Humanitarian mission headed to Syria — but it won’t repatriate detained Canadians
A Canadian humanitarian mission that includes a senator will travel to northeastern Syria in the hope of visiting Canadians detained in Kurdish prison camps — but Ottawa will not let them repatriate the prisoners.
Sen. Kim Pate, former Canadian diplomat Scott Heatherington and former Amnesty International Canada secretary
general Alex Neve will travel to Syria in late August to inspect Kurdish prisons in the region and speak with detained Canadians to assess their health and well-being.
The mission members originally wanted to go to Syria in late May to lead a delegation focused on repatriating the Canadians — they said Global Affairs Canada (GAC) turned down the proposal. The humanitarian mission hopes to head to Syria in late August and its member say they’re still open to the government designating it a repatriation delegation before then.
Ottawa has not repatriated four Canadian men the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) has imprisoned in Syria. The men have not been charged with a crime.
One of the detained Canadians is Jack Letts, who travelled to the Middle East in 2014. Letts was born in Oxford, U.K., but the British government revoked his citizenship in 2019. Letts has Canadian citizenship through his father.
Sally Lane, Letts’s mother, has insisted that her son did not join ISIS during his time in the Middle East.
In a letter to Lane from GAC director general of consular operations Victoria Fuller, obtained by CBC News, Fuller said the Canadian government has not received confirmation from Kurdish authorities that Letts is alive.
“As anyone entering the country faces a high-threat environment, the Government of Canada continues to advise against all travel to Syria, and therefore does not endorse any non-governmental travel into Syria,” Fuller wrote in the letter.
“As has been the case with past repatriations, any travel required to support future repatriation efforts will be limited to Government of Canada officials.”
But the government’s lack of repatriation efforts has drawn criticism from human rights organizations, the Kurdish authorities and others.
“I represent the chamber of sober second thought in the Senate of Canada,” Pate told a news conference Thursday.
“Sadly, it would appear that very little sober second thought has gone into the policies which govern our government’s response to the plight of Canadians detained and abandoned in northeast Syria.”
Pate expressed concern about conditions at the camps, saying she’s heard reports of malnourished children eating sand and prisoners languishing in sunless, cramped dungeons.
But Pate, who has spent nearly four decades working on issues involving Canada’s penal system, said she’s confident the group can make progress on repatriation.
“In my years of negotiating in prisons in Canada, and with correctional bureaucrats, I have often come up against very high and seemingly impenetrable walls,” she said.
“But it has always been clear to me that no situation is unsolvable.”
Earlier this year, the federal government repatriated 14 women and children from the prison camps. The RCMP arrested three women upon their arrival in Canada; they were later released from custody on peace bonds. Another two women and three children were supposed to be on the repatriation flight, but missed it. The women’s lawyer has said GAC told him Kurdish authorities still intend to assist Canadian repatriation efforts.
Lane questioned why the government has been able to repatriate the women and children, but not Letts and the other men.
“Global Affairs has in fact put obstacle after obstacle in the way of families who are trying to rescue their children from inhumane prisons and camps,” Lane told the news conference.
“It’s happened for the Canadian women, and as it stands now, Canadian women are receiving the justice that my son is being denied.”
WATCH | Mother of Canadian detained in Syria asks why her son hasn’t been brought home
Sally Lane is the mother of Jack Letts, who has been imprisoned in Syria for more than four years after allegedly joining ISIS. She asks why other people are being repatriated, including a group of Canadian women brought home earlier this year. ‘For what reason, because he’s male?’ Lane asked. ‘The [Charter of Rights] is for everyone, it’s not just for children, it’s not just for women. It’s for everyone.’
Lane said she was prepared to travel with the prospective repatriation mission in May but will not join the others on the humanitarian mission.
“I think it would be too difficult for me to travel there with a diplomatic mission, knowing that Jack is not coming back with me, and I think it would devastate him as well,” Lane said.
Neve called the circumstances of the detainees a “full-blown human rights and security crisis.”
“We remain open to being tasked by the Canadian government to be their designated representative in those discussions,” Neve said.
“A wide range of human rights are at stake through this current policy of leaving men, women and children to languish in camps. Not charged, not brought to trial, enduring very difficult camps and conditions.”
He added the group has scheduled talks with AANES to discuss access to the camps and prisoners, but did not say when the meeting will take place.
Neve called on the government to charge the detainees with crimes if there is evidence.
Case may head to Supreme Court
A Federal Court ruling in January ordered the government to repatriate the four men, but a May Federal Court of Appeal decision overturned it.
“The right to enter, remain in and leave Canada, is not a golden ticket for Canadian citizens abroad to force their government to take steps — even risky, dangerous steps — so they can escape the consequences of their actions,” Justice Henry Brown wrote in the appeal court decision.
At the news conference, Lane said an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has been filed.
“We’re asking for an expedient hearing given the urgent nature of this, and that people’s lives are at risk,” Lane said.
Neve said he’s hoping the SCC will decide in their favour.
“‘We’re on strong moral ground, but we do also consider that we’re on strong legal ground, and that ground is international human rights,” he said.
Yazidi groups in Canada have criticized Canada’s repatriation of alleged ISIS members. ISIS sought to eradicate the Kurdish-speaking Iraqi minority in 2014.
‘I know he’s alive’
In an interview with CBC Thursday, Lane said her son travelled to Syria as a naive 18 year-old. Lane said Letts wanted to support the Arab Spring in Syria in opposition to the government of Bashar Al-Assad, and that Kurdish forces captured Letts when he was fleeing ISIS.
She called on the Canadian government to make the humanitarian mission a repatriation delegation before its departure.
“There are days when I kind of think, is this going to go on for 20 years? Is Jack going to be 47 the next time I see him?” Lane said.
“I’ve been powerless for so long, and so now I’ve actually got a group of people together who are helping me and breaking this impasse.”
She said the last message she received from her son urged her not to give up hope.
“I have a feeling in my heart that I know he’s alive, and that’s all I can go by,” Lane said.
“It has to end in repatriation. It can’t end any other way.”
