Canada _ (Commonwealth Union) _ According to the women and children’s lawyer, the federal government is making progress in repatriating the 19 Canadian women and children detained in northeastern Syria. Thirteen children, six women, and four men are among the 23 jailed Canadians whose family members have petitioned a federal court to urge the government to make arrangements for their release. They’ve said that doing so would be against their charter rights to do so.
The Canadians are only one of several foreigners held in Syrian prison facilities for alleged ISIS militants and their families. The Kurdish troops that liberated the conflict-torn area from the extremist organization now in charge of the camps.
An arrangement has been struck to ensure the release and return of the women and children, according to Lawrence Greenspon, the applicants’ attorney, who spoke with CBC. According to him, the court is still considering the four men’s case.
“It’s obvious that the Canadian government has the authority to bring our Canadians home, and where there is evidence to believe they’ve committed an infraction, charge them and prosecute them,” Greenspon said to CBC’s Canada Tonight anchor Dwight Drummond.
According to a document submitted in court in December, Global Affairs Canada had already started to investigate the possibility of repatriating the 19 Canadians. In accordance with the government’s January 2021 policy framework, they had satisfied the need for offering extraordinary aid, according to the paper. Canada has been reluctant, according to Farida Deif, head of Human Rights Watch in Canada, because it lacks “political will to return anyone with alleged ISIS links.” Deif stated that the majority of the Canadians in Syrian camps are youngsters and that her group expects there to be dozens of them.
