Syrian Canadians say they fear they will face prosecution in Canada for visiting family in the country of their birth under a new law that is being proposed by Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.
(Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
And experts say the ban Mr. Harper is promising to place on travel to regions controlled by terrorists is more about politicking during an election year than reducing attacks by agents of the Islamic State in this country.
“There is a lot of concern,” Faisal Alazem, a spokesman for the Syrian Canadian Council, said Monday of the proposed travel ban. “It’s not passing very well, I can tell you, in the community.”
Hundreds of Syrian Canadians travel back to Syria every year, said Mr. Alazem. Some take part in medical missions in the war-torn country and some work as journalists – both groups that the Conservatives say would be exempted from prosecution under the proposed new law.
But there are also people who travel there to visit family members, said Mr. Alazem. “I know personally of cases of people that went to visit their parents that were very old, that couldn’t make the trip to Turkey so they crossed from Turkey into Syria,” he said.
Although radicalized Westerners have been caught trying to cross the Turkish border into Syria to join the Islamic State, that is not the only reason why someone might want to sneak into the country, said Mr. Alazem. Innocent people also take that route, he said, to avoid the eye of the Syrian government that has been known to make people disappear over an unfavourable posting on social media.
Mr. Harper, who was campaigning Monday in Markham, north of Toronto, defended the ban, saying it would apply only to those regions that are under the control of terrorists.
There is already legislation in Canada that forbids Canadians from travelling abroad to fight with terrorist groups, but this would ban the act of travel itself.
“We’re talking about a very small number of areas in the world – obviously parts of Iraq and Syria would be the kinds of areas that we’re talking about,” said Mr. Harper. “Frankly, these are not areas where families go. These are areas where we know why people are really going. They are going for terrorist training.”
In addition to diplomats, aid workers and reporters, people who go to these dangerous areas to fight against Canada’s enemies would also be exempt from prosecution, a Conservative spokesman said Tuesday – though he stressed that his party would discourage such mercenary activity.
Ian Bradbury, the founder of the 1st North American Expeditionary Force, which provides trainers, mentors and advisers to foreign militaries, including the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional government in its fight against the Islamic State, said in an e-mail that he supports the proposed travel ban.
“However, I believe it is a half measure that addresses only a symptom of a much bigger problem and does little towards fixing more critical root problems,” Mr. Bradbury said. “Ultimately, our nation’s response to ISIS and the humanitarian crisis they have left in their wake and those of our global partners has been totally insufficient thus far.”
