Rights group blasts Ottawa for inaction
Should be helping detained ISIL members and their families, it says
The federal government has been accused of violating its international humanrights obligations by refusing to help dozens of Canadian men, women and children detained in squalid camps in Syria because of their suspected links to the Islamic State militant group.
The accusation by New Yorkbased Human Rights Watch is in a scathing report released Monday that calls on Ottawa to immediately begin bringing the detainees home — starting with the 26 Canadian children known to be in the camps.
One of those children is a fiveyear-old orphan known as Amira who was found on the side of a road last year after her parents and siblings were killed in an airstrike and whose case has been raised with the federal Liberal government in the past.
“The Government of Canada is flouting its international human rights obligations toward Canadians who are arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria,” reads the 92-page report, which included interviews with detainees, families and Canadian and foreign officials.
“The obligations that Canada has breached include taking necessary and reasonable steps to assist nationals abroad facing serious abuses including risks to life, torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment.”
It goes on to paint a disturbing picture of conditions in the camps, with food and clean water in short supply while disease and violence are rife. Children were seen drinking worminfested water while “morality police” hunted women who criticized the Islamic State. The Human Rights Watch report is the latest to take aim at the federal government when it comes to Canadians detained in northeastern Syria following the collapse of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeatedly defended his government’s largely hands-off approach as he noted Canada does not have diplomats on the ground in Syria and emphasized the safety concerns associated with sending officials to the area.
“We have a responsibility as a government to ensure that Canadian citizens, particularly employees, are not put into danger, are not exposed to grave situations,” Trudeau said during his daily news conference outside his Ottawa home.