[ad_1]
Two Canadian women and three teenage girls who were to be repatriated by the federal government from a Syrian detention camp earlier this month have disappeared and their lawyers fear they are being held in Kurdish prisons or worse.
One of his criminal defense lawyers, Zachary Al-Khatib, said he had not heard from the woman for at least a week. He said Global Affairs told family members they were “broken” and that the department should try to find the missing Canadian.
“We fear the worst,” Al-Khatib told CBC News in an interview. “I’m worried if she’s alive or not. We don’t have any information. We know women have died in the camp.”
Al-Khatib said relatives in Canada received a panicked text message earlier this month from a woman in the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria saying she saw the woman being put into a military vehicle on April 2 and taken to an interrogation site. which is controlled by the Kurds. authorities known as the “Red Prison.”
The Toronto Star first reported on the development on Monday.
The woman was supposed to be among 19 Canadian women and children the federal government promised to bring to Canada, but only 14 were on the plane on April 6.
The two missing Canadian women are from the Edmonton area and are 41 and 33 years old, Al-Khatib said. One of the women has three teenage daughters with her, he said.
The government has struck a last-minute deal by December 2022 to return 19 Canadian women and children, just one day before a Federal Court judge is set to rule on whether the government should return the group of Canadians it has detained. year in a Kurdish refugee camp in northeastern Syria.
A new audio recording between the mother of one of the women – who lives in the Edmonton area – and a Global Affairs official, according to Al-Khatib, said the ally warned Canada that sometimes citizens do not show up for repatriation at designated options. – rising point.
Canadian officials called the woman to explain that efforts were underway to try to locate her daughter.
During the roughly 16-minute CBC News recording, a Global Affairs official is heard saying that Canada’s repatriation efforts in the past have gone well, but other countries warn that this is not always the case.
“We don’t want to believe it’s happening, but it’s happening in another country and they’re trying to warn us,” the Global Affairs official said of the recording to the mother. “And when that happened, we were shocked.
“We don’t think this is a real possibility.”
Al-Khatib, meanwhile, said it was “unacceptable and unbelievable” that the Canadian government could not access information from the Kurdish authorities about the whereabouts of their clients. Canadian officials, he added, did not guarantee the five women and girls would safely reach the pick-up point.
“They (women) are very concerned about their personal safety,” Al-Khatib said. “Al-Hol is a very dangerous place. He expressed his concerns. He was worried that he would be attacked, he was worried that his physical safety would be in danger if he told the guards that he had to be transported.”
In the recording, Canadian officials told the woman that the government was investigating why the woman’s daughter was not returned as planned and had exhausted “every avenue” to try to find the missing woman, including requesting information from Kurdish authorities, NGOs, and other allies who have representatives in the ground in northeastern Syria.
‘life threatening’ condition
The detention camps and prisons are controlled by Kurdish authorities who seized the area after it was taken over by ISIS, militants fighting to establish an Islamic state. The camp holds ISIS suspects and members of their families, according to Human Rights Watch. The non-governmental organization described the conditions for the children as “life-threatening, extremely humiliating, and in many cases inhumane.”
Al-Kahtib said the women in the camp were informed in late March by the Canadian government that they must identify themselves to the Kurdish authorities who control the al-Hol camp and request transport to another camp, called al-Roj, as part of the repatriation effort.
But Al-Khatib learned that he was not on the plane on April 6 and began to go “radio silent.”
The lawyer said the government needs to do a better job of ensuring the safety of women and teenagers during repatriation efforts.
“It confuses our intelligence partners, other Western countries say ‘you should know that there is a risk to the woman’s safety,’ but the government doesn’t tell the woman and guarantee her safety.
A Global Affairs official is heard saying on the recording that Canadian officials have told Kurdish authorities not to detain Canadians being repatriated.
Canadian representatives also told Kurdish officials when they handed over the other women and children that they wanted 19 to bring home, not 14, and that this was not true, the Global Affairs official told the mother in the recording.
“I really hope women will be there,” the official said in the recording. “I’m sorry it didn’t happen that way. But we’re looking into it, we’re investigating what happened – where it is.
“We have a million questions just like you have a million questions.”
Searching for the ‘Red Prison’
The official added that they are working to see if the RCMP in the area can find the woman or find any information about the ‘Red Jail’.
“We’ve never heard of it,” the Global Affairs official said in the audio recording. “We’re a little lost on what this prison is.”
The official was also heard saying on the recording that he did not want to speculate about what happened to the woman or where she was.
Ottawa lawyer Lawrence Greenspon is representing the women in a federal court case in which they argue that it is against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for the government to allow Canadians to swim in Syrian detention camps. Kurdish authorities have called on countries to return their citizens.
Lawyers for several Canadian women and their children long held in Syrian camps by suspected ISIS members and their families told CBC News that a deal has been reached to bring them home, and some may be on the way.
Greenspon told CBC News Monday night that he had been in contact with Global Affairs Canada, who told him they did not know the woman’s whereabouts.
“They don’t know why they’re not there and can’t give any information about it now,” Greenspon wrote in a message.
Al-Khatib said he did not know why his client was in Syria and said he had not seen “the slightest evidence that these two women traveled to join ISIS.”
He said the government warned the women before the repatriation attempt that they could be arrested upon arrival in Canada and could face a terrorism peace bond, which requires them to live under certain conditions for up to a year.
He sent an email to the government 10 days ago warning that he had heard the woman was being put in the ‘Red Jail’, and said he had yet to receive a response.
CBC News has requested comment from Global Affairs Canada.
Officials are heard in the audio recording saying the government plans to try and return the women, but said there are delays and they can’t promise a date.
[ad_2]
Source link