OK to visit Syria if you’re fighting ISIL
Proposed travel ban won’t apply
OTTAWA — Canadians who go abroad to fight ISIL would be exempt from a Conservative campaign promise to outlaw travel to parts of the world controlled by terrorists.
It “is not intended to prosecute individuals who can prove they have been working with groups fighting against (ISIL),” Megan Murdoch, a Conservative Party campaign spokeswoman, said Monday.
“If they can prove that they are fighting against (them), then they will not be prosecuted; that’s not the point of this.”
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper promised Sunday to make it a crime for Canadians to travel to “declared areas” where ISIL and other banned terrorist groups hold control and recruit and train followers. It mirrors much of a 2014 Australian law, which carries a 10-year prison term.
Canada already has laws against facilitating terrorist activities and leaving the country or attempting to leave to engage in terrorist activities. But gathering incriminating battlefield intelligence in a far-flung combat zone, then turning it into prosecutorial evidence to satisfy Canadian courts is tough, if not often impossible. A law simply banning travel to terrorist hot spots, for almost any reason, eliminates many of the legal complexities and courtroom hurdles. It would also likely deter some wouldbe fighters from planning to join the fight.
But Monday’s apparent addition of the “good-guy” exemption effectively guts what appeared to be a needed and, at first sight, generally acceptable policy initiative, said Craig Forcese, a national security law scholar who has been a leading critic of the government’s anti-terror policies.
The virtue of the “declared areas” ban was its simplicity, the University of Ottawa academic said in an email.
“This just became much more complex … because now you need proof of who they fought for. If you are going to regulate foreign fighting, regulate foreign fighting. Don’t try to pick good freebooters out from the mess that is a conflict like Syria.”
The exemption also would preserve “the reality that Canadians fighting for the ‘good guys’ may do bad things, or they may wake up and find that their unit has just committed a war crime,” he said.
“So now you’ve exonerated them through a designated-area ban exemption, but you need to prosecute them for a war crime.”
Harper, meanwhile, suggested Monday the travel ban could apply to new Canadians who want to visit their native lands.
National security officials in Canada and other western nations are increasingly fearful about “bleed out,” the threat that some returning foreign fighters will turn their knowledge and skills about combat, guns, bombs, training and recruiting against their home countries.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau characterized the policy Monday as electoral posturing that will do little or nothing to counter the bigger problem of radicalization among young Canadians.
“IF THEY CAN PROVE THAT THEY ARE FIGHTING AGAINST (ISIL), THEN THEY WILL NOT BE PROSECUTED.”
MEGAN MURDOCH