Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for inviting me to participate in this briefing. I'm joining you tonight from unceded Algonquin Anishinabe territory in Ottawa.
Before I begin my testimony, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the Library of Parliament analysts who serve this committee, a role that I once held and remember very fondly.
Mr. Chair, I intend for my testimony this evening to be an update to that which Amnesty International provided at the foreign affairs committee, exactly two months ago today, regarding detention camps in northeast Syria. This is an important international human rights issue that, as you know, directly implicates Canadian citizens.
Let me begin with the positive. In mid-March, a Canadian child was allowed to return to Canada from a camp in northeast Syria. After exiting that country, she is reported to have received consular services to facilitate her travel from Iraq to Canada, including the provision of travel documents.
Last week, Minister Garneau stated that he would be investigating how G7 countries have approached the question of repatriating their nationals from the prison camps in the northeast. This was also a very welcome development, and Canada could look to U.S. leadership in this regard. Not only has the U.S. repatriated its citizens, but it has also encouraged other countries to do the same, and has even offered to help with this task.
Regrettably, this is where the good news comes to an end. The humanitarian situation facing the people who are arbitrarily and indefinitely detained in the al-Hawl and al-Roj camps has not improved. Forty-five Canadian citizens, of whom roughly two dozen are children, remain in squalid camps that the UN experts have qualified as potentially amounting to torture or other cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment or punishment under international law.
Such human rights violations are among the most serious, with these prohibitions contradicting peremptory norms of international law. In the case of children, such acts are downright unconscionable
Canadians continue to languish there, but it is not for want of a responsive policy framework. The consular manual boldly proclaims, “The torture or mistreatment of Canadian detainees is not tolerated.” Consular officials must “promptly advise the Minister...in writing if there is credible information indicating torture, and the Deputy Minister in cases indicating mistreatment.” Although “prompt” is undefined, a period of three months was deemed by the Auditor General to be unacceptable. This group of Canadians has been in detention for over two years.
The policies further provide that where such mistreatment concerns arise, a consular ad hoc working group on torture and mistreatment should assess whether the allegations are valid and advise on the management of these cases. Amnesty International has been informed that the minister has been advised of allegations of torture and mistreatment in Syria and that the ad hoc working group has been convened. Unfortunately, we do not know what advice the ad hoc working group has provided. A request to know when the minister was advised of the torture allegations and the outcome of those assessments has been refused. An access to information request about the provision of consular services to the detained Canadians remains unanswered one year after it was submitted.
Questions must be answered about the application of these policies to this group of Canadian citizens, who continue to be subject to daily human rights abuses with no end in sight.
One Canadian detainee's mother shared a recent message from her daughter: “Salaam, mom. How are you? They let out a bunch of sisters from the prisons throughout Ramadan, some at night with no tent to go to, the one who was locked in a toilet for three months, the ones who ate only tea and bread, the ones who got only five minutes of sun with their kids, the ones who had no change of clothes, the ones who were beat.”
Moreover, Canada's failure to resolve this situation presents a major credibility risk to many aspects of Canada's international human rights agenda. Consider, for example, Canada's recent initiative on state-to-state arbitrary detention or its efforts to pursue the Assad regime over crimes of torture committed since 2011. Such endeavours lack principle when Canada allows its own citizens to be held in arbitrary and indefinite detention in conditions that may constitute torture.
Similarly, Minister Garneau said that Canada's feminist foreign policy will be announced this spring. How can Canada promote a foreign policy based on gender equality when turning its back on vulnerable Canadians in Syria, many of whom report or have been threatened with gender-based violence?
Mr. Chair, in our previous testimony, Amnesty International offered four recommendations. I won't go over them for the sake of time, but I would conclude by offering one recommendation to this committee, which has admirably called out serious international human rights violations in so many contexts: Do not allow the violations in northeast Syria to escape your condemnation. It is rare that the mandate of this committee should overlap with human rights abuses suffered directly by a group of Canadian citizens.
Amnesty International encourages this committee to seize the moment to advocate on their behalf.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions.