A mother's hopes to free her son from a Syrian prison is revitalized by a new human rights report
CTV
Just days before the seventh anniversary of the day Jack Letts was thrown in prison with thousands of suspected ISIS fighters, his mother, Sally Lane, delivered a small stack of envelopes to the headquarters of Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa.
Just days before the seventh anniversary of the day Jack Letts was thrown in prison with thousands of suspected ISIS fighters, his mother, Sally Lane, delivered a small stack of envelopes to the headquarters of Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa.
The letters were addressed to Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc and two other consular affairs officials. They represent a desperate mother’s latest attempt to push for the return of her son who is languishing in a prison in northeast Syria.
The letter written by her immigration lawyer, Barbara Jackman, who represents Letts, referred to an “imminent” repatriation flight scheduled to bring back Canadian children and requested that he also be put on that plane.
There are at least 23 Canadians detained in camps and prisons operated by Kurdish forces, including four men. One Quebec woman and three foreign mothers have been told by the federal government that they are not eligible to return to Canada with their children. Last week, news broke that the Quebec mother had disappeared from the camp, leaving her six children to fend for themselves in Al-Roj camp.
According to Jackman, Canada has organized eight repatriation flights, usually in partnership with the U.S government, since 2020. Canada has brought back women and child detainees from Syria, but no men.
She believes that Global Affairs officials are planning to send a plane to bring the vulnerable children to Canada.
“I am writing to you as counsel for Jack Letts, a Canadian citizen who has repeatedly requested repatriation from northeast Syria, where he has been unlawfully arbitrarily detained since May 3, 2017. I urgently request that my client be placed on that same aircraft and brought back to his family in Canada,” Jackman wrote.
