When Omar Khadr was held in Guantanamo Bay, the Canadian government sent two CSIS agents to the island prison. Their objective was not to repatriate the teenager but rather to interrogate him.
Years later, in January 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that Omar Khadr’s constitutional rights were violated and that the agents who led the interrogations “offended the most basic Canadian standards of detained youth suspects.”
In 2012, with Senator Roméo Dallaire’s efforts, thousands of Canadians signed a petition to pressure then Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to repatriate Omar Khadr, who many human rights organizations considered a child soldier.
Toews insisted that Omar Khadr was not a child soldier but a terrorist.
Stigmatizing and scapegoating Khadr
According to international law, Khadr was a child soldier who should have been treated as a victim. He was arrested at the age of 15 after a July 2002 firefight in Afghanistan, in which U.S. special forces stormed the compound where he was living. Without credible evidence, the U.S. government labeled him an ‘enemy combatant,’ kept him in Guantanamo and charged him with ‘war crimes’.
Canada— his birthplace and the only home he knew— watched quietly, occasionally peaking its head from the sand to call him a terrorist.
Whether Khadr was a child soldier isn’t the central issue. When human rights advocates or lawyers highlighted a caveat that would humanize Khadr and described the horrible experiences he had been subjected to, in an attempt to rally some support around his cause, these efforts were squashed and even denied by many politicians.
For years, Canada claimed to be an international leader defending child soldiers, particularly in African countries. When it came to rescue one of its own children caught in a war zone, Canada miserably failed the test. Many politicians distanced themselves from Khadr’s case. Worse, many, including then Prime Minister Harper and his public safety minister, refused to use the term child soldier and kept calling him a terrorist, in an effort to deny him any form of justice and further stigmatize him.
In 2017, after a decades long ordeal, Omar Khadr received a settlement from the Canadian government for all the damages and trauma he was forced to endure.
You’d assume the Canadian government Canada learned from its past mistakes. But that’s clearly not the case.
Brits recruited online by ISIS, trafficked into Syria
Last week, Canadians learned that Shamima Begum, a young British woman, aged 15 in 2015, was smuggled into Syria by a man who worked as a spy for the Canadian Embassy in Jordan. During the height of ISIS recruitment efforts to draw vulnerable Western youth to their ranks, Begum flew to Turkey where she met up with a man who trafficked her into ISIS territory.
This news wasn’t a scoop.
The Canadian involvement in this case was already established by some media reports as early as 2015. However, nobody cared and it went mostly unnoticed. In fact, some media sources discredited Turkish authorities who revealed the connection between the British teenager and Canada.
Former Sunday Times correspondent, Richard Kerbaj, recently published a book and brought this story back to the limelight.
According to Kerbaj’s account and other reports, Mohamed Al Rasheed is a Syrian who asked for asylum status at the Canadian Embassy in Jordan. The Embassy asked him to become an informant and run a ‘counter-intelligence’ operation as part of a mutually beneficial deal. Speaking about the Canadian Embassy in Jordan, Al Rasheed said: “they told me they were going to grant me my Canadian citizenship if I collect information about the activities of ISIS.” From facilitating the travel of young British women, to copying their passports, to driving them around and delivering them to ISIS territory to their prospective ‘husband’s, Al Rasheed did it all.
In 2013, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed his personal bodyguard, Bruno Saccomani, as an ambassador to Jordan, despite facing many criticisms about this unusual choice.It is believed that it was under Saccomani that the counter-intelligence operation was conducted.
Who ordered and authorized this Canadian operation? It is important to determine Canada’s exact involvement and implication.
Call this what it is: a case of human trafficking
This case lies squarely at the intersection of human trafficking and the unethical actions of intelligence agencies.
Years ago, Begum tried to re-enter Britain, but in 2019 she was stripped off her British citizenship.
Today, she is still in a Syrian camp waiting to go back to her home country, where she was born and raised and where she should have been protected from online recruiters, intelligence agencies, human traffickers and spy operations.
Last week, CSIS refused to comment on this case. Prime Minister Trudeau congratulated CSIS for using “creative” and “flexible” tools to manage the case. As if brainwashing young girls and promising them some sort of a paradise as brides in a war zone is creative or flexible.
From some British and Canadian media, we learned that CSIS didn’t even share details of this operation with the London Metropolitan Police until much later, after the matter became known and they feared public scrutiny. In in one exchange with their Turkish counterparts, CSIS sent a high-level official to Ankara “to beg forgiveness for failing to inform Turkish authorities they had been running a counter-intelligence operation in their territory.”
Shamima Begum isn’t Canadian. Her British lawyers describe her case as one of blatant sex trafficking, and they are trying to convince the British authorities to reinstitute her British citizenship so she can go back and live with her family in Britain.
As Canadians, why should we care?
As a country we claim that our values are to stand against the trafficking of women and girls. We have a national plan to combat human trafficking.
So why is it when it comes to Begum, our Prime Minister averts his gaze and praises the operation? Didn’t we learn anything from the mistreatment of Khadr’s case?
It is not the first time that Canadian intelligence services pressured refugees or immigrants, particularly from Muslim countries, to become spies against their own communities.
What CSIS and. by extension the entire Canadian government did, is unethical and dangerous. Some claim that this is what spies are supposed to do.
Perhaps.
But how about transparency? Public accountability?
How can Canadians know that our country didn’t commit crimes by helping Shamima Begum, and others, travel to ISIS territory? Without this spy, it’s possible she wouldn’t have entered Syria.
We need answers.
I don’t think we can plead ignorance and say that we didn’t know about Shamima Begum or the sex trafficking or the complicity of Canadian agencies. We can’t make the same mistakes we did with the Omar Khadr case.
Begum isn’t the first, or the last
Finally, we shouldn’t forget the 43 Canadians who remain in Northern Eastern Syrian camps of Al Hol and Al Roj. Among them, are 23 Canadian children. What do we know about them? How many of them were enabled by Canadian agents? How many of them were trafficked into those dangerous territories?
Canada is still hiding its head under the sand. It is time to repatriate these Canadians and open an investigation into what CSIS has done in the case of Shamima and many others.
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
