Feds won’t support civil society team offering to repatriate Canadians from Syria – National | 24CA News
The federal authorities has rebuffed a proposal from a civil society delegation to journey to northeastern Syria on Ottawa’s behalf to repatriate detained Canadians.
Instead, a scaled-down group, together with Sen. Kim Pate, intends to go to the area in late August to assemble details about Canadians held in squalid camps and prisons.
The delegation can also be to incorporate Alex Neve, former secretary normal of Amnesty International Canada, and Scott Heatherington, a former Canadian diplomat.
Participants plan to debate particulars of the initiative at a news convention in Ottawa Thursday morning.
Late final month, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned a decide’s declaration that 4 Canadian males being held in Syrian camps are entitled to Ottawa’s assist to return dwelling.
The May ruling put aside a January choice by Federal Court Justice Henry Brown, who directed Ottawa to request repatriation of the boys as quickly as fairly doable and supply them with passports or emergency journey paperwork.
The Canadians are among the many many overseas nationals in Syrian camps and jails run by Kurdish forces that reclaimed the strife-torn area from the extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
On April 19, Sally Lane _ mom of Jack Letts, one of many 4 Canadian males _ wrote to Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly requesting that she promptly authorize a seven-member delegation to Syria in late May.
“I am convinced that in the current circumstances, authorizing this delegation is essential to saving Jack’s life and protecting the rights of all Canadian detainees,” Lane wrote. “As such, I will be a member of this delegation.”
In an interview, Lane stated the federal government declined to supply help to the delegation. “They didn’t actually give a reason. All they said was that repatriation will be done by government members only.”
Given that the revamped mission set for August will likely be extra of a fact-finding journey, Lane doesn’t plan to go.
“It’s not actually going to be a repatriation trip,” she stated. “I mean, it’s going to be preparatory to repatriation, but there won’t actually be any people coming back. And I just thought, I can’t face the idea of seeing Jack and leaving him there. I just think it would kind of break me, and I believe it would break him. So I’m not going on this trip.”
Asked why the federal government wouldn’t help the proposed delegation, Global Affairs Canada spokesman Jean-Pierre Godbout stated Ottawa advises towards all journey to Syria.
“Due to privacy and operational security considerations, we cannot comment on specific cases or potential future actions,” he added.
The identities and circumstances of the opposite three Canadian males should not publicly identified.
Amid the court docket proceedings, lawyer Lawrence Greenspon reached an settlement with the federal authorities earlier this yr to carry dwelling six Canadian girls and 13 youngsters from Syria who had initially been a part of the authorized motion.
Neve stated in an interview that the federal government’s “seemingly implacable refusal” to help the return of the boys to Canada “is in our view, frankly, disgraceful.”
The three-member delegation plans to fly to Mosul, in northern Iraq, then journey overland to northeastern Syria.
The members hope to talk with as most of the Canadians _ males, girls and youngsters _ within the camps and detention centres as doable, stated Neve, a senior fellow with the graduate faculty of public and worldwide affairs on the University of Ottawa.
“We want to see about their welfare, we want to see what human rights concerns they may be facing,” he stated. “So from that side of things, it’s a welfare and humanitarian mission, really.”
But the delegation additionally needs to satisfy with native officers to see if steps may be taken to assist facilitate launch of Canadians, Neve added.
Canadian authorities officers ought to be taking part in that position, as they’ve with a number of the girls and youngsters introduced dwelling from Syria, he stated.
“Many other countries have much more actively been involved in facilitating and carrying out the repatriation of their nationals, so Canada continues to very notably be a laggard in the international community,” Neve stated.
“And I think that’s disappointing, especially for a country like Canada that that proudly asserts that we believe in human rights.”
Neve stated if any of the Canadians being held in Syria pose a safety concern, these points may be handled by the justice system. But leaving residents to languish abroad for years on finish “is simply not acceptable.”
© 2023 The Canadian Press
