Mother of arbitrarily detained Canadian declares hunger strike
“Abuse thrives in secrecy.”
“In order to send a message to Melanie Joly and the rest of the government that there is a serious situation NE Syria that they are failing to do anything about, I’m conducting a hunger strike outside the Parliament buildings in Ottawa on behalf of my son, Jack Letts who has been detained in NE Syria under horrific conditions for the last 7 years. Jack is unable to speak for himself because he is being held incommunicado in a black site prison. I have been trying to engage the government on this issue for the past 7 years, and they have refused to even meet with me, even though I live 15 minutes from their offices. Last month, Amnesty International came out with a report that detailed the horrific abuse that the detainees are suffering from, including beatings, electric shock, suffocation, deprivation of food and water, and medical neglect. I believed that this would change everything; that this report validated everything that the families of detainees have been saying for years, and that the government would finally see the error of its ways and finally repatriate its citizens. Well, I was wrong - my case worker at Global Affairs Canada said that the report had no bearing on their decision whether or not to repatriate the detainees. I should also note that no evidence has been submitted by the government that indicates that any of the 4 men involved in the case were involved in any criminal activity, and Judge Brown stated that there was no reason that they shouldn`t be repatriated alongside the women and children. I realized after my conversation last week, that the government is never ever going to act in good faith on this issue and something more drastic is required - it needs to be made visible to a wider population because abuse thrives in secrecy. I have therefore told Melanie Joly that I will continue this hunger strike until she listens to my four requests, the first of which is simply to meet with me, and the other 3 are the stipulations from our first court ruling that said the government must engage with the Kurdish authorities to repatriate these men. So my message to Melanie Joly is `Enough is enough. We cannot endure this situation any longer. The Canadian citizens are going to die in a foreign prison unless she does something very soon and we want our loved ones back with us.`”
