October 22, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ottawa, ON – The Honourable Michelle Rempel, Shadow Minister for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and Pierre Paul-Hus, Shadow Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, issued a statement calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to prioritize the rights of the victims of ISIS:

“Today, the House of Commons is debating a Conservative motion calling on the Trudeau government to table a plan to immediately bring justice to Canadians who acted as ISIS terrorists. These individuals are complicit in genocide.

“Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nadia Murad, has been calling for justice for the Yazidi people who have experienced genocide at the hands of ISIS. It is not enough to merely say “never again.”

”Canada must take immediate action to seek true justice for the Yazidi people and all other ethnic and religious minority groups who have been persecuted by ISIS, including women whose bodies, through rape and sexual slavery at the hands of ISIS, have been used as weapons of war.

“Today, Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives call upon Justin Trudeau to:
• Focus first on bringing the perpetrators of genocide and terrorist acts to justice, and ensure courts have access to evidence gathered against suspected terrorists.
• Strive to keep Canadians safe from those who are suspected of committing acts of terrorism or genocide abroad but have returned to Canada, by ensuring that security agencies would be adequately resourced to provide high levels of monitoring and surveillance of their activities in Canada.
• Encourage greater use of tools to place conditions on those suspected of terrorist or genocidal activities, such as peace bonds, which can include conditions such as wearing an electronic monitoring device, returning to and remaining at their place of residence at specified times, and controlling social media use. Liberals are making it harder for security officials to monitor suspected terrorists by changing the rules around peace bonds.
• Processes to bring perpetrators of atrocity crimes to justice are slow, fail victims, and prevents them from returning home. Canada should lead immediate reforms to ensure justice is swift. Canada should also support initiatives which are taking concrete action to bring justice and treatment to women whose bodies, through rape, have been used a weapon of war.
• Support initiatives such as the one proposed Premier Doug Ford to ensure that terrorists who have returned to Canada are restricted from taking advantage of Canada’s generous social programs as part of their reintegration.

“Justin Trudeau has to date, failed to take action. Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives are calling on the Prime Minister to immediately table a plan to serve justice to anyone who left our country to fight with this heinous terrorist organization.”

Supportive Quotes:

“The victims of Genocide accept nothing but fair and just accountability by the free world. We expect Canada to lead the process. Closure and healing for thousands of innocent people whose lives were completely destroyed by ISIS does not come when justice is not served in the court.”

“Those who had a perfect life in Canada and elsewhere, but decided to go to Syria and Iraq, to enslave women, children, and behead men, shall not be allowed to return to the streets of Ottawa as though nothing happened, but they have to be shown to the world as perpetrators of one of the worst crimes of our time.”

“We thank the Canadian government for the support of Genocide victims. We also we want Canada to help achieve justice in the way that they helped the survivors. Canada should continue to support not only Yazidi women who survived ISIS, but Yazidi men who miraculously escaped death, because only through their stories will we know what happened to an entire community.” – Laila Khoudeida, Co-Founder of Yazda Organization

“If Canada truly stands for multiculturalism, pluralism, the rule of law, global justice, human rights and the liberal international order, then we must be firm and take a principled stand to prosecute those have fought with ISIS. That includes our own citizens.” – Kyle Matthews, Executive Director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies

“We would like to express our gratitude for Canada for supporting the Yazidi community. A resolution on holding ISIS accountability is the right step and this will encourage the Yazidi victims of Genocide. Every individual involved in the commitment of Yazidi genocide and other mass crimes should be held accountable and we expect and hope other democratic countries all around the world will bring justice to victims and punish those who committed crimes.” Saib Khidir, Yazidi Member of Iraqi Parliament

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