Much like Edward Snowden, he saw his life take a whole new turn 10 years ago as revelations about mass surveillance shook the world. Ajith Pushpa Kumara Debagama Kankanamalage is the last of the “guardian angels” of the famous whistleblower stranded in Hong Kong by bureaucratic ordeal. The Quebec organization For Refugees, which sponsors it, filed an extraordinary legal action Tuesday in Federal Court to force Ottawa to move.
The Snowden refugees, mediated by Oliver Stone’s film, are four adults and now three children. They hid and helped this man, one of the most wanted on the planet, during his escape to Hong Kong in 2013, when the United States had just accused him of high treason. All of them filed their applications at the same time in 2017, but more than six years later, Mr. Pushpa Kumara has still not obtained the green light to settle in Canada.
With a mandamusa form of request for an injunction, the organization For Refugees hopes to put an end to this “absolutely inconceivable delay”, says its president, Mr.e Marc-Andre Seguin. Ajith, as he calls it, is in a “highly vulnerable” situation in Hong Kong, where the legal framework is very restrictive for refugees.
Mr. Pushpa Kumara was in the same convoy as his companions in misfortune in 2018 when they went to the Canadian consulate in Hong Kong for their selection interview as refugees. He then saw each of them leave for Canada. Once in March 2019. Then again in September 2021.
A Canadian representative, however, ruled in January 2019 that this Sri Lankan of origin corresponded to the definition of a refugee and that he was admissible.
This information, like virtually everything related to his file, had to be extricated by the organization’s legal team, which acts for free on his behalf. Two formal notices, several access to information requests, a mandamus precedent and dozens of urgent communications later, the man still does not have the necessary document to leave.
More than 72 months have passed since the first filing of his application. This time, his lawyers are asking the Federal Court to force the federal department to act, because of “unreasonable processing times”. In the court documents sent to the Dutythey demonstrate that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada improperly refuses or neglects to render this decision without justification.
“We simply ask him to finalize the process. All the boxes have been checked, everything has been done in the rules and we still receive standardized answers which do not take into account the urgency of his situation, ”says M.e Séguin, who is growing impatient.
His military past, motive and brake
The last stages of this long way of the cross were however crossed recently, when the government of Quebec issued a certificate of selection. The Canadian visa office in Hong Kong, however, refuses to give the final instructions for his medical examination, which should only be a simple formality.
In a letter to the “preformatted” response, this office indicated again on Sunday that the security assessment would still not be completed. Criminal background checks would have been started in April 2017 “in an accelerated manner”, according to a communication from the office of the federal ministry of Immigration.
This verification is truly the “paralyzing” element, as expressed by his lawyers in the documents sent to the Court, and the only factor that distinguishes him from the other Snowden refugees. Ajith deserted the Sri Lankan army in 1995, after suffering sexual abuse from his superiors. He was then tortured and nearly executed by military police several years later when he was arrested for this desertion.
“You can’t invoke criminal background checks, vague grounds indefinitely to deny someone their visa,” says Ms.e Marc-Andre Seguin.
In polite anger and supported, the Montreal lawyer denounces that the very reason which made Mr. Pushpa Kumara a refugee becomes the main obstacle to his resettlement: “His military background is not a secret, it is central to his request to be refugee. It is absolutely unfair, despicable, inhuman and incompetent that this same refrain has been used for seven years to slow down the process. »
For him, this case is also emblematic of the disastrous state of Canada’s refugee system: “How can we pretend that we want to protect vulnerable people like him when almost seven years later, he is still waiting? »
Ajith Pushpa Kumara tried to find refuge in Hong Kong as early as 2003, but was never recognized as such by this state, which is not a signatory to the Convention on the Status of Refugees and which barely recognizes 1% of applications which are submitted to him.
He does not have permission to work there and survives only with the support of the organization. Arrested, detained and searched in September 2021 by the Hong Kong police under false allegations, he also suffers from post-traumatic shock due to the torture inflicted in Sri Lanka. If he were to be deported to his country of origin by the Hong Kong authorities, he risks the death penalty.