Islamic State Foreign Collaborators

"What is inevitable is that the government will continue to create obstacles ... they will continue to delay."

"They'll continue to create secret frameworks without notice, and then change their position at the last minute. That's what's inevitable."

"Yes, it's complicated. And yes, it's difficult. And yes, it's challenging. And yes, there are logistical [challenges]."

"But what we're talking about here is the life and liberty of 23 Canadian men, women and children."

"There is no reason why these constitutional violations need to continue. Canada has the consent [to bring citizens home]."

"They have the ability. They've done it already without incident."

Lawrence Greenspon, lawyer representing ISIL detainees, Al Hol Camp, Syria 

 

The camp where foreigners are kept by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces is a squalid, miserable place filled with women and children living squalid miserable lives behind barbed wire. Some of those incarcerated are hard-core Islamist members of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, and some are not of that ilk entirely. It is the hard-core Islamists that virtually govern the interior of the camp and those who fail to subscribe to their version of Islam are known to have been murdered, while all others live in fear.

The camps housing the ISIL male members are also densely crowded and squalid, miserable places to spend hours, days, months, years. So it is helpful to remember that these men did not hesitate to brutalize and murder thousands of Iraqis and Syrians, along with Yazidis who faced a genocidal effort on the part of ISIL jihadis who slaughtered Yazidi men, and took women and children into slavery, many of whom have never been returned.

Islamic State favoured producing shocking videos of captured British and American journalists and humanitarian care workers whom they filmed being hanged, set on fire in cages, crucified and most horribly photographic of all complete with mocking commentary, beheaded. The grislier the mode of death, the more viral their reputation as vendors of lethal terror, a bleak, dark celebrity they valued hugely. Their reputation as conscienceless purveyors of torture and death made them invincible.

 

Children at the Kurdish-run Al Hol detention camp in northern Syria in March. Some 70,000 people have been living in increasingly dire conditions there.  Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Military opposition melted away as they advanced to occupy greater swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, expanding their 'caliphate', spreading terror and subduing a cringing populace the military tasked to defend the citizens had abandoned. These are the prisoners that Kurdish defence forces rounded up and incarcerated to help make the world a safer, more sane place. Kurdish defense forces, unlike the two countries' formal military forces were fearless in combating the ISIL militias and protecting the minority groups they terrorized.

Now, the Federal Court of Canada is hearing arguments for Canada to rise to its international obligations to repatriate Canadian citizens who chose to join this odious group of murdering Islamists. Their family members in Canada have spearheaded a drive to have 23 Canadians returned to Canada, citing the violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by ignoring their plight abroad as prisoners. Canada is held to have breached its international obligations according to a United Nations special rapporteur by not repatriating these extremist fanatics.

Two ISIL-linked women and their children have previously been brought back to Canada, both women immediately arrested, one now free on bail conditions. As for other countries, France has absorbed 58 of its ISIL members, Australia 17 nationals, Germany a dozen, Netherlands, 40, Russia 38 and Britain two. Family members of these ISIL prisoners are looking for a declaration that the government's lack of action is unreasonable; they seek a formal repatriation of the detainees, emergency travel documents and authorization of a Canadian representative to accompany them on their return to Canada.

A 1960s-era government prison in Hasaka, Syria, that the Syrian Democratic Forces has used to detain male members of ISIS.  Credit...Charlie Savage/The New York Times