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.

 

 

 

 

  

Ghosts of None is Too Many Haunt Gaza Temporary Residence Policy

By Matthew Behrens

Next month marks the 85^th anniversary of one of the most shameful episodes in Canadian history. In 1939, Mackenzie King's government refused to allow the oceanliner St. Louis dock in Halifax after it had been turned away from Cuba and the US. Its 937 Jewish passengers were forced back to Europe, leading to the deaths of 254 in what many saw as a plausible case of impending genocide.

As documented in the landmark Irving Abella/Harold Troper book None is Too Many (named for a bureaucrat’s infamous answer to the question of how many Jews should be admitted to Canada), the Prime Minister wrote “we must seek to keep this part of the Continent free from unrest and from too great an intermixture of foreign strains of blood.” 

The language employed by immigration officials of the day defamed Jewish refugees as an unassimilable people who “never cease their agitation,” “cannot comply with the law”, and “are so unpopular almost everywhere.” Such phrases bear striking resemblance to the ramped up xenophobic rhetoric of those who oppose welcoming Palestinian Canadians’ family members trying to flee starvation and a plausible case of genocide in Gaza.

Justin Trudeau’s 2018 apology for this World War 2 scandal sought to “ensure that its lessons are never forgotten,” but it was almost impossible not to draw  “None is Too Many” comparisons when Immigration Minister Marc Miller conceded before a March 20 House of Commons committee that not a single person had been successfully extricated under the Gaza special measures program he announced three months earlier.

While Miller has publicly shared his frustration and anger over what he admits is a failed program – a tiresome Trudeau-era performative replacement for easily enacted policy fixes – he constantly blames everyone except himself. Indeed, it strains credibility that after Canada was able to facilitate the exit from Gaza of 839 citizens and permanent residents in November and December, Miller has been unable to get a single Canadian’s sister, uncle, niece, spouse or parent across the same Rafah border crossing since the start of 2024.

 If, as Miller claims, Israeli and Egyptian officials are the roadblock, how does he account for the daily crossing of hundreds of Palestinians with family in the US, Italy, Australia and Turkey? Miller also cannot blame anyone but his own department for the failure to arrange travel documents and immediate transit for the hundreds of traumatized, Canada-connected Palestinians stranded for months in Egypt.

 Miller insists his program is intended to save lives yet, despite the ample headline evidence screaming for urgency, he seems unable or unwilling to speed up his snail’s pace bureaucracy and lift the prohibitive cap on program applications.

At the March hearing, Miller’s officials testified that over 2,300 loved ones of Gazan Canadians were waiting to receive the infamous codes that, upon issue by a parsimonious immigration bureaucracy, allow for the submission of life-saving temporary residence applications. Asked why so many remained in limbo, Miller replied that up to 250 codes per week would now be issued. But at that rate, many facing daily bombardment and starvation would have to wait up to 10 weeks (on top of the 10 weeks they’ve already been waiting) when they should be able to apply immediately.

Scores of people have been killed waiting for those codes, and Miller’s slow as you go approach is playing a game of Russian Roulette with the lives of Canadians’ Gaza family members.  

The number of Palestinian applications currently being processed, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, is 986, 50 more than the numbers who were exiled on the St. Louis in 1939. While Ukrainians who had far more options to flee the Russian invasion saw their million-plus temporary residence applications processed within 14 days, Palestinians still waiting to be safely reunited with Canadian family cannot help but wonder if they’ve inherited this generation’s unfortunate “None is Too Many” mantle.

Families of Canadians Detained in Northeast Syria Ask Supreme Court for Reconsideration of Appeal

 

 OTTAWA - Following the Supreme Court of Canada’s mid-November refusal to hear the appeal of four Canadian men arbitrarily detained for up to 7 years under dire conditions in Northeast Syria, their families and legal team are taking the rare step of seeking a reconsideration and full hearing before the country’s highest court.

 

“These men face ongoing cruelty and indefinite detention under the threat of death. Canada’s refusal to repatriate them gives rise to legal issues of public importance,” reads the appeal brief filed on March 15, 2024. “The circumstances in which these men find themselves are of a rare severity, yet the Court of Appeal’s ruling [rejecting repatriation] leaves them with no assurance of any effort on the part of their government to assist them, even though it is the only actor that can help them. The hopelessness of their situation is itself a trigger of deep psychological pain.”

 

The timing of the appeal dovetails with significant international developments. 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.

 

On March 19, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic published a damning indictment of the failure to repatriate 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), which 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.”

There are currently 9 Canadian men, 4 women and 13 children who are still detained in Northeast Syria; 26 have been returned in seven separate instances. Three of the women are non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children who have applied for temporary resident permits.

 

Sally Lane, mother of the longest held Canadian detainee, Jack Letts, declared that, “Right now, we have an immoral stalemate. The Federal Court of Appeal says this is a government matter, while the government refuses to act unless ordered to do so by the courts. While both sides argue over who bears responsibility, the detainees are slowly dying. Does Canada really expect family members to shrug their shoulders and just accept the fact our loved ones are going to die in a foreign prison? It’s shocking the government has been allowed to get away with this inhuman outrage for so long.”

 

According to Matthew Behrens of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, which leads a public campaign for repatriation, “there’s over a year’s worth of compelling new evidence that was not before the court when this matter was first heard in late 2022. The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear their appeal abandoned the detainees to exile even as Canada is implicated in the mistreatment of these Canadians. Ottawa has refused to repatriate them when asked to do so by their jailers, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention and its protocols.” 

 

Much of that new evidence is contained in a detailed affidavit by Alex Neve, a Senior Fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and former Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada. Neve was part of a civil society delegation led by Senator Kim Pate that traveled to the region last August, meeting with Kurdish officials and several of the men, in addition to visiting women and children detained in the Al Roj prison camp. The appeal clearly points out that the delegation could have received the men from their Kurdish detainers if the Canadian government had authorized them to do so, but it had refused.

 

“Canada’s refusal to let the civil society delegation represent it for the prisoner handover is part of its pattern of declining to take up feasible solutions for protecting the Applicants and enabling them to return to their country of citizenship,” the brief points out. “Canada had maintained before the Federal Court that repatriation could only occur if a Canadian government official attended in northeast Syria. This is not so.”

 

As indicated in the January 2023 ruling by Federal Court Justice Brown that ordered repatriation, no evidence has ever been presented publicly that would implicate the men in any illegal or violent activities.

 

The reconsideration brief reminds the Supreme Court of this, noting “Canada has presented no evidence of the particular political, religious or ideological views of these men that would make them a threat to Canada. The evidence indicates that Canada has exercised its discretion to repatriate women and children in the same circumstances, leaving the only distinction between these Applicants and those repatriated to be age and gender.”

 

Neve’s affidavit outlines the significant health concerns of those detained, the ongoing lack of Canadian consular access (and lack of access to legal counsel and family contact), unending FBI interrogations of the men (for whom their families did not even have proof of life when the court proceedings were initiated), the complete lack of any legal process in NE Syria that the men could access to challenge their arbitrary detention, the detainees’ willingness to face any allegations that might exist against them in a fair and transparent Canadian court proceeding, and the rapidly deteriorating security environment in the region as the US plans a military withdrawal from NE Syria by year’s end.

 

“Our delegation’s concerns about ongoing human rights violations experienced by Canadian prisoners held in NE Syria are heightened by the fact that the Canadian government continues to maintain the position that it is not prepared to arrange their repatriation to Canada,” Neve writes. “Our delegation’s assessment, on the basis of the information we gathered during our mission to NE Syria in late August, is that unless the Canadian government takes steps to facilitate the repatriation of Canadian male prisoners held in NE Syria to Canada, where they can be tried if evidence supports bringing charges, these men face the prospect of an indeterminate and indefinite period of continuing arbitrary and unlawful detention without access to medical care, and without charge or trial, in contravention of international human rights standards that are binding on Canada and are also reflected in the provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

 

Also included in the application is a year’s worth of public statements made by Prime Minister Trudeau, Global Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and other officials that provide the impression that the government believes it has a responsibility to help its citizens in perilous situations abroad. Its refusal to do so for the Northeast Syria cases is, according to Neve, “either disingenuous, represents a conscious decision to select only some Canadians as deserving of its assistance, or reflects a developing expansive, but inconsistently applied understanding of its obligations towards its citizens” under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

 

Indeed, in an October 30, 2023 speech, Global Affairs Canada Minister Melanie Joly stated: “400 Canadians are trapped in Gaza, they are living in fear and despair. As a government, we have a duty to bring them to safety.” 

 

While such a recognition of Canada’s obligation is an important step, advocates point out, they question why that same obligation does not extend to the Canadians in northeast Syria, who similar live in fear and despair. 

 

“Ultimately, Canada only acts when the courts or threat of court action requires it to do so,” explains Behrens. “In almost every incidence of prior repatriations, it was the threat of going to court that made a difference to bring home 26 women and children. We need the Supreme Court to responsibly exercise its role here and uphold the human rights of these long-suffering arbitrary detainees.” 

 

As the Supreme Court examines the reconsideration brief, other nations dealing with the issue of repatriation will no doubt be paying close attention as well. As the brief points out, “This Court is at the apex of the Canadian judicial system. Its refusal to hear the Applicants’ appeal constitutes a failure of its guardianship role. This is compounded in the international context where the issue of a state’s responsibility to assist a severely distressed and vulnerable citizen is recognized as an evolving area of international human rights law. Other states and international agencies are grappling with the question of whether a state has a positive obligation to repatriate its citizens where this is possible and where not to do so leaves them subject to cruel treatment. The failure of this Court to hear the appeal constitutes a failure of the Court to fulfill the important role it plays in the development of human rights internationally.”

End Arbitrary Detention of Canadian Muslims in NE Syria; Ontario Speaking and Book Launch Tour

 

A Book Launch and Discussion tour on the obstacles preventing the repatriation from Northeast Syria of over two dozen arbitrarily detained Canadian Muslim men, women, and children.

With:
Sally Lane, whose son Jack Letts has been wrongfully defamed by an inflammatory UK media and illegally held almost 7 years under conditions the UN calls “akin to torture”

Matthew Behrens of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, who has worked closely with the targets of Canadian and U.S. “national security” repression for over 25 years.

 

Background
Guantanamo in the Desert – where 50,000 Muslims are off-shored in NE Syria, beyond reach of law & rights, respect & dignity. Over two dozen Muslim Canadians – men, women & kids – are illegally detained there under conditions the UN calls akin to torture because Ottawa either refuses to repatriate them or has offered to repatriate children only if they are forcibly separated from their mothers. There is no clean water, nutritious food or proper medical care. The men’s prison cells are packed with bone-thin prisoners, many with amputated limbs.

In January, 2023, a Federal Court judge called on Ottawa to repatriate them, noting: “Canadians are dying or at risk of dying every day this matter is adjourned.” Over one year later, Canada still refuses, going all the way to the Supreme Court to block their return, thereby participating in the illegal practice of forced exile. 

Ottawa, February 21, 7 pm, https://www.facebook.com/events/1039243827369411

Kingston, February 27, 5:30 pm, https://www.facebook.com/events/1537265773722701

Toronto, March 16, 7 pm, Friends Meeting House, 60 Lowther, https://www.facebook.com/events/922562202528281

Guelph, March 17, 2 pm, The Bookshelf, 41 Quebec Street  https://www.facebook.com/events/1049528946144347

Kitchener-Waterloo, March 17, 7 pm, Grand River Unitarian Church, 299 Sydney St. South,  https://www.facebook.com/events/688772343209297

London, March 18, 6 pm, London Muslim Mosque, 151 Oxford St. West, https://www.facebook.com/events/3294474540845662

Hamilton, March 19, 7 pm, Melrose United Church, 86 Homewood Ave.,  https://www.facebook.com/events/1107865954001538

Perth, Brockville, Almonte, Arnprior (April dates TBA)

Nonviolent Direct Action, Creative Protest and Planning Effective Campaigns Workshop

Space is limited, so register by sending an email to tasc@web.ca We will send location details (we will be in an accessible space) after you have registered. Please let us know specific issues you would like to have covered in the workshop. We’ll send some video clips to help get you prepared for the day.

We request that participants be masked to protect yourselves amidst the high rates of respiratory viruses and in support of those immunocompromised members of the community who otherwise cannot attend such indoor gatherings. HEPA filters will be running throughout the day. 

 Presented by Homes not Bombs and the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of Ottawa Quakers 

WHY THIS WORKSHOP? Protests are common in Ottawa – Gaza, climate catastrophe, anti-racism, solidarity with LGBTQ2+, anti-poverty – and while many of us are comfortable showing up as long as someone else is organizing them, we tend to forget that there is an artistry and skills set to them, especially those that may involve some level of confrontation or that turn out unexpectedly. Having those skills to fall back on can ensure your safety and keeping the message focused. Just as we wouldn't send someone into surgery without training, having training for political protests and nonviolent direct actions is critical to protect you, your message, and your community. 

The workshop will include discussion, role plays to prepare you for real-life situations, video samples, laughter and, importantly, joy, because to come together to say “NO” to the injustices of the world is an opportunity for us to live in the best of ourselves. 

QUESTIONS CONSIDERED IN THE WORKSHOP This in-depth interactive workshop, facilitated by a Homes not Bombs trainer with decades of experience conducting trainings in schools, prisons, faith groups, anti-globalization convergences, and other venues, will provide you with the knowledge, skills, and legal/political/theatrical literacy you need to carry out successful, creative nonviolent direct actions that go beyond the “Demonstrations 101" box. 

Who, What, When, Where, Why and How nonviolence? 

How has nonviolence worked against dictators and other brutal regimes? 

 How does nonviolent resistance respond to ecological and genocide grief? 

 What is the architecture of building a successful action and campaign? 

 How can we approach effective political action without us/them polarization, by naming and protesting practices which are harmful but refusing to be enemies? 

 How do we make ourselves and our messages accessible to bystanders and opponents? 

 How can we harness the fiercely compassionate power of love, joy, and beloved community even as we face some of the most difficult challenges imaginable? 

 How can humour, theatre, art, and silence be employed as tactics that draw people in and protect the integrity of your gathering? 

How do we engage those with whom we disagree as opponents and not enemies? 

How can nonviolent activists show solidarity with a people who feel they have no other choice but to take up arms? 

How do you de-escalate a tense situation? 

How have the key ideas of the civil rights, women’s liberation, LGBTQ2+, disabled rights, peace and anti-intervention, and anti-colonial mass movements speak to how we organize in Ottawa? 

What is nonviolent civil disobedience? How does it work? What are my rights and responsibilities when I take part in one? What happens if I am arrested? What is it like to be held in custody and to go to court if I am charged? 

 "When the appeal and temptation to violence is most powerful; when the suffering and oppression is greatest; when the desire for vengeance is compelling, that is when we most need to stand up and say as loudly as we can that violence is not the answer! War must stop. Occupation must cease. The siege must be lifted. The struggle for freedom, equality and self determination must continue, yes, but with different methods and without violence, destruction, or bloodshed.”– Mubarak Awad and Jonathan Kuttab, Nonviolence International, on the Palestinian liberation struggle.

Supreme Court Abandons Dozens of Detained Canadians in Syria

 

OTTAWA – In a hugely disappointing decision, the Supreme Court of Canada has refused to hear the critical case of four men who have been arbitrarily detained without charge under conditions akin to torture – one for almost seven years –  in northeast Syria. Canada’s refusal to assist them has perpetuated their exile.

 

The mother of one of those men, expressed her profound frustration.

 

“Global Affairs won’t meet with me,” says Sally Lane, whose son Jack Letts turned 28 on Tuesday. “My own MP won’t listen to me. And now the Supreme Court has told me and the other families that we don’t have the same rights as everyone else. It is supremely contemptuous of me, the other families of loved ones held there, and the basic rights and freedoms Canada is supposedly committed to, that in refusing to hear this case, the Court has essentially said it is acceptable for Canada to engage in the illegal practices of exile, indefinite arbitrary detention, and torture.

 

“We’re not giving up, but today it is difficult to maintain hope when my son, the other men, and the additional women and children who remain detained have been told their lives do not matter.”

 

 

(Sally Lane, whose book Reasonable Cause to Suspect documents a decade long journey to bring her son Jack home.)
 

The case raises critical questions about the government’s responsibilities towards Canadians abroad facing egregious violations of fundamental rights, especially when Canada can take positive action to end those violations. In this instance, the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (AANES) has repeatedly requested that all countries repatriate foreign nationals held in their prisons and camps, but Canada has refused to assist any of the Canadian men. It has only repatriated some two dozen women and children when it was under threat of legal action, and has tried to forcefully separate 10 detained Canadian children from non-Canadian mothers.

 

“We see a disturbing trend of two-tiered citizenship in which your alleged political or religious beliefs determine whether the Canadian government will assist you in times of trouble,” explains Matthew Behrens of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, which has led a campaign for repatriation of those detained in northeast Syria. “Canada can and has assisted Canadians in trouble abroad over the past year, from Sudan to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories to Northeast Syria itself, where these men are illegally held. If Canada can bring home women and kids at the request of their northeast Syrian captors, why not the men?”

 

Notably, almost 1,000 Iraqis were repatriated from Syria this past week, in part due to the assistance of a Global Affairs Canada $2.9 million grant to facilitate the return of Iraqi detainees. “Canada is funding the release of Iraqis, a good thing, but spending equal amounts of money to prevent the return of Canadians,” Behrens points out.  

 

 

A landmark January, 2023 Federal Court decision regarding repatriation of the Canadians declared that, as soon as reasonably possible, “Canada must make a formal request for their repatriation,” that the detainees “must be provided necessary travel documents,” and Canada be required to “appoint either a delegate or representative to accept their hand over.”

 

            The day before that decision, Ottawa acknowledged its legal obligation to repatriate by agreeing to bring back 19 women and children listed in the court case, but specifically and purposefully excluded the men. Ottawa then appealed the ruling, producing a dreadful Federal Court of Appeal decision that callously dismissed Canada’s domestic and international human rights and international law commitments while firing a vicious broadside at the Supreme Court.

 

In their joint application to the Supreme Court, lawyers for the four arbitrarily detained men – Barbara Jackman, Zoe Chong, Paul Champ, Hannah Drennan, and Lawrence Greenspon – argued that “all Canadians share an interest in the resolution of the issues in this case because international travel is common in an increasingly globalized world. When Canadian citizens travel abroad, are there any circumstances in which Canada may have a special duty to assist beyond consular inquiries and helping Canadians find a lawyer? What if the citizen is facing the death penalty or, as here, subjected to torture? Sad to say, it is an issue which has arisen in the past and will inevitably arise again.”

 

They also pointed out that while Ottawa concedes the detainees’ jailers will release them if Canada makes the request for and facilitates their repatriation (as it has repeatedly done for others), in this case, “Canada is picking and choosing which Canadians to help out of a hellish situation, when it knows that the cruel conditions will continue indefinitely for anyone left behind.”

 

In the January Federal Court decision, Judge Brown noted: “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 of [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 [emphasis added].”

 

 

 

Brown also declared that “from its antiquity I conclude the 808 year old promise to end banishment and exile illustrates how long our constitutional order has concerned itself with protecting the right to enter and return to one’s country,”  referencing the bedrock roots of Section 6(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.”). Indeed, the Supreme Court of Canada has clearly defined 6(1) as a “foundational” and “fundamental” right preventing “the exclusion of membership in the national community.” The scope of this right, Brown noted, is “expansive, generous and powerful” and cannot be overridden by the Charter’s often abused notwithstanding clause.  

 

“The primacy of the right to return to Canada is reinforced in Canadian law,” Brown wrote. “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 its 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) “forbids the executive from frustrating the rights of Canadians to enter and return whether by executive actions taken in Canada or abroad.” In this instance, the government’s None is Too Many Policy Framework, which he later called into question, was exactly the kind of obstacle employed to frustrate rights of the detainees.

 

Ironically, the Federal Court of Appeal decision was issued mere weeks after Canada deployed military personnel to assist in the airlift of Canadian citizens caught in the fighting in Sudan (when Global Affairs Minister Melanie Joly boasted that  “we will make sure that every Canadian is coming back and is safe”). While engaging in rhetoric more familiar to the right-wing judges of the U.S. Supreme Court, the appeal court sided with Joly’s argument that there is no obligation to assist the four men in Syria, even though the detainees’ captors have long begged Canada to come and repatriate them.

 

Last year, then UN Special Rapporteur Fionnuala Ní Aoláin noted in a special report on the ongoing detention of Jack Letts, “the urgent, voluntary and human rights compliant repatriation of all the [Canadian] citizens…is the only international law-compliant response to the complex and precarious human rights, humanitarian, and security situation” of the detainees.

           

 

 

 

For more information contact Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture at tasc@web.ca or (613) 300-9536

I Planted a Tree on Stolen Land

 

I Planted a Tree on Stolen Land

 

I planted a tree on stolen land

I wish I had known but I didn't

A strange contradiction

 

That such a thing of beauty contributed to

The dispossession of a whole people

And perpetuated the lie that this was a

Land without people for a people without land

Like the Terra Nullius doctrine that justified

Genocide against Indigenous people

On Turtle Island.

 

A lie that has for almost a century justified

Genocide against Palestinian people

And erased the Nakba and attempted mass dispossession of Palestinian lands

Whose brutal “end game” appears to be

Playing out in Gaza

 

My Yiddish heritage sits heavily on my conscience

My ancestors uprooted from their homes in Eastern European pogroms

My grandparents and mother’s generation living in a land, Canada,

Where "No Dogs or Jews” signs abounded

Where their Yiddish summer camp was

Spied upon by the RCMP

And my mother had to change her name to get work.

And where I was beaten after school

As a dirty you-know-what

Invited to birthday parties

Only to be turned away at the door

As the stupid “rhymes with bike"

Subjected to a lynch mob when anti-Semitic

Neighbours accused me of killing a cat for its blood

And so they came for mine

I was nine.

 

For decades we were sold a pack of lies

Unthinkingly participated in feel-good ethnic cleansing

As we lost loved ones

Trees were planted by the Jewish National Fund (JNF)

In the names of our loved ones on stolen Palestinian lands.

 

In 1948 the JNF took control of most land

Stolen from Palestinians

And developed a policy to lease land

Only to Jews on an openly discriminatory basis.

 

And so a tree grows on stolen land.

Should it be uprooted as a measure of justice

Or would that be a form of vengeance?

Palestinian olive trees have been uprooted by the regime

By the thousands

 

But it feels wrong to uproot this tree.

Instead I wish for this tree to subvert

And undermine the system of injustice that led to its planting.

 

May it and its fellow trees,

For there are many,

Pollinate nonviolent resistance to the

Violence of an apartheid state.

 

Unleash on the generals and the bombers and ground soldiers a fever

That prevents them from dropping bombs or

Reporting to missile-launching platforms

 

A fever that prevents planes from taking off

And warships from sailing the seas

And guns from shooting

And hate from being spread

 

A fever that breaks down the prison walls

And frees all the hostages everywhere

 

A fever of conscience and love and

Refusal to participate in the crimes of today

And those planned for tomorrow

A fever that brings people

To join hands

And cry out

"Nit mer genotsid in meyn nomen!"

No more genocide in my name.

 

(My heart breaks for all suffering right now in Palestine and Israel. Both peoples have suffered unspeakable grief and suffering during the explosion of violence this past week. May we add our voices to those, especially inside Israel and Palestine, calling for a ceasefire, for humanitarian aid corridors in Gaza, and for supports for all those who have been traumatized. And may we recognize our common humanity and, in doing so, undo the structures of oppression that have led us to here)