Citizenship and Immigration Committee on July 19th, 2016

[Mirza Ismail]

Yes, 100%.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

How long is the average wait for an interview for Yazidi presenting to the UN?

[Mirza Ismail]

I have the evidence on some of the UN papers with me, and as I said I am willing to show anybody—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What evidence is that?

[Mirza Ismail]

It's the UN papers. At the initial meeting, they give them a certain amount of months or years—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

How long is that wait?

[Mirza Ismail]

For example, now we have some families who are waiting and their next appointment is on July 7, 2022.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Do you have evidence to that effect?

[Mirza Ismail]

Yes, I have it with me.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Would you be willing to table it with the committee?

[Mirza Ismail]

Yes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Excellent.

Given that you showed evidence of the treatment, persecution, and discrimination against Yazidis in refugee camps, is it practical for us to expect Yazidi refugees to remain in camps until 2022?

[Mirza Ismail]

The problem is that most of the UN staff, as sister Nadia said...the UN is not helping, because most of the UN staff are Muslims, and they don't like us. Unless we lie to ourselves, they don't like us. They don't treat us equally.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

To be clear for the committee, have the Yazidi people experienced discrimination in UN refugee processes?

[Mirza Ismail]

Yes. Why is it that when there is a Yazidi family and a Muslim family, to the Muslim family they give one year and to the Yazidi family they give five years? What kind of equality is this?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Nadia, would you like to comment on this?

[Nadia Murad Basee Taha]

Murad will.

[Murad Ismael]

The truth is that not many Yazidis have been able to be processed through the whole refugee system. As you know, there are millions of refugees from all backgrounds. What we know as Yazidis is that not many Yazidis have been able to resettle, internationally. Initially about 65,000 people made it to Turkey. That was in August 2014. Those people were given very long interviews. Even now we have 3,000 or 4,000 people in Turkey; the situation is still the same.

The fact is that people have been unable to come, and that's why we are asking for a specific program. We in Yazda are now helping the Australian government to resettle Yazidi Syrians. We have registered about 200 people; there will be about 300 people. Those are the remainder of the Yazidis who migrated from Syria to Iraq. We are working with the Australian government to bring them directly, without going through the UN system. That's why I said in my testimony that we would like Canada to have a special quota, so that we can bypass all these lengthy processes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

The government's current policy is to rely solely on UN lists to process government-sponsored refugees. The government has also said that we should turn a blind eye to religion in processing refugees. Given your testimony, is that practical?

[Murad Ismael]

Well, when the Yazidis on August 3 were put on the road and, based on their religious identity, if they were Yazidi men they were killed and the children were taken into the training camps and the women were enslaved, I think it's unfair that the world would not look into the question of identity. I think it's important that we understand that everyone is suffering in the region. Yes, there's a big tragedy in the region, a big humanitarian crisis; but also religion is a big factor. ISIS is a Sunni group that has used the radical Sunni interpretations of Islam, and it's committing crimes against people who oppose its ideology. On the top of that list come the Yazidis, the Christians, the Shabaks and other minorities, and the Sabians.

It will be unfair, I think, for any country to not take that into consideration. At the same time, I believe in human equality, yet in this particular case, if we are trying to prioritize the process, I would also look into what group they are from, but at the same time at what kinds of victims they are—for example, people such as Nadia, people who are orphans, people who lost a husband. The identification, I think, also should be based on what they have witnessed.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

The Canadian government has said it is unwilling to track and is currently not tracking the success of our refugee programs, based on who is coming into the country, in terms of ethnicity and religion. As part of your recommendation, would you recommend that the government track and report, as part of this system that you're talking about, the number of Yazidis who are coming to Canada both through private sponsorship and government sponsorship streams?

[Murad Ismael]

I think that accepting vulnerable communities, groups, or individuals is the right approach to take. I think it will not hurt to say that those people were, for example, Christians, Yazidis, or whoever they are. I don't think this necessarily means that you are discriminating against them. I don't think it's a wrong approach to look into people's background, the region, the religion, the race, the LGBTs, for example. It's important that you look into this, because the discrimination in that region is based on these factors.

The problem is that looking from the viewpoint of our approach to what's happening in the Middle East is not the right approach. I think we have to deal with the facts the way they are.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Would you characterize the process that the UN is currently using to produce lists to support governments such as Canada in bringing government-sponsored refugees to Canada as flawed in terms of its ability to protect Yazidis and vulnerable minorities and persecuted minorities?

[Murad Ismael]

Yes, it's flawed and it's unfair, and what is happening is unacceptable.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mirza, would you characterize it as flawed?