Thanks for signing and helping expose one of Canada’s dirtiest secrets. You can help with a few more easy steps outlined below. This first bloom of spring is dedicated to Jack Letts, Kimberly Polman, and all Canadian kids, women & men arbitrarily detained for years in Syria. Some have forgotten what the sun looks like. Please share the petition link, send a quick email to Ottawa (sample below), and let us know if you or someone you know has loved ones detained in NE Syria.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
1. Share the petition: You can copy and paste this link on your social media and email it to your friends as well! https://www.change.org/p/i-forgot-what-the-sun-looks-like-free-jack-letts-and-all-canadian-detainees-in-ne-syria
2. If you or someone you know has loved ones detained in NE Syria, please contact our Coalition at tasc@web.ca so we can discuss ways to broaden support for their repatriation. You can also call us at (613) 300-9536
3. Send an email to Global Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly (sample below) urging that she prioritize the IMMEDIATE repatriation of these men, women and children.
SAMPLE EMAIL (be sure to include the CC-ed MPs and add your own MP if they are not already listed below!)
(Feel free to personalize with your own statement imagining what it would be like to know your loved ones are condemned to these brutal camps and prisons and the Canadian government is refusing to lift a finger for them. Use a creative subject line as well that does not make your email look like it is computer-generated!)
To: Melanie.Joly@parl.gc.ca, Melanie.Joly@international.gc.ca
CC: pam.damoff@parl.gc.ca, rob.oliphant@parl.gc.ca, marco.mendicino@parl.gc.ca, michael.chong@parl.gc.ca, sven.spengemann@parl.gc.ca, Marty.Morantz@parl.gc.ca, Stephane.Bergeron@parl.gc.ca, Rachel.Bendayan@parl.gc.ca, Hedy.Fry@parl.gc.ca, tasc@web.ca, Heather.McPherson@parl.gc.ca, alistair.macgregor@parl.gc.ca , Randeep.Sarai@parl.gc.ca, Chandra.Arya@parl.gc.ca, Peter.Schiefke@parl.gc.ca, Kamal.Khera@parl.gc.ca, Salma.Zahid@parl.gc.ca, Iqra.khalid@parl.gc.ca, Joel.Lightbound@parl.gc.ca, Ruby.Sahota@parl.gc.ca, Majid.Jowhari@parl.gc.ca, Elizabeth.May@parl.gc.ca
Dear Minister Joly,
Last week, the German government repatriated 32 of its citizens from the system of detention camps and prisons known as “Guantanamo on the Euphrates” in NE Syria. More than 80 Germans have been brought home. Other countries from Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Netherlands, Albania, France, the USA, and Russia have repatriated their citizens from these camps.
So why not Canada?
As you know, some four dozen Canadians remain arbitrarily detained there as well, largely because Global Affairs Canada has refused to take the necessary steps to bring them home. How can the government of Canada, which played a lead role in drafting and signing a global pact on ending arbitrary detention, refuse to take immediate action to end the arbitrary detention of Canadian men, women and children enduring conditions that the United Nations has described as meeting the “threshold for torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under international law.”
A group of retired diplomats wrote in the January 31, 2022 edition of the Hill-Times that the Canadian “government’s reasons for not helping are specious and are meant to disguise its complete unwillingness to help this specific group of Canadians.”
It is beyond unacceptable that your government claims it is unable to assist these arbitrarily detained Canadian citizens when so many governments have been able to repatriate their own citizens with ease. In fact, you are constantly putting up roadblocks that interfere with their Charter-guaranteed right to return to Canada.
If you are unsure what to do, perhaps pick up the phone and call the ambassadors of Kazakhstan or Albania or France for pointers on how to repatriate citizens. Better yet, simply respond to the repeated requests of Kurdish authorities to come and claim your citizens. They are, after all, Canada’s ally!
On February 22, 2022, Human Rights Watch declared the following: “Canada has an obligation under international law to take necessary and reasonable steps to assist nationals abroad facing serious abuses including risks to life, torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment. International law also grants everyone the right to return to their country of nationality, without their government throwing up direct or indirect barriers.”
I agree with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which in January 2022 clearly called on Canada and other nations to do the right thing: “States must repatriate their own citizens. Not just children. Children, women and men.”
I am calling on you to take immediate action to save the at-risk lives of these Canadian citizens. Prime Minister Trudeau campaigned on a platform that declared, “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” These arbitrarily detained Canadians are no less deserving of human rights than anyone else.
I expect better of the Canadian government when it comes to respecting the rights of Canadians detained abroad, and demand that you end this nightmare immediately.
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