Repatriated ISIS fighters should be jailed
Should Canadian citizens who fought for ISIS in Iraq and Syria be repatriated to Canada? A chorus of human rights advocates argue that they should. But the brother of a young man killed by ISIS isn’t so sure.
“Abandoning citizens to indefinite, unlawful detention in filthy, overcrowded and dangerous camps and prisons does not make Canada safer,” says Letta Tayler, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of a June 29 report called Bring Me Back to Canada: Plight of Canadians Held in Northeast Syria for Alleged ISIS Links.
It’s a nonsensical statement. If those terrorists are in a jail in Syria more than 9,000 kilometres away, obviously Canada is safer than if they were here getting mollycoddled.
“At time of writing, Canada had repatriated or assisted the returns of more than 40,000 citizens and permanent residents from 100 countries in response to COVID-19, including 29 from Syria — but not one of at least 47 citizens held without charge in northeast Syria,” says the 62-page report.
The Canadian detainees include eight men, 13 women, and 26 children, most under age six.
“The lives of Canadians are on the line, and the time to bring them home is now,” adds Tayler.
Not so fast, says Andriy Bazelevsky.
His younger brother and only sibling, Misha Bazelevsky — a commerce student at Macewan University in Edmonton — was murdered along with 85 others by an ISIS terrorist in Nice, France.
Misha had won one of four spots awarded to top students at the university to take a threeweek trip to France to attend the European Innovation Academy. He was killed on his 11th day of the trip on July 14, 2016.
“Misha was a bright light in the world,” said Andriy Bazelevsky, 40, from his home in Toronto. He was a prize-winning ballroom dancer, he learned to speak French, he was a member of student council at Macewan and he was “very, very kind and generous,” adds Bazelevsky.
“He was very entrepreneurial and had worked for Suncor, applied to work at Tesla and planned to change the world,” says his grieving brother.
Misha, an international Ukrainian student, had completed his third year toward a degree in commerce when he was killed by a radicalized Tunisian resident of France, who deliberately drove a 19-tonne cargo truck into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day. Besides killing 86 people — 14 of whom were children — 458 others were injured, many very seriously.
“This concern for the safety of these men who joined ISIS willingly — who left Canada to join this organization that kills civilians and beheads people — rubs me the wrong way,” said Bazelevsky, who moved to Canada from Ukraine when he was 18. Misha, who was just four, remained in Ukraine with their parents, Mykola and Olena.
“I feel very sad for the children because, obviously, they did not choose this life to go to Syria or to be born there to ISIS parents. Perhaps Canada could bring back the women and children?” suggests Bazelevsky.
According to the Human
Rights Watch report, at least 20 countries have repatriated about 100 of their citizens from the same camps and prisons where the Canadians are held including, since mid-october 2019, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. France repatriated 10 children as recently as last month.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently said that repatriating Canadians with alleged ties to ISIS in Syria is “complicated.”
“Syria is an area where we do not have any diplomats or any Canadians on the ground, and therefore we work through intermediaries to try to provide consular assistance as best we can,” Trudeau said.
For Bazelevsky, that answer by Trudeau is much better than Trudeau’s 2015 declaration that “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”
That’s why Bazelevsky says before any of these men — and possibly their wives — are repatriated to Canada, the government should establish a law with a mandatory minimum sentence for any Canadian citizen who joins a terrorist group abroad to fight against Canada and its allies.
“They should not be allowed to just come home and be free,” argued Bazelevsky. “They should know before they return that there will be automatic time behind bars . ... And then, once they’re behind bars, investigate them for crimes they may have committed.”
It’s a good plan.
Otherwise, these so-called Canadians might enjoy the fate of the Canadian ISIS fighter who goes by the jihadi nom de guerre Abu Huzaifa al-kanadi. He confessed to The New York Times that he killed civilians in Syria before returning to the greater Toronto area in 2016, where he lives freely and has never been charged with a crime in Canada.
He didn’t even suffer a slap on the wrist for joining the worst, most barbaric organization in the world, that posts videos of beheadings on the internet and targets civilians.
Mohammed Khalifa, who goes by the jihadi name Abu Ridwan, is another Canadian ISIS member; he is currently being held in a crowded Kurdish-run jail in northern Syria.
Impressed by his proficiency in both Arabic and English, the Toronto man became the English voice of ISIS in videos, including the horrific 55-minute Flames of War video. In that film, a man who sounds like Ridwan goes from narrating what’s going on in the video, to standing over men as they dig their own graves and then shooting one of the men in the back of the head. Canadian security experts believe it’s Ridwan, but he has denied that claim.
He says he would like to return to Canada, provided he can bring along his non-canadian wife and their three children, he told The Fifth Estate in a 2019 interview from the prison where he’s being held.
But if his return means he will likely face justice in a Canadian court, Ridwan told the CBC he would rather remain locked up where he is.
“In terms of going back to be judged, then no.”
Good. Canada can safely wipe our hands of him.
As for the rest of them, before any moves are made to repatriate any of these men, the federal government must swiftly pass a retroactive law that ensures all returning men, and perhaps the women, will be sent directly to jail.
This concern for the safety of these men who joined ISIS willingly ... rubs me the wrong way.