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

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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[1] https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/889393/iraqi-pm-urges-european-repatriation-of-isis-detainees-following-transfer-operation-from-syria

[2] https://thearabweekly.com/morocco-plans-repatriation-isis-linked-nationals-iraq

[3] https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/896337/russia-agrees-to-repatriate-its-isis-detainees-from-iraq-pending-citizenship-verification

[4] https://thearabweekly.com/ankara-agrees-take-back-turkish-isis-connected-nationals-iraq-western-nations-reluctant

[5] https://www.cp24.com/news/canada/2026/03/13/canada-rejects-iraqi-governments-claim-that-ottawa-will-take-detainees-from-isil-era/

[6] https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/901384

[7] https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2FC%2FCAN%2FCO%2F7&Lang=en&fbclid=IwY2xjawQuuidleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFrWk1CY0xxWUdEcTc3SjQ1c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHsVjoMabdbtGcY_Np3n4UNqiCBAntMSdXZpadelwIT1WuXHSshEK_03xxKWz_aem_OSdR2e0pVsvBrKEMuAkgiA

[8] https://shafaq.com/en/Security/Iraq-hands-over-Finnish-and-American-suspects-after-ISIS-affiliation-ruled-out

[9] https://en.964media.com/47499/

The Canadian Trying to Come Home, if only Canada Will Let Him

In the coming weeks, Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture will be discussing the story of Wassim Boughadou, a Canadian forced into exile by the refusal of the federal government to respect his right to come home by issuing him a travel document or passport. 

Mr. Boughadou’s case is the latest in a decades-long list of Canadian Muslims who have been deliberately abandoned by their government when they try to return home from abroad. In those cases, we have seen judicial inquiries document Canadian complicity in their mistreatment and exile, followed by government apologies and compensation for the state’s wrongdoing. Mr. Boughadou maintains that Canada has deliberately interfered with his Charter-guaranteed right to return home. 

The Turkish government on numerous occasions asked the Canadian embassy in Ankara to provide a passport or travel document so that Mr. Boughadou could be deported home, but Canada repeatedly refused to provide one, in violation of its own guidelines. 

 In February 2024 Canada arbitrarily closed a passport application for Mr. Boughadou that its own officials opened and facilitated. In spring 2024 the Canadian embassy in Ankara initiated and submitted an application for a travel document on his behalf, and in May 2024 a senior Canadian immigration official approved that travel document for him to return home. When the travel document was forwarded to Global Affairs Canada, it disappeared without explanation. When Mr. Boughadou was released from administrative detention in September 2024 (additional months behind bars which he had been forced to endure because of Canada’s repeated failures to respond to Turkish requests to assist in his deportation) and told to leave the country within 30 days, he traveled to the Canadian consulate in Istanbul to request his passport. He was refused, and only provided an identity document. He has been in limbo ever since. 

Stay tuned for further details on this injustice!

UN Calls on Canada to Repatriate Detainees from North-eastern Syria and Iraq

March 24, 2026 – The United Nations Human Rights Committee has called on Canada to repatriate 14 Canadian men and children (as well as two mothers of the children) in order to end what has in some cases been upwards of a decade of arbitrary detention under appalling conditions in north-eastern Syria and, more recently, in Iraq.   

In a concluding report (Online Link) from its 145^th session, the Committee noted that Canada had already repatriated from north-eastern Syria 30 Canadians (22 children and 8 women) since 2020, but expressed concern “about reports indicating that at least nine men and five Canadian children continue to be held in very difficult conditions in north-eastern Syria, together with two mothers who are not Canadian nationals.” 

The Committee also raised concerns that Canada has made repatriation of the children contingent on forced separation from their mothers. 

 

Multiple Violations

While pointing out this crisis violated Articles 6 (inherent right to life), 7 (prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment ) and 24 (non-discriminatory guarantees of child protection) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Committee called on Canada to “intensify its efforts to repatriate all its nationals currently held in armed conflict zones, in particular in the Syrian Arab Republic, together with the mothers of the Canadian children, through a clear and fair procedure that upholds the principle of the best interests of the child and ensures adequate access to rehabilitation services and care upon repatriation.”

 

In response to the report, human rights activist and international human rights lawyer Alex Neve, who visited some of the Canadian detainees in north-eastern Syria as part of a civic delegation in August 2023, declared: “The Human Rights Committee has, in fact, been generous in calling on Canada to ‘intensify its efforts’ to repatriate all of the Canadians the government has abandoned in north-eastern Syria for years, and now also in Iraq. The truth is that there are no efforts of any kind underway at all. Clearly this exhortation from the body responsible for overseeing one of the world's most important human rights instruments must finally catalyze action from the federal government. Given the precarious and rapidly evolving political, security and human rights situation in the region, it has never been more important - but also there has never been a clearer opportunity - to bring all Canadians home.”

 

The UN recommendations come in response to a brief (Online Link) submitted earlier this year by Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, which for years has led a campaign to repatriate the detainees. Group spokesperson Matthew Behrens noted that the Canadian detainees were on the verge of being illegally transferred to Iraq at the time the group’s brief was submitted, adding that the Committee’s reference to “armed conflict zones” is clearly intended to include those now held in Iraq. 

 

Canada Backtracks on Repatriation Pledge

Earlier this month, Canada’s ambassador in Baghdad led Iraqi officials to believe Canada would repatriate its citizens, only to see Global Affairs Canada (GAC) walk back that commitment once the office of Iraqi national security adviser Qasim Al-Araji posted online about Canada’s “readiness to receive its nationals among the detainees who were recently handed over” to Iraq.

"Canada is not currently in the process of repatriating any detained Canadians from Iraq," GAC subsequently wrote to Sally Lane, the mother of the longest held detainee, Canadian Jack Letts.

“Canada has subcontracted my son Jack’s arbitrary detention and torture to Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria and now Iraq for almost nine full years in complete violation of his Charter rights and this country’s international human right commitments,” Lane said. “Will Canada continue to defy the calls from many United Nations Special Rapporteurs on human rights, and now this committee, to repatriate my son and the other Canadians?”

Lane is especially incensed that Canada did nothing to prevent the illegal transfer of her son and other Canadians to Iraq where, in addition to arbitrary detention, they face the prospect of torture, unfair trials based on brutally coerced statements, and possible execution under a judicial system widely condemned for its failure to uphold international fair trial standards.

“Is Canada really going to allow my son’s death by hanging?” asked Lane, who has not seen the 30-year-old Jack since he was 18 and traveled to Syria to assist those under attack by the former Assad regime. “Canada refuses to justify its deliberate inaction to me; perhaps they can now explain to the UN why they condone arbitrary detention, torture and, possibly, execution?”

The UN’s report is the latest in a significant body of repatriation calls from a diverse set of voices, from the US State Department, UN Special Rapporteurs, Human Rights Watch, Save the Children, former Canadian Justice Minister Allan Rock and hundreds of Canadian legal professionals, to the International Committee of the Red Cross, a Canadian Parliamentary committee, the Kurdish jailers in NE Syria, and, more recently, Iraqi officials currently holding five Canadian men who were illegally transferred to their custody by the US in January and February, 2026.

“Every day, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand posts that Canada is there for its citizens in the region, and has rightly expended considerable resources to help with evacuations,” Behrens says. “But while even Canadian troops have pulled out of Iraq because it has been deemed too dangerous for them, Anand has chosen to abandon these unarmed, defenceless, and traumatized Canadians in detention centres that are perilously close to the bombing.” 

 

Canada’s Ongoing History of Obstruction

The issue of Canadians illegally detained in north-eastern Syria and now Iraq has previously been challenged at the Federal Court, which in January 2023 issued a decision calling on Ottawa to take the necessary steps to repatriate the men. Notably, the Court wrote: “The [Government of Canada] Respondents filed no evidence identifying the Applicants’ motives for their travel or of their activities in the region. Notably the Respondents do not allege any of the Applicants engaged in or assisted in terrorist activities. The Respondents affirmed this position at the hearing,” adding that “Canadians are entitled to have political opinions, no matter how abhorrent they may be to other Canadians. The limitation is when Canadian opinion holders take actions, whether inside or outside of Canada, that constitute offences against Canadian law including the Criminal Code of Canada. However there is no evidence to that effect before this Court.”

That decision was appealed and overturned by the Federal Court of Appeal which, while declining to rule in favour of the detainees, nonetheless reminded the government that “these reasons should not be taken to discourage the Government of Canada from making efforts on its own to bring about [repatriation].” The Supreme Court twice refused to hear an appeal.

 

In November 2024, Global Affairs Canada invited representatives of the male detainees to make submissions on the question of whether Canada would consider repatriation under a widely criticized “Policy Framework” that was found to discriminate against the men by the Federal Court (that Framework is also the subject of a Canadian Human Rights Commission complaint launched in May 2025). Despite the brutal conditions endured by the men and the passing of 15 months, Global Affairs Canada and Public Safety have yet to render a decision after receiving extensive submissions. 

 

The toll this has taken on families is severe. John Letts, father of Jack Letts, said: “Mr. Carney claims he wants Canada to lead a new democratic world order based on genuinely ethical values, but it seems he wants to outsource Canada’s dirty work abroad. He’d prefer Canadian citizens to be burned as witches out of sight, far from home, rather than be returned and investigated to see if they’ve actually done something wrong. We know the Federal Court of Canada has said there’s no evidence they've committed a crime. This injustice has been going on for 10 years. My Canadian son is dying of torture and neglect, and Canada won't lift a finger to help. When is this nightmare going to end?”

 

For more information: Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, tasc@web.ca 

Families of Canadian Detainees Transferred to Iraq Demand Answers from Ottawa

One of many vigils held at Global Affairs Canada in support of Canadian family repatriation from Northeast Syria and, now, Iraq. 

OTTAWA – Almost a month after the United States began its illegal transfer of thousands of detainees from arbitrary detention in northeast Syria to arbitrary detention in Iraq, and even after the Iraqi Ministry of Justice has posted that 5 Canadians are in its custody, families of these long-suffering men still have no official confirmation of their location or well-being.

Family members are demanding that Global Affairs Canada (GAC) take immediate steps to confirm the status of their loved ones and repatriate them to Canada.

“We, along with the families, have repeatedly shared with Global Affairs Canada the illegal nature of these forced transfers, the brutal detention conditions in Iraq, our concerns about unfair investigations and trials, and the distinct fear of execution,” explains Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture coordinator Matthew Behrens. “We have also shared the repeated public pleas of both senior Iraqi leaders as well as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio for countries like Canada to repatriate their citizens. But Canada refuses to cooperate with its allies and these families to resolve this decade-long human rights crisis by bringing everyone home.”

Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture recently submitted a brief to the United Nations, urging the global body to call on Canada to immediately repatriate all detainees, some of whom have been held almost 9 years without charge or judicial review of their detention.

“Sayyida,” the mother of one of the detainees, despairs at the fact that Global Affairs Canada has yet to confirm her son’s location either in Syria or in Iraq. “The dreams I had of my son coming back have vanished,” Sayyida says. “The move to Iraq puts my son at risk of enforced disappearance, which could place him at greater risk of being tortured or killed. I send email after email and make call after call to Global Affairs Canada asking about my son’s whereabouts, hoping for an answer that will relieve my pain, but all I receive is a long period of silence followed by the claim that they do not know where he is. I find this difficult to believe when the US knows all of the detainees and has coordinated this whole operation. My family is going through a lot because of this. We miss him so much in everything we do, and there’s a big part of our life gone without him. When will this nightmare end?”

Sally Lane, the mother of Canadian Jack Letts, says she received a letter on February 13 from Global Affairs Canada stating that Canada has “received preliminary information that indicates that your son Jack Letts may be among the individuals transferred. Please note that the information we have received at this time is incomplete and is not a direct match for the name we have on file, so we cannot confirm his identity with certainty.”

“What should I take away from this email sent a week ago?” Lane asks. “Is the Canadian government so inept that it cannot make a simple confirmation of Jack’s location and well-being when our embassy is in the same city that now holds the detainees? Or is a Canadian government that has for 9 years refused the repatriation requests of Jack’s jailers, and fought us all the way to the Supreme Court, still refusing to stand up for the rights of Jack and the other Canadian men because they don’t want them to come home? We know the Federal Court has said there is no evidence that Jack or the other men have committed crimes or acts of violence. What can we conclude here other than that this is state-sponsored Islamophobia?”

John Letts, Jack’s father, points out that the current crisis could have been avoided had Canada acted on repeated requests over 9 years by Kurdish authorities to repatriate his son. “We know the US has interviewed all of the men and never sought to extradite them. The FBI has seen Jack on numerous occasions. It beggars belief that Canada cannot confirm where he is even after the Iraqis have said they have five Canadians in their custody and the US would have a list of everyone it illegally sent to Iraq. It’s not rocket science for the Canadian embassy to demand immediate access to the men and to facilitate visits with us and legal counsel.” 

The long-standing issue of Canada’s refusal to repatriate its citizens from northeast Syria (Canada has, under threat of court action, returned 32 women and children) led international human rights lawyer and former Secretary-General of Amnesty International Canada Alex Neve to join a civil society delegation in 2023 (alongside Senator Kim Pate, former GAC official Scott Heatherington, and human rights lawyer Hadayt Nazami) that visited Letts and other detainees. 

Neve says he had hoped that the change of government in Damascus in December 2024 would provide “the long overdue opening to address years of contemptuous disregard for human rights throughout the country. It should have become the moment when the Canadian government finally took action to protect the rights of Canadians, including children, unlawfully locked up in prisons and detention camps in the northeast. Instead, the government has consistently refused to intervene. The news that Canadian prisoners are now being illegally transferred to jails in Iraq, where they face a serious risk of torture and the death penalty, must become the turning point. Prime Minister Carney's government must - finally - act, and bring all Canadians home, to safety, to human rights protection, and to face justice when there is evidence of criminality.”

It’s a sentiment also shared by “Israa,” a Canadian woman who notes that she and her family “have been begging Global Affairs Canada for answers. For years we have written emails, made calls, submitted requests, and pleaded for the most basic information that every family deserves: Is he alive? Is he safe? What is being done to protect him? And for years, Global Affairs Canada has responded with silence, delays, and vague empty statements. They have avoided answering our questions and have refused to provide us with clear answers. They have refused to be transparent and have refused to treat our loved one like what he is, a Canadian citizen with rights. This silence is not neutral and has consequences.”

Israa notes that the United Nations as well as international human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have long shared with Ottawa their findings of the appalling conditions endured by the male detainees in northeast Syria, conditions that are likely to be replicated in Iraq. “These conditions destroy people physically and psychologically. And if our loved one has been transferred to Iraq, the danger is even more severe. Iraq has a well-documented record of torture, unfair trails, and executions. If Canada has allowed that to happen, through action or inaction, then Canada has effectively signed their torture and death certificates. 

“Every single day, our family lives with the grief and constant fear of not knowing whether our loved one is alive or dead,” Israa says. “We live with the helplessness and anger we feel and are forced to imagine the worst because the Canadian government refuses to tell us the truth. My loved one is not a file or case number. He is a human being. He is loved. He is missed. And he deserves to come home. We will not stop speaking and fighting. We will not allow him to be forgotten.”

In addition to the nine detained Canadian men whose whereabouts remain unconfirmed, Canada is still refusing to issue temporary residents permits to two women so that they could come to Canada together with their five Canadian children, all of whom have been illegally detained in northeast Syria for six years. They submitted those permit applications three years ago.

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

 
     

Families of Canadian Detainees in Syria Demand Ottawa Prevent Renditions to Torture in Iraq

 

January 22, 2026 – Canadian families whose loved ones have been arbitrarily detained for up to 9 years under appalling conditions in northeast Syrian prisons and prison camps are calling on Ottawa to immediately repatriate them before they are rendered to potential torture in Iraq.

The demand comes on the heels of a United States CENTCOM statement that thousands of detainees similarly held for years without charge or access to any form of judicial review are in the process of being transferred to Iraq during a 4-day ceasefire that follows weeks of armed conflict between the new government in Damascus and the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who have held custody of the Canadians. 

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.

“This is an act of extraordinary rendition to torture on top of the years of arbitrary detention, torture, and complete abandonment of our loved ones by the Canadian government,” said Sally Lane, mother of the longest held detainee, Jack Letts. “How on earth can Canada stand by when we’ve informed them that my son and other Canadian citizens are now at risk of going from one legal black hole into another when all along, all they’ve had to do is agree to the request of Jack’s jailers and the US State Department for repatriation? Canada doesn’t actually have to do anything besides make a request and provide travel documents. The Americans do the rest.” 

The issue of repatriation from northeast Syria has long been a point of contention resisted by the federal government, which has only repatriated Canadians – to date, 32 formerly detained women and children – when forced to by public pressure and legal action. But Global Affairs Canada and Public Safety Canada have expended millions to try and prevent the return of the remaining 9 men while also refusing to grant temporary residence permits to the two mothers of five Canadian children who remain detained.

“This is state-sponsored Islamophobia in action,” explained Matthew Behrens of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, which for years has worked to bring the Canadians home. “The Federal Court of Canada concluded there is absolutely no evidence that these men 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. And Canada has refused to end their detention in what many have called Guantanamo in the Desert, where over half of the tens of thousands of detainees are children.”

 

(Jack Letts, during a prison interview with CTV's W5, Fall, 2024, Syria)

Lane notes that her son had gone to Syria to help the people suffering under Assad’s barrel bombs and mass torture, and had been detained on three occasions by ISIS for opposing their hateful ideology and atrocities. When he finally escaped in May 2017, he was captured by the Kurdish SDF, and has been held without charge or access to lawyers, family, or a judicial review ever since.

Global Affairs Canada and Public Safety Canada currently operate under a “Policy Framework” that determines whether or not they will consider repatriation of the Canadians. The Framework has been criticized as discriminatory and fundamentally flawed by the Federal Court of Canada, human rights organizations and international law experts. In December, 2024, at the invitation of the government, family members presented submissions to those departments demanding repatriation, but more than 13 months later, have received no response.

“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,” said John Letts, Jack’s father. “And yet when it comes to Muslim Canadians, the government has not only looked away. It has actively fought us and tried to prevent our loved ones from exercising their Charter right to come home. Unless they act in the coming days, will our families be condemned to another decade of this torturous black hole? It’s all well and good for Prime Minister Carney to extol the importance of international law at Davos, but my long-suffering son knows that this is just more hot air from Canada.” 

Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture

2583 Carling Ave., Unit M052

Ottawa, ON K2B 7H7

(613) 300-9536

CENTCOM Statement: https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/4383698/us-forces-launch-mission-in-syria-to-transfer-isis-detainees-to-iraq/

Human Rights Commission to Hear Discrimination Complaints of Canadians Detained in Syria

 OTTAWA – The Canadian Human Rights Commission has agreed to hear a series of complaints made by Canadian children and men who have been arbitrarily detained in Northeast Syria for between 6 and 8 years under conditions the United Nations has called akin to torture.

             The crux of the complaints centres on Global Affairs Canada and Public Safety Canada’s use of a Trudeau cabinet-approved 2021 “Government of Canada Policy Framework to Evaluate the Provision of Extraordinary Assistance: Consular Cases in North-Eastern Syria” that determines whether the detainees can even be considered for repatriation, despite their Kurdish jailers having repeatedly called on Canada to come and take its citizens home. Since 2020, 32 Canadian women and children have been repatriated from arbitrary detention in eight separate returns courtesy of private actors, court action, and U.S. military assistance. 

             According to Ottawa lawyer Nicholas Pope, who launched the complaints, “These cases present clear illustrations of discrimination based on age, sex, and family status. For example, the Framework gives less favourable treatment to Canadian children whose mothers were not born in Canada. Canada has insisted that the remaining detained Canadian children (of three non-Canadian mothers) be forcibly separated from their mothers and become orphans in Canada in order to receive repatriation services. In doing so, the government is making the exercise of the childrens’ equality rights contingent upon forfeiting another fundamental right: the right not to be separated from their parents.”

             Currently in Northeast Syria, in addition to the three detained mothers and eight Canadian children (with one non-Canadian minor sibling), there are believed to be 9 Canadian adult male detainees. The men’s complaints centre on the Framework thusfar being employed to offer assistance to Canadian women but not men, as well as refusing to consider repatriation for adults in the same way as for those under the age of 18.

             “When my son Jack’s case was before the Federal Court, the government seemed to realize it had no case and immediately agreed on the eve of the decision to repatriate a group of women and children,” says Sally Lane, whose son Jack Letts, one of the complainants, just marked 8 years of arbitrary detention in Northeast Syria. “Yet when the Court ordered Jack and the other men brought home, Canada appealed and had that order dismissed. Then the Supreme Court twice refused to hear the case. If that does not scream discrimination against the male detainees, I don’t know what does.” 

             Lane has not seen her son, who was the focus of a W5 investigation last November, for over a decade.
             “The Two Michaels were arbitrarily detained in China for 1,019 days, and the federal government rightfully made their return a top foreign policy priority,” says Lane. “My son will soon mark 3,000 days of arbitrary detention. But for him, and the other men, the barrier is not in Syria, it’s in Canada, which has invested endless resources in refusing the long-standing request of their Kurdish jailers to come and get them.” 

             Another mother of one of the Canadian men detained, who asked that her name not be shared, declared: “My son is having his rights as a Canadian stripped away with every day that he’s enduring physical and psychological torture, starvation, and inhumane living conditions. He has no contact with the outside world and has no updates about his family or loved ones. This is cruelty beyond words to me, and as a Canadian he has the right to be heard in a Canadian court instead of being held with no charge in a foreign country. Our government has the responsibility to bring the men home, the same way they did the women and children.”

             As the Canadian Human Rights Commission considers the detainees’ complaints, it may benefit from the findings of Federal Court Justice Henry Brown, who in January 2023 ordered the government to begin the three-step process to repatriate the men: write a letter to Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria, issue travel documents, and provide a representative to attend a signing ceremony, after which the US military would handle the rest.

             Justice Brown wrote that he felt “compelled to observe the three threshold criteria for eligibility to be considered under the Policy Framework appear drafted to exclude the Canadian men imprisoned,” adding that it would not likely withstand Charter scrutiny.  He wrote those comments “in the hope the Policy Framework will be materially revised, or that the Canadian male prisoners be considered for repatriation [as was] the case with the Canadian women and children.”

             In addition to the complaint of discrimination, the Framework has also come under fire by repatriation advocates for its denial of basic procedural fairness, failure to provide benchmarks or results of its alleged ongoing assessments, and its assumption of guilt.

             “The Framework hinges on a legally non-compliant foundation that improperly balances the risks posed to Canadian citizens enduring an arbitrary detention that it is within Canada’s power to end, and the rationale that unspecified, unsubstantiated, unsourced, uncontestable secret security concerns prevent Canada from ending that arbitrary detention and bringing them home,” says Matthew Behrens of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, which leads the campaign to repatriate the detainees. “The Framework paints all detainees with a singular, damning brush, and demands that they defend themselves against this labeling without having any access to the alleged evidence that may be in the Government of Canada’s hands.”

             Pope hopes that a favourable ruling will declare the Framework inconsistent with Canadian human rights standards and call on the Government of Canada to act quickly to return the detainees. “Every Canadian has the right to be treated equally,” he explains. “This is a rare situation in which the detaining authority holding Canadians abroad is actually pleading with us to end the detention, but it is Ottawa that is selectively refusing to let some Canadians return home.”

            A petition in support of repatriation has over 28,500 signatures: https://www.change.org/p/canadians-are-dying-free-jack-letts-19-canadian-kids-women-men-in-syria

 For further information, contact Nicholas Pope at npope@hameedlaw.ca or 613-656-6917 and Matthew Behrens at tasc@web.ca or 613-300-9536