(Montreal) The Canadian Federal Court on Friday ordered the government to repatriate four Canadian citizens detained in northeast Syria for years.
This decision comes as Canada had just announced its agreement to repatriate the 19 other women and children involved in this legal case.
This would be the largest repatriation of families of jihadists ever organized by the country and the first time that Canada will allow men detained in Syria to return.
The families of the 23 citizens had filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government, claiming in particular that the authorities’ refusal to repatriate them violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Lawrence Greenspon, an attorney for all the plaintiffs except Jack Letts, this week reached a deal with the federal government to bring home six Canadian women and 13 children.
“That’s what we were hoping for,” Mr Greenspon said on Friday.
“With the agreement of the Canadian government, the women and children will be taken home. And now, following this judge’s order, the four men who are in prisons in northeast Syria will also be brought home by Global Affairs Canada. »
“I have spoken to the parents and they are really very happy,” said Barbara Jackman, the lawyer for Jack Letts, a British-Canadian convert to Islam whose nationality was withdrawn in London and one of the four affected by the court decision.
The judge “covered all the issues that were of concern,” added the lawyer, pointing out that he is ordering Ottawa to request the repatriation of the four men “as soon as reasonably possible”, but also to provide them with passports. emergency and to send a representative of the State to Syria to help them.
In his judgment, the magistrate notably cited their living conditions “even more difficult than those of the women and children that Canada has just agreed to repatriate” and the fact that they have not been charged or tried.
On Friday morning, the Canadian Foreign Ministry said it had “agreed on a resolution” to repatriate the women and children of the group, excluding these four men.
Until then, the government of Justin Trudeau has dealt with this issue on a case-by-case basis and, in four years, only a handful of women and children have been repatriated.
Since the end in 2019 of the “caliphate” set up by the Islamic State (IS) organization, the repatriation of the wives and children of jihadists from its ranks has been a very sensitive issue in many countries.
Many NGOs denounce the lack of courage of governments, while these relatives of jihadists, including thousands of children, live in the al-Hol and Roj camps, controlled by the Kurds and where violence is endemic and deprivation many.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), there are about 30 Canadians left, including 10 children, still in camps in Syria.
But “a number of women and children have received letters from the government indicating that they meet the conditions for repatriation”, however, Farida Deif, director of HRW in Canada, told AFP, which augurs more repatriations. .
The authorities did not specify when the 23 men, women and children would be repatriated and gave no indication of the possible legal proceedings they could take against them upon their return to Canadian territory.
Last October, Canada repatriated two women and two children detained in Syria. In 2020, Ottawa allowed the return of a 5-year-old orphan girl, after her uncle filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government.
With The Canadian Press