Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on June 22nd, 2021

[Dr. William Maley]

Thank you.

I think several things are important at this point. One is to recognize that there is not a working peace process in Afghanistan at the moment. Lots of people are going through the motions, but essentially the agreement that the Americans signed with the Taliban was an exit agreement for the United States, rather than a peace agreement for Afghanistan. Because the U.S., at that point, gave the Taliban everything that they really wanted, the Taliban have been engaged in strategic stalling since then, but that is no longer the main game.

Really, a crisis management approach is a much better one for the Canadian government and like-minded governments to take, recognizing that two things are very important.

One is to maintain support, not so much for any given government, but for a republican and pluralist system in Afghanistan, as opposed to the totalitarian order that the Taliban would like to impose. One way of doing that is to seek every diplomatic channel available to send a signal that those who attempt to impose a totalitarian order can expect to be marginalized and isolated internationally.

The other is with respect to vulnerable individuals to recognize that, at a certain point, millions of refugees may be flowing out of Afghanistan despite all of the constraints on people's movement that COVID has imposed. The numbers could well overwhelm the capacity of governments, such as those in Iran and Turkey, to prevent onward movement towards Europe. There will be demands for a range of countries in the world to step up to provide resettlement for people who will really have no realistic option of going safely back to Afghanistan in the foreseeable future.

Canada, which has a very long history of humanitarian contributions in this respect, I think has a role to play there too.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. G. Singh—I'm sorry, I don't know your first name—please go ahead.

[Gurvinder Singh]

Our request is that perhaps a commission be instituted, especially for our heritage sites for how those can be preserved in conjunction and working in collaboration with the Afghan government. The United States would love to help and assist. That's something that really tugs at the hearts. We have historical shrines that are hundreds of years old where Guru Nanak Sahib Ji himself came and visited. Many Afghan families are not only interlinked there, but they're risking their lives because they refuse to leave them unguarded.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

That you for underscoring the cultural importance of protection of cultural sites.

Thank you, everybody.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Zuberi.

Now we're moving to MP Genuis for five minutes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses.

As I was listening to the testimony at the beginning, I was thinking about the case of the MS St. Louis, which was a ship of Jewish Holocaust refugees who were turned away from Canada. In my time as a parliamentarian, we had an official apology delivered by the Prime Minister for Canada's lack of willingness to receive these fleeing refugees.

At the same time, we've been talking about this issue of the need for a special program to help vulnerable Afghan minorities for the entirety of the time I've been a parliamentarian—since 2015. I think there is a significant frustration among many people, as we've heard tonight, about the lack of action.

I gave my first member's statement in the House in December of 2015 on this very issue, calling for the creation of a special program under section 25 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. I think it's important to underscore that the letter Balpreet Singh mentioned that was signed by MPs in support of a special program under section 25 was also signed by our leader.

Our immigration shadow minister Jasraj Singh Hallan has personally been involved in sponsoring an Afghan Sikh family and did so before being an elected official. It's been a long time, though. Although some families from India have been helped, as we've heard tonight, we know the mechanism—a special program under section 25 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act—would allow direct sponsorship from Afghanistan to Canada, yet it just hasn't happened. We continue to call for that to take place. It's so necessary. I don't know why it hasn't happened.

I want to start with a question for Balpreet Singh.

Could you clarify whether the government has given you an outright “no” to the possibility of a section 25 program or whether they simply haven't answered the question?

Secondly, could you just speak to other precedents you're aware of where special programs under section 25 have been used successfully for other communities?

[Balpreet Singh]

We've been making this call for many years now.

After the March 2020 incident there was, of course, dialogue with CIC. The answer we got was that this isn't possible at this time. It wasn't a vehement “no”, but it was “no for now”. The problem here is that “no for now” puts these people at risk, and it's been so long.

When I made this first presentation there were 2,006 left. After 2016, five years later, we have all these deaths. We have all this evacuation. They have no future in India. I've already talked about the fact that there is no legislative mechanism to settle them there. India is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention.

This special program is a unique situation. It's a unique program that has been created for Syrian refugees. It's been created for, as I understand, Tibetan refugees who had gone to India and for Ismaili refugees.

These are vulnerable individuals who are easily identified by their appearance. As I said, Daesh has already vowed to drive them out of Afghanistan or kill them, so—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you for that very specific answer, mentioning other communities that have benefited from a special program. The Sikh and Hindi community in Afghanistan, as well as other minorities, should also benefit from it.

I'm going to give the balance of my time to Ms. Sahota.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Just so you're aware, you have one minute.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Garnett. I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here.

Balpreet, I'm going to build on what my colleague said. What can the government do right now to help Afghan Sikhs, to basically save their lives?

[Balpreet Singh]

The process to create the special program, even if we aren't able to bring them immediately, is something we've been asking for, for a long time. The entire costs for the refugees who have settled here have been borne by the Sikh community. The sad thing is that, after six years, of the Helmand group we're talking about, less than half have arrived here.

I appreciate the efforts of the government, and certainly the efforts of the Bhullar Foundation, but if these folks are going to be in India for the next I don't know how many years, they are going to continue to suffer, and those who are in Afghanistan will die.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Singh.

We are now moving to MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe for five minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We have heard a lot about the government in Afghanistan and about the laws in Afghanistan, but we have not heard as much about the social situation in Afghanistan. I would be curious to hear what the witnesses have to say about it.

Earlier, I asked you what the government could do, but I would also like to know about the social attitudes of the people in Afghanistan towards religions other than Islam. For me, that's important too.

Are any of the witnesses ready to answer that question?

Can you answer it, Mr. Maley?

[Dr. William Maley]

Civil society in Afghanistan is a significant actor, but it is a very vulnerable actor as well. Something like three-quarters of the Afghan population is under the age of 30. These people have very often been influenced by forces of globalization that no previous generation had encountered. The positive sign is that one meets many people right across the board who don't carry the baggage of prejudices that some earlier generations carry with them.

At the same time, there has been something of a disposition in recent months for people in western countries to say that because civil society is so vibrant in Afghanistan, this will provide a bulwark against the worst kind of policy setting that the Taliban might seek to implement if it were to return to power.

I think this is a misconception that's actually shoved civil society activists right to the front line, where they are now being assassinated by the Taliban. Civil society, of course, was extremely vibrant in the Weimar Republic in the late 1920s and early 1930s, but a vibrant civil society is also vulnerable and subject to decapitation.

In Afghanistan, for example, civil society thrives on the basis of social media, which provides connections between different people. It would be relatively easy for a repressively minded state to shut down communications of that sort. Civil society is, certainly, something to support in Afghanistan, but it is not a magic bullet that can be used to address the problems of repression that other kinds of groups are putting on the agenda at the moment.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Maley.

I am wondering about another question. The conflicts and the armed struggles in Afghanistan have been going on for decades. We can mention the ones with the Soviets, of course, then with the Americans, the internal intertribal wars, and so on. What impacts have those conflicts had on religious minorities in Afghanistan? My question is for all the witnesses.

Mr. Ajimal, do you want to start? Mr. Singh, do you want to follow on?

[Jasjeet S. Ajimal]

The consequences, when a military leader comes in as different governments change and as the Taliban or ISIS take a role, are that each and every one persecutes religious minorities first. It's a matter of control, just like the professor mentioned in his earlier statements. The religious minorities are controlled. If anyone tries to assist the religious minorities, they are then targeted themselves.

Civil society has unfortunately been put in a position where they are not able to help any religious minorities, because they themselves will become a target. This isn't a matter of a new government coming in or a matter of a warlord being overthrown. This is a matter of each and every power broker who has come in continuing to persecute religious minorities.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Singh, you can add a quick comment.

Afterwards, if we are lucky, maybe we can hear what Ms. Chiovenda has to say.

[Gurvinder Singh]

I can sum it up really quickly. The results of this internecine warfare and these different warlords coming to power have been a mass exodus for religious minorities and a genocide of the religious minorities. Those are the two results: mass exodus and mass killings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Singh.

Thank you, Alexis.

Now we're moving to MP McPherson for five minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

This is not new information, of course, that we're receiving, but I am just really struggling to understand, particularly when we hear that the Canadian government has been able to implement some of these immigration policies for other groups, why they are so reluctant to do so for Afghani minorities. It's deeply concerning and something that we need to continue to push them on.

As the NDP member of this committee, I think this will probably be our last opportunity. I wondered whether or not it would make sense for us to just go through and have people.

Is there anything that we have not covered in the meeting today that you would like to share with the committee, that you would like to make sure gets on record, or anything that we haven't asked you that you'd like to share with us? I'd be happy to open up the microphone for you to do that.

Go ahead, Mr. Maley.

[Dr. William Maley]

Thank you very much.

I think one issue that needs to be kept in mind is that there is a risk of genocide in Afghanistan. This may seem to be a foreign proposition, but I think, unfortunately, that it's historically grounded.

The substantial outflow of Hazaras from Afghanistan began in August 1998, following a massacre that took place in Mazar-e-Sharif, which the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid in his Yale University Press book on the Taliban described as “genocidal in its ferocity”. If one looks at article II on the genocide convention, one can match that up with various practices that have surfaced recently in Afghanistan that suggest that genocidal intent is there on the part of at least some groups within the country.

There has, of course, historically been a great deal of legitimate attention paid to the vulnerabilities of women in Afghanistan, because the Taliban are the world's least feminist movement, but the Taliban are not going to try to kill all of the women in Afghanistan. They are, however, capable of trying to kill all of the Sikhs, all the Hindus or all of the Hazaras.

Given that's the case, I think the whole thrust of the genocide convention that Raphael Lemkin struggled so hard to have adopted is that one should not simply be waiting until it has happened. One needs to be alert to the real dangers of this materializing, and one needs to be poised to do something. That, I think, is probably the gravest danger that haunts the situation in Afghanistan.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much.

I have a few more seconds. I will now hand it over to Ms. Bhullar.

[Tarjinder Kaur Bhullar]

Thank you.

It would be important for me to mention that we are actively working on a program that will settle the current population. It has been a long process, but it is also one that has to take into account that we are also dealing with a population that has arrived in India and the way they are deemed refugees or not.

It's important for us to note that the partnership we are creating is a model that we will advocate for in terms of being used for other populations, as well as the continuous assistance of Afghan populations that still remain in Afghanistan or are within other displaced areas around the world.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Ms. Bhullar.

Finally, we'll go to Ms. Chiovenda.

[Melissa Kerr Chiovenda]

I will build on Professor Maley's comments. It's key that we look at this as something that might be headed towards genocide.

It's important when we look at some of the attacks that have happened, in particular the attack on the maternity hospital where labouring mothers and newborns were killed or the other attack on girls, that this was often interpreted as an attack on women, but I think symbolically this can be interpreted as an attack on future generations and on those people who are bringing future generations of Hazaras into the world.

That symbolic aspect needs to be kept in mind when we're thinking about genocide and the attacks that are going on right now.