Please sign: https://www.change.org/p/canada-must-save-syrian-boy-from-threat-of-jail-torture Canada must help Yazan Alali, a 17-year-old Syrian boy who is afraid to turn 18, because that’s when the murderous Assad regime will come to claim him for its blood-stained military. His refusal to be forcibly conscripted into an atrocities-tainted army will mark him for jail, torture or death. With most of his family in Canada, he needs an urgent Temporary Resident Permit to escape a regime condemned by Canada for its “brutal and shocking attacks on its own people.”
Yazan is all alone right now, hiding in Syria, as his step-mother passed away in October, 2021. Yazan’s father is a refugee claimant in Canada. His older brothers all escaped and sought asylum because they too refused to be part of the brutal Assad military. As a result, his family name is red-flagged by the regime, and there is great risk of 17-year-old Yazan being targeted as a means of punishing those who have left. As a young man on his own, Yazan is also at much greater risk of sexual violence by Syrian government forces. (In March 2018, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (the Syria COI) published a report with detailed evidence on sexual violence against men and boys in Syria.)
Yazan’s step-siblings and extended family live a very successful life in Canada. They have the resources to welcome, support and resettle Yazan when he receives the required permission to enter Canada. But Minister for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) Minister Sean Fraser must act quickly, as Yazan turns 18 in less than two months.
The situation in Syria is dire. Human Rights Watch reports a widespread “inability to procure food, essential drugs, and other basic necessities. As a result, more than 9.3 million Syrians have become food insecure and over 80 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line.” The group added that on top of these deteriorating conditions, “human rights abuses in government-held territory continued unabated. Authorities brutally suppressed every sign of re-emerging dissent, including through arbitrary arrests and torture.”
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), at least 100,000 Syrians remain forcibly disappeared. The network also estimates that nearly 15,000 have died due to torture since March 2011, the majority at the hands of Syrian government forces.
Syrian military intelligence are searching for Yazan’s father, both because he helped his other sons escape the military and because he has claimed refugee status in Canada, an act viewed by the Syrian regime as treasonous.
In this case, IRCC Minister Sean Fraser has the discretion to issue a special permit to allow Yazan to flee the horror of Syria and find safety here. Yazan qualifies as a member of the “Protected temporary residents class”, which was created to facilitate the acquisition of permanent resident status by refugees in urgent need of protection. Alternatively, Canada could welcome Yazan as part of its Urgent Protection Program for those who face “immediate threats to life, liberty or physical well-being,” and under which refugees who are eligible “may include but are not limited to…Those who are facing a real, direct threat to their physical safety, which could result in their being killed or subjected to abduction, rape, sexual abuse, violence or torture.” Furthermore, “a decision to resettle the refugee is made within 24-48 hours. IRCC tries to ensure that these cases are en route to Canada within 3 to 5 days of referral to the mission or, in the event of local challenges, as soon as possible.”
Minster Sean Fraser thus has many tools at his disposal as well as the broad discretion to take whatever measure is necessary to ensure safe passage for Yazan under Section 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which states such action is justified “if the Minister is of the opinion that it is justified by humanitarian and compassionate considerations relating to the foreign national, taking into account the best interests of a child directly affected.”
In 2015/16, Canada welcomed 25,000 Syrian refugees in 100 days.
In this case, we have a boy of 17 whose life hangs in the balance and who needs our urgent support before 60 days go by. Please act before it is too late