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Reasonable Cause to Suspect: Book Launch and Discussion on a Hidden Human Rights Case
February 21 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
A Book Launch and Discussion on the obstacles preventing the repatriation from Northeast Syria of over two dozen arbitrarily detained Canadian Muslim men, women, and children.
With:
- Sally Lane, whose son Jack Letts has been wrongfully defamed by an inflammatory UK media and illegally held almost 7 years under conditions the UN calls “akin to torture”
- Monia Mazigh is the author of Hope and Despair: My Struggle to Free My Husband Maher Arar, Mirrors and Mirages, Hope Has Two Daughters, Farida, and Gendered Islamophobia.
- Alex Neve, a Senior Fellow, University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Member of NE Syria August 2023 Delegation
- Matthew Behrens of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, who has worked closely with the targets of Canadian and U.S. “national security” repression for over 25 years.
Presented by Justice and Equality Action Group, First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa and Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, with support of Octopus Books, who will be selling books on site.
Background
Guantanamo in the Desert – where 50,000 Muslims are off-shored in NE Syria, beyond reach of law & rights, respect & dignity. Over two dozen Muslim Canadians – men, women & kids – are illegally detained there under conditions the UN calls akin to torture because Ottawa either refuses to repatriate them or has offered to repatriate children only if they are forcibly separated from their mothers. There is no clean water, nutritious food or proper medical care. The men’s prison cells are packed with bone-thin prisoners, many with amputated limbs.
In January, 2023, a Federal Court judge called on Ottawa to repatriate them, noting: “Canadians are dying or at risk of dying every day this matter is adjourned.” Over one year later, Canada still refuses, going all the way to the Supreme Court to block their return, thereby participating in the illegal practice of forced exile.