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.”
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.
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
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