequence,” yet both by Canadian actions and conscious inaction, exile or banishment were plainly the result for Canadians stuck in northeast Syria. Indeed, Brown carefully cited jurisprudence that Section 6(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms – whose 40th anniversary you celebrated 2 years ago – “forbids the executive from frustrating the rights of Canadians to enter and return whether by executive actions taken in Canada or abroad.”

 

For too long, you have frustrated and denied the rights of these Muslim Canadians.  

 

Minister Joly, in other instances of citizens in trouble abroad, you have spoken of your responsibility to assist them. 

On April 25, 2023 you declared regarding Sudan: "What's really important is that Canadians know that they can count on their government and Global Affairs Canada to help them …. We are on this and we will make sure that every Canadian is coming back and is safe.” On April 27, 2023, you declared: “My job is to get Canadians out of Sudan.” On October 12, 2023, you declared: “We are committed to supporting Canadians abroad.” On October 30, 2023, you stated regarding citizens trapped in Gaza: “As a government, we have a duty to bring them to safety.” 

 

Please do your job. End your complicity in arbitrary detention, bring everyone home. 
 
Name
Town/City

+++++++++++++++++++

SAMPLE Call (feel free to use your own wording)
Mélanie Joly
613-992-0983 (Ottawa office)
514-383-3709 (Montreal office)

You may or may not get an answering machine (if you do, please leave a message).

Hi, my name is XXXXXXXX and I'm calling from XXXXXXX. I am fasting today as part of a chain fast to call for you to repatriate 19 men, women and children from arbitrary detention in Northeast Syria. Your government has already brought back 32 Canadians from these deplorable camps and prisons. There is no reason for you to prevent the return of everyone else, especially since their lives are at risk every day you delay. I am calling on Ms. Joly to immediately bring everyone home – all Canadians and the non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children. Thank you.

 

Those Fasting

Saturday, June 1: Noor Akram, Edmonton, AB

Sunday, June 2: Debora Skelton, Halifax, NS    

Monday, June 3: Dan Ebbs, London, ON 

Tuesday, June 4: Ron Sallars, Toronto, ON

Wednesday, June 5: Dawn Best, Perth, ON  

Thursday, June 6: Matthew Behrens, Ottawa, ON

Friday, June 7: Larry Davids, Chicago, IL

Saturday, June 8: Mary Cowper-Smith, PEI

Sunday, June 9: Ben Loring, NY

Monday, June 10: Matthew Behrens, Ottawa, ON

Tuesday, June 11: Mary Cowper-Smith, PEI

Wednesday, June 12: Eleanor Cowan, Edmonton, AB

Thursday, June 13: Brian Burch, Toronto, ON

Friday, June 14: Jerry Bergman, Vancouver, BC

Saturday, June 15: Christine Thomas, Seattle, WA

Sunday, June 16: Marcia Perryman, Hastings, ON

Monday, June 17:

Tuesday, June 18:

Wednesday, June 19: 

 

Lawyer seeks Immediate Repatriation for Canadian Detainee on Imminent Flight out of Northeast Syria; Canada Issues Fourth Forcible Child Separation Ultimatum to Mothers Detained in NE Syria Prison Camps

 

 MAY 1, 2024, OTTAWA

In an urgent letter to Global Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc, renowned Canadian lawyer Barbara Jackman called for the repatriation of her client, Jack Letts, who is set to mark 7 years of unlawful, arbitrary detention on May 3 in a northeast Syrian prison. The letter was delivered during the same week that a number of non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children also illegally detained in northeast Syria for over 5 years were once again told the price of their children’s freedom was giving them up permanently to Canadian officials.

 

“I have learned that a flight to repatriate a number of Canadian children from Northeast Syria is imminent,” Jackman wrote. “I urgently request that my client be placed on that same aircraft and brought back to his family in Canada.”

 

Jackman continued, “There is clearly no reason for you to deny this urgent request for repatriation, one which would finally put an end to the arbitrary detention of Jack Letts. This would be the 8^th such repatriation flight since they began in 2020, which shows Canada can engage seriously and constructively with this issue…. Clearly, it is unreasonable to not place Mr. Letts on the next Canada-bound flight and, upon his arrival, place him under terms and conditions (such as a peace bond) if borne out by credible evidence and a competent judicial authority believes it is necessary to do so. Jack has indicated time and again his willingness to cooperate with any such judicial process.”

 

Jackman’s extensive letter pointed out that the Federal Court of Canada criticized the current repatriation framework employed by Global Affairs Canada that allegedly determines whether or not Canadian citizens can return to Canada. She also referenced the publication of a blockbuster Amnesty International report 10 days ago that condemned the system of camps and prisons that hold Letts and 56,000 other men, women and children, dozens of whom are Canadian. All of them, Amnesty points out, “are facing systematic violations and dying in large numbers due to inhumane conditions.”

 

Although the Federal Court of Appeal denied the request to repatriate Letts and three other men in May, 2023, Justice Stratas pointed out: “In a number of other cases the Government of Canada has surmounted the practical and legal obstacles and has successfully repatriated Canadian citizens from camps in northeastern Syria… these reasons should not be taken to discourage the Government of Canada from making efforts on its own to bring about that result.”

 

Following up on that point, Jackman reminded the Ministers: “Unfortunately, the record clearly shows that almost a full year on from that decision, no steps have been taken by your government to advance Jack’s repatriation. If that glaring human rights failure is due to application of the Policy Framework, it simply underscores how flawed that framework is. It should be abandoned and the government should instead proceed with life-saving repatriation for Jack, all other Canadian citizens held in Northeast Syria, and the non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children who remain detained there.”

 

Those mothers and their children, represented by lawyer Asiya Hirji, were re-traumatized both by the early April decision denying them temporary resident permits to accompany their children, as well as by the ultimatum to give up their children, one to which they were required to respond in less than 30 hours. Both released statements through their Ms Hirji.

 

“I reiterate my confirmation back in March and in June [2023], that I'm not declining any travel assistance for my children whatsoever,” said one of the moms. “I’m rather earnestly requesting that I, as their mother, accompany them. I'm only confirming that I'm a mother. Requesting to forcibly separate my underaged and already-distressed children from their mother is primitive and uncivil in my opinion. Raising the issue with my children has not been an easy one. It was a harrowing experience and often left them overwrought for weeks.  A country that cares about its citizens shouldn't repeatedly and unnecessarily put them through this torment.”

 

The other mother shared with her lawyer this statement: "My kids cried when I told them the news for two reasons: first, when they pictured themselves away from me in a foster care or whatever. Second, that Canada will do it for the third time, that they come to the camp and intentionally rescue more people but not them. İt hurts them the most that they see there is an opportunity, but it’s not for them for some reason, and they don't understand. We have seen so many countries (i.e Spain, France, Ireland) did rescue their own citizen children including their mothers, as it's their right to not be separated from their mothers, but this is what Canada is denying for these small kids unmercifully. They are so disappointed and feel their life doesn't count at all. My kids are dying slowly. What is the Canadian government plan for these kids? To just die in the desert? There should be a solution based on human  rights.”

 

Sally Lane, Jack Letts’ Canadian mother, hand delivered a copy of the letter to Global Affairs Canada on April 29. “This letter also reminds Ms. Joly that the Federal Court concluded there is absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of my son or any of the other detainees whose cases were before the Federal Court. Last week we were astounded to learn that Canada had refused return for a disabled, traumatized Canadian mother of 6 children simply because they didn’t have anything to charge her with. I am concerned that this is the same Orwellian nonsense being used to prevent Jack’s return.”

 

Lane, who authored a book about her struggle to free her son, recently returned from a 9-city speaking tour. “Everywhere I spoke, Canadians were horrified to learn about the atrocious misbehaviour of their government officials, their so-called intelligence agencies, and some of their courts, all of whom have given a seal of approval to the arbitrary detention and torture of their citizens even as they spout their alleged respect for rule of law and human rights. I honestly feel like we’ve been dropped into a Kafkaesque rabbit hole.”

 

Currently, the Supreme Court of Canada, which refused to even hear an appeal from Letts and three other men last November, is deciding whether it will accept a rare reconsideration appeal given the grave human rights abuses faced by the male detainees as well as the important unresolved legal issues about the obligations Canada has to its endangered citizens abroad. 

 

In addition, a judicial review is planned for the refusal of Temporary Resident Permits for the mothers of Canadian children.

 

“We are extremely disappointed that Canada refuses to honour the integrity of these family units, and continues to insist on a policy of forced child separation, which in practice means the children could come here, go into foster care, become separated from their siblings, and likely never again see the only adult who has cared for them since birth,” says one of the lawyers for the mothers, Asiya Hirji. “Telling mothers arbitrarily detained for five years that the price of freedom for your children is for you to remain forever jailed 9,000 kilometres away from them is cruel, inhumane, and not at all in keeping with Canada’s domestic and international human rights obligations towards women, children, and the right to family.”

 

Information: Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, tasc@web.ca, 613-300-9536

Canada Denies Entry to Mothers of Canadian Children Detained in Northeast Syria

 

(Children in the Al-Hol concentration camp in Northeast Syria. Photo from Al Sabah) 

 

April 12, 2024 --  Fourteen months after two mothers arbitrarily detained in Northeast Syrian prison camps applied for urgent Temporary Resident Permits that would allow them to come to Canada with their detained Canadian children, Canada has said they are not welcome.

 

                  “We are extremely disappointed that Canada refuses to honour the integrity of these family units, and continues to insist on a policy of forced child separation, which in practice means the children could come here, go into foster care, become separated from their siblings, and likely never again see the only adult who has cared for them since birth,” says one of the lawyers for the mothers, Asiya Hirji. “Telling mothers arbitrarily detained for five years that the price of freedom for your children is for you to remain forever jailed 9,000 kilometres away from them is cruel, inhumane, and not at all in keeping with Canada’s domestic and international human rights obligations towards women, children, and the right to family.”

 

                  Hirji will be filing for a judicial review of the negative decisions, which came on the heels of the March 19 Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic’s  damning indictment of the international failure to repatriate some 30,000 detained children, Punishing the Innocent: Ending Violations against Children in Northeast Syrian Arab Republic (https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/coisyria/policypapersieges29aywar/2024-03-18-punishing-innocent.pdf). That report found: "The failure to provide even basic medical care, water or food to interned women and children also constitutes a violation of the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, which may amount to a war crime,” adding, "Releasing, repatriating and reintegrating children into their home communities, with their mothers, is long overdue.”

 

The rejection of the permits also goes against the clearly enunciated policies of major Canadian allies. On March 15 the governments of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States released a joint statement (https://www.state.gov/joint-statement-on-the-occasion-of-the-13th-anniversary-of-the-syrian-uprising/) calling on "the international community to rally around the remaining tasks to ensure durable solutions” for the detainees held in prisons and detention camps in Northeast Syria. The U.S. has repeatedly called on its partners to engage in repatriation, with President Joe Biden offering resources to assist in the return of foreign nationals detained in Northeast Syria.

 

There are currently 9 Canadian men, 3 women and 13 Canadian children who are still detained in Northeast Syria; 26 have been returned in seven separate instances. The detained women are non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children who have all applied for temporary resident permits.

 

“Once again, Canada has failed its ‘never again’ promise with respect to forced separation of children from their families,” says Matthew Behrens of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, which leads a campaign for repatriation. “We have a shameful legacy of that in this land. We also have a shameful ongoing legacy of racism and Islamophobia, and the rejection of these women with secret, unsourced allegations that may well emanate from torture is clearly illegal and morally reprehensible. Canadian officials have never interviewed these women, and instead rely  on the standard demonization we have seen over the past quarter century of racial and religious profiling in which exaggerated, unfounded claims have contributed to illegal detention and torture. If there is evidence of wrongdoing, you don’t compound that by keeping these traumatized women and children in jail forever. Bring them here, along with the remaining detained men, and allow them an opportunity to answer their secret accusers. The notion that they might pose a threat after all they have been though is ridiculous.”

 

Notably, the adult Canadian women who have returned to Canada have been subjected to peace bonds and, in one case, criminal charges. “Despite all the fear-mongering before their return, the sky has not fallen in, those mothers and children are receiving counseling and health care and education, and the only ones upset about this are the so-called security agencies whose dire but ultimately false allegations have once again proven to be baseless,” Behrens continued.

 

“Canada has made an international commitment to end arbitrary detention, yet how can it trumpet that principle on the international stage when immigration decisions like this are perpetuating that very injustice?” Hirji asks. “In addition, Canadian officials know that one of the children, age 7, faces going blind unless he can get emergency eye surgery. Another child was recently bitten by one of the wild dogs that terrorize the prison camp, and another kid recently broke his hand and had to wait five days in excruciating pain before he was able to get any medical attention. How can Canada look the other way in the face of that reality?”

 

In a statement released through communication with Hirji, one of the mothers said: “I feel very sad and broken hearted. We had so much hope that the Canadian government would approve our file after sitting on it for 15 months but unfortunately, they are harsh and heartless to me and my children. We have lived for years in a detention camp under pieces of cloth, suffering from cold, hunger, poverty, poor medical care. Our kids’ small bodies cannot take any more smoke coming from the oil fields that affects their lungs, their hearts, their bodies, their bones. I haven’t lost hope, because I trust in the kindness and justice of the Canadian people themselves.”

 

A reconsideration appeal in the cases of four detained Canadian men was submitted to the Supreme Court of Canada on March 15. The Court has yet to decide whether it will reconsider its November 2023 refusal to hear that case.