Alex Neve@AlexNeve24
14 months ago, in Al-Roj, a harsh, violent, overcrowded detention camp in Northeast Syria, our humanitarian delegation met with FJ and her 6 young children, all Canadian citizens. They had been imprisoned in the camp for years, without charge, without trial, without any opportunity to challenge their detention, without consular support, and with no end in sight.
Canada's position was that the children could come home, but FJ could not. Officials said that her views were 'too radical'. And thus she was essentially exiled & banished from Canada (for which there is no basis in Canadian law), with no legal process and no chance to defend herself. Good bye rule of law. The only option presented to her was separation from her children, perhaps forever.
As we listened and watched FJ and her kids, it was clear that their ties were close and sustaining, their bonds ran deep and their relationship with each other was everything to them. No surprise, given what they were enduring.
Earlier this year, no doubt out of desperation, FJ escaped from Al-Roj, leaving her children behind. She hoped to reach a neighbouring country, apply for her Canadian passport and travel home. Her children were indeed subsequently repatriated by the government to Canada, and are now in foster care. But FJ's plans unraveled when she was arrested & imprisoned in Turkey. She was charged with being a member of a terrorist group, but acquitted of those charges by a panel of 3 Turkish judges on October 15th. Less than 2 days later, in an immigration holding centre, she died, suddenly, of a heart attack in the middle of the night. She is a healthy 40 year old woman with no previous heart problems.
Canadian consular officials and possibly the RCMP visited her during the months she was in custody in Turkey. After one of those meetings she became extremely psychologically distressed. She told others that she had been threatened with never seeing her children again.
There are so many unanswered questions, around the circumstances of her death, about what she was told during those prison visits, and the basis for Canada's cruel policy of banishing & separating her from her children, which essentially forced her to take the desperate steps that have ended in such tragedy.
Our delegation has written to @melaniejoly, including also @DLeBlancNB @PamDamoff & @Rob_Oliphant, urging the government to move immediately to establish an expert, independent & impartial investigation into FJ's death. Above all else, her children deserve to know what happened to their mother, and why.
Meanwhile, this must be a wake-up for the government's misguided, unjust approach to the continuing detention of at least 16 Canadian citizens (7 of them children) in NE Syria. All remaining Canadian children held in detention camps, and their non-Canadian mothers & siblings, and all Canadian men held in jails, must be repatriated. If there are any grounds to believe anyone has committed terrorist-related or other criminal offences, that can and should be dealt with in a fair legal process in Canada, of course it should. Neither justice or security is served through the lawlessness of illegal, arbitrary, inhuman & indefinite imprisonment for years on end. Those steps need to be taken now, before there is another tragic chapter in this disgraceful story.
Our letter is here: alexneve.ca/blog/urgent-ca…
