More than 1,500 Canadian citizens detained in foreign prisons
MONTREAL — For nearly two months all eyes were turned to John Greyson and Tarek Loubani, the Canadian activists held in an Egyptian prison before being allowed to return to Canada.
Two other detained Canadians, Greenpeace activists Alexandre Paul and Paul Ruzycki, have also been in the headlines as they remain held in a Russian prison and could face a lengthy prison sentence on hooliganism charges.
But there are other Canadians detained abroad who don’t have such a network of supporters, and fail to capture similar public attention.
Overall, 1,590 Canadians are in prison outside the country, according to figures provided by Canada’s Foreign Affairs department, accurate to Oct. 10.
The bulk of them — 1,097 — are behind bars in the United States. The rest are in prisons in more than 85 other countries.
Foreign Affairs wouldn’t provide a breakdown on the circumstances or duration of detention, nor how many cases the government is actively contesting.
But human-rights groups continue to monitor a number of cases where they believe Canadians are being wrongly detained or have been the victim of humanrights violations. Often, it can take years to bring a Canadian back home.
Earlier this month, Hamid Ghassemi-Shall was finally able to return to Canada after 64 months in an Iranian prison, including a year in solitary confinement.
Ghassemi-Shall emigrated to Toronto, where he was working as a shoe salesman, following Iran’s 1979 revolution. He was arrested on espionage charges while visiting his ailing mother in 2008, and faced the death penalty.
International pressure, including a stream of letters from supporters to the Iranian government, may have been a factor in helping to keep him alive, according to Amnesty International Canada.
Each case “has a delicate strategy depending on the circumstances of the case,” said John Tackaberry, a spokesman for the human rights group.
That can mean a publicrelations blitz or, alternatively, working quietly behind the scenes.
Most cases don’t get nearly as much attention as Greyson and Loubani did, Tackaberry said.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird took an active role in the weeks leading up to their release, saying at one point that “Canadians have got to know that their government at the highest levels is doing absolutely everything it can.”
“They had a very wellorchestrated social media campaign and a petition with 150,000 signatures,” Tackaberry said. Similar cases, meanwhile, can sometimes fail to resonate with the public, he said.
“It has been difficult, in terms of raising public awareness of the issue, getting some coverage of the issues, putting some pressure on behind the scenes, or encouraging the government to get involved.”
Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Claude Rochon said the federal government tries, in every case, to ensure Canadians receive fair treatment under the local criminal-justice system.
But she stressed that the government cannot “seek preferential treatment for you or try to exempt you from the due process of local law.”
Often, there’s not much more the federal government can offer in terms of assistance, according to one former Canadian diplomat.
“All the Canadian government can do is ensure that the person in prison gets fair treatment under the laws of the country where they are,” said Eric Morse, now with the Royal Canadian Military Institute.