(Montreal) Canada’s federal court on Friday ordered the government to repatriate four Canadian nationals who have been detained in northeastern Syria for years.
Posted 6:41pm Updated 8:18pm
This decision comes after Canada just announced its agreement to repatriate the 19 other women and children involved in the legal case.
This would be the largest repatriation of jihadist families ever organized by the country and the first time Canada has allowed men detained in Syria to return.
The families of the 23 citizens had filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government, specifically alleging that the authorities’ refusal to repatriate them violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Lawrence Greenspon, an attorney for all plaintiffs except Jack Letts, reached an agreement with the federal government this week to bring home six Canadian women and 13 children.
“That’s what we hoped for,” said Greenspon on Friday.
“With the consent of the Canadian government, the women and children will be taken home. And now, by order of this judge, the four men who are being held in prisons in northeastern Syria are also being brought home by Global Affairs Canada. »
“I’ve spoken to the parents and they’re really very happy,” said Barbara Jackman, the lawyer for Jack Letts, a British-Canadian convert to Islam whose citizenship was revoked in London and is one of the four affected by the court’s decision.
The judge “covered all the issues of concern,” the attorney added, noting that he is asking Ottawa to request the four men’s repatriation “as soon as reasonably possible,” but also to issue them emergency passports and a representative of the state to Syria to help them.
In his ruling, the judge cited their living conditions in particular, “even more difficult than those of the women and children whom Canada has just agreed to repatriate” and the fact that they have not been charged or tried.
On Friday morning, Canada’s Foreign Ministry said it had “agreed on a resolution” to repatriate the group’s women and children, excluding these four men.
Until then, Justin Trudeau’s administration had handled this issue on a case-by-case basis, and in four years only a handful of women and children were repatriated.
Since the end of the “Caliphate” established by the Islamic State (IS) organization in 2019, the repatriation of wives and children of jihadists from their ranks has been a very sensitive issue in many countries.
Many NGOs denounce the governments’ lack of courage while these jihadist relatives, including thousands of children, live in Kurd-controlled al-Hol and Roj camps, where violence and deprivation are rife.
About 30 Canadians, including 10 children, remain in camps in Syria, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
But “a number of women and children have received letters from the government saying they meet the conditions for repatriation,” Farida Deif, director of HRW in Canada, told AFP, who predicts more repatriations.
Authorities gave no indication of when the 23 men, women and children would be repatriated, or any legal proceedings they might pursue against them once they return to Canadian territory.
Last October, Canada repatriated two women and two children detained in Syria. In 2020, Ottawa allowed the return of a 5-year-old orphan girl after her uncle filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government.
With the Canadian Press