Jack Letts’ mother, Sally Lane, and social justice advocate Matthew Behrens at the Supreme Court of Canada. Credit: Free Jack Letts

By Justin Mohammed

For the past four years, dozens of Canadian citizens – about half of whom are children – have been arbitrarily detained in Northeast Syria. Most have been living in squalid camps, in conditions that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism has found to constitute torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment. Their plight has, until very recently, gone under the radar of the Canadian public, media and political leaders. In stark contrast to others, such as Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor who have become household names due to the laudable efforts of the Government of Canada to bring them home from China, the Canadians detained in Northeast Syria have been stonewalled with a multitude of justifications about why Canada cannot repatriate them.

From the moment that the ICLMG became aware of this situation, it has steadfastly stood up for the human rights of these citizens. In 2019, a coalition of academics, civil society organizations, and lawyers were convened to discuss how this situation could be addressed, with the ICLMG playing an active role in those conversations. After a year of government advocacy, gathering information from the detainees’ relatives, and strategizing on ways to pressure the government into action, this coalition pushed the issue squarely into the public arena in January 2020, writing to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and demanding that he take action on behalf of these citizens. Human Rights Watch followed up with a landmark report on the Canadian detainees in June 2020, providing a springboard for the ICLMG and others to continue advocacy on these cases. In the first half of 2021, both the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on International Human Rights held hearings on the topic, during which Amnesty International, Save the Children, Human Rights Watch and others testified about the pressing need for action.

The first breakthrough came in October 2020, when a five- year-old orphaned girl was finally repatriated to Canada, and since then the ICLMG has played a leading role in sustaining the pressure on the Government of Canada. It spoke out against the secretive consular policy created by Global Affairs Canada that established an entirely separate framework for Canadians detained in Northeast Syria, and in June 2022, the ICLMG hosted a webinar highlighting the parallels of the Canadian detainees’ situation with the unlawful detention carried out by the United States at Guantanamo Bay. Since then, a number of the Canadian detainees have been able to return but many remain trapped in Northeast Syria.

With limited action from the Canadian government, in December 2022, lawyers Lawrence Greenspon and Barbara Jackman took the case of the Canadian detainees to the Federal Court of Canada, seeking to force the government into action. Regrettably, the Government of Canada continues to deny that it has any legal responsibility towards this group of Canadians, despite holding the very keys that would put an end to the human rights violations they are suffering on a daily basis. This intransigence indicates that the lessons of commissions and reports of the past, such as the Arar Inquiry, the Iacobucci Inquiry, and the 2018 Auditor General’s report on consular services, have not yet been learned. The scandalous treatment of the Canadians
detained in Syria is sadly destined to be the next chapter in this shameful history.

Justin Mohammed is the former Program Manager (Campaigns & Advocacy) at Amnesty International Canada, and a former representative for Amnesty on the ICLMG steering committee.

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