tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/jack-letts-61074/articlesJack Letts – The Conversation2019-08-20T21:24:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1221552019-08-20T21:24:47Z2019-08-20T21:24:47Z‘Jihadi Jack’ and the folly of revoking citizenship<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288818/original/file-20190820-170914-11z7g9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C72%2C649%2C443&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jack Letts has been in a jail in Syria since 2017. The British government just stripped him of his citizenship, but he has Canadian citizenship due to his father's birth here.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">sky news</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The British government has just stripped alleged Islamic State recruit <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/18/jack-letts-stripped-british-citizenship-isis-canada">Jack Letts</a> of his United Kingdom citizenship. </p>
<p>In one sense, the move was unsurprising. The U.K. has been the undisputed leader in reviving banishment as punishment for “crimes against citizenship,” deploying it primarily against those deemed threats to national security. </p>
<p>The country’s Home Secretary <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-06-21/citizenship-stripping-new-figures-reveal-theresa-may-has-deprived-33-individuals-of-british-citizenship">favours stripping citizenship of nationals already abroad</a>, which has the convenient effect of circumventing legal accountability and human rights impediments to deportation. </p>
<p>The mildly surprising feature of the U.K.’s decision is that it has opted to make Letts Canada’s problem. Letts is currently being held in a jail in northern Syria after being captured by Kurdish forces in 2017.</p>
<p>Letts’ father is a Canadian citizen and, therefore, his son is a Canadian citizen by descent. As a result, the U.K. can deprive him of citizenship without rendering Letts stateless because he will remain a citizen of Canada. </p>
<p>With limited exceptions, international law prohibits rendering people stateless, though the U.K. plays <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1086878-guy-s-goodwin-gill-legal-opinion-on-deprivation.html">fast and loose on that front</a>. It strips citizenship from those who are dual citizens as well those who are not, but whom the Home Secretary speculates could, in the future, possibly obtain citizenship from some other country.</p>
<p>It doesn’t much matter to the U.K., really. Once discarded, the former citizen might be executed by drone strike, transferred elsewhere for prosecution or persecution or detained indefinitely by non-state armed forces. Wherever they go, it won’t be back to Britain, and whatever happens to them, they are someone else’s problem. That’s what makes citizenship deprivation, in the language of the British law, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/61">“conducive to the public good.”</a></p>
<h2>No espionage or treason</h2>
<p>Why another country should bear sole responsibility for a citizen that the U.K. disavows is an interesting question. These are not classic instances of espionage or treason, where the historic narrative underwriting stripping citizenship was that the individual betrayed one state in the service of the other state. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/shamima-begum-isis-bride-syria-police-investigation-media-court-a9044511.html">Shamima Begum</a>, a British citizen who joined the Islamic State as a 19-year-old in 2015, was not working for Bangladesh in Syria. Jack Letts was not a Canadian spy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/shamima-begum-legality-of-revoking-british-citizenship-of-islamic-state-teenager-hangs-on-her-heritage-112163">Shamima Begum: legality of revoking British citizenship of Islamic State teenager hangs on her heritage</a>
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<p>I speculate that the British government has, until Letts, traded on a tacit understanding that British Muslims with brown skin inherently “belong” less to the U.K. than to some other country where the majority of people are Muslims with brown skin — even if they were born in Great Britain and have never even visited the other country of nationality. </p>
<p>On this view, stripping citizenship merely sends the targets back to where they “really” come from. Citizenship deprivation thus delivers an exclusionary message to all non-white, non-Christian British citizens that their claim to U.K. membership is permanently precarious, however small the literal risk of citizenship deprivation.</p>
<p>Indeed, British legal scholar John Finnis explicitly flirted with a similar idea a few years ago by <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=1101522">proposing the “humane” expulsion of all Muslim non-citizens from Britain</a>.</p>
<h2>The Letts conundrum</h2>
<p>But Letts is white, his parents are middle class and Christian in upbringing (though secular in practice). His other country of citizenship, Canada, is also predominantly white and Christian in origin. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288819/original/file-20190820-170914-1tc8kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288819/original/file-20190820-170914-1tc8kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288819/original/file-20190820-170914-1tc8kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288819/original/file-20190820-170914-1tc8kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288819/original/file-20190820-170914-1tc8kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288819/original/file-20190820-170914-1tc8kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288819/original/file-20190820-170914-1tc8kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288819/original/file-20190820-170914-1tc8kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">John Letts, father of Jack Letts, a British Muslim convert and an alleged member of ISIS, is seen at a news conference in Ottawa in October 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
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<p>Canada is a staunch British ally, an important diplomatic and trading partner and a G7 member. Queen Elizabeth remains the formal head of state in Canada.</p>
<p>The illogical underpinning of citizenship deprivation now emerges clearly, shorn of implicit appeals to racism, Islamophobia and colonial arrogance. Letts is no more or less a risk to national security in Canada than the U.K. In no sense does Letts “belong” more to Canada than to the U.K., the country where he was born, raised, and that formed him.</p>
<p>The world is not made safer from terrorism when the U.K. disposes of their unwanted citizens in Canada, Bangladesh or anywhere else. The very phenomenon of foreign fighters testifies to that. </p>
<p>Claims that “citizenship is a privilege, not a right” or that the undeserving citizen forfeits citizenship by his actions is flimsy rhetoric intended to distract from the grubby opportunism that motivates citizenship revocation. </p>
<p>The U.K. does this not because it enhances the value of citizenship or makes the world safer from terrorism. It does it because it can.</p>
<p>If the British government thinks stripping citizenship is a good way for a state to respond to the challenges of national security, it must think it’s a good idea for all states. So imagine that Canada also had a citizenship revocation law. In fact, Canada’s Conservative government did enact such a law in 2014 (inspired by the U.K.), though it <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2017/10/changes_to_the_citizenshipactasaresultofbillc-6.html">was repealed</a> by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government in 2017.</p>
<p>Here is the scenario: Letts, an alleged ISIS foreign fighter, is a citizen of the U.K. and of Canada. Neither country wants to claim him. Each has the possibility of revoking his citizenship as long as Letts is not rendered stateless. </p>
<p>The result? </p>
<h2>Race to the bottom</h2>
<p>An arbitrary race to see which country could strip his citizenship first. To the loser goes the citizen — maybe Canada, maybe the U.K. </p>
<p>This every-state-for-itself race to the bottom is the antithesis of co-operation in a global struggle against radicalizaton and terrorism; one need not be schooled in game theory to recognize it as counterproductive parochialism. Once states contemplate the possibility of being on the receiving end of citizenship stripping, the tactic doesn’t look quite so clever. </p>
<p>Until now, the U.K. has targeted individuals whose other state of nationality lacked the resources or diplomatic heft to challenge the British practice under international law. Maybe it’s time for Canada to step up, and to work with other countries, to pressure the U.K. and other states to abandon citizenship revocation as a means of disavowing “bad citizens.”</p>
<p>The Letts case reminds us that citizenship revocation policies can bite back. Any country that seeks to dispose of their citizens in this way may some day be a disposal site for other countries. If human rights aren’t enough of a reason to abolish citizenship revocation, and undermining global co-operation isn’t enough either, perhaps self-interest can tip the balance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122155/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Audrey Macklin is a Trudeau Fellow (2017) and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (2019).</span></em></p>The decision by the British government to revoke citizenship of a U.K.-born man puts Canada in a conundrum and raises serious questions about the practice of stripping citizenship.Audrey Macklin, Professor and Chair in Human Rights Law, Director of the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1220812019-08-20T13:55:18Z2019-08-20T13:55:18ZWhy the UK could regret angering Canada by stripping IS suspect Jack Letts of British citizenship<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288733/original/file-20190820-170935-1c3obx4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=257%2C1%2C901%2C580&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jack Letts was told by ITV News that he had been stripped of his British citizenship. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6PTylyos1E">'Jihadi Jack' learns from ITV News he's no longer a British citizen via YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Canadian government is furious. Jack Letts, a British-Canadian man who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State (IS), <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/jihadi-jack-stripped-of-uk-citizenship-sky-sources-11788024">has been stripped</a> of his British citizenship by the UK government. The decision was taken by Sajid Javid, reportedly in one of his last acts as home secretary before becoming chancellor in Boris Johnson’s government. </p>
<p>Letts, who is currently in a Kurdish-run prison in northern Syria, is now left solely with Canadian citizenship. </p>
<p>Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has made no effort to hide its anger. Its minister of public safety, Ralph Goodale, who has parallel security powers to the UK home secretary, said in a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/jihadi-jack-citizenship-uk-canada-1.5251437">statement</a>: </p>
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<p>Terrorism knows no borders, so countries need to work together to keep each other safe. Canada is disappointed that the United Kingdom has taken this unilateral action to offload their responsibilities.</p>
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<p>In an interview with the BBC, Canadian MP John McKay, chair of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, described the British decision to strip Letts of his citizenship as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0007q9m">“gutless.”</a></p>
<h2>Campaign issue for Trudeau</h2>
<p>On the surface, the source of Canadian irritation isn’t hard to understand. Letts is a Canadian citizen through his father, but <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/07/jack-letts-our-son-the-terror-suspect-john-letts-sally-lane-interview">his entire life has been British</a>. He was born in the UK, grew up in the UK, went to school in the UK, converted to Islam in the UK, and left for Syria from the UK. He is a made-in-the-UK problem, but now the solution to his current situation is solely Canada’s responsibility.</p>
<p>The issue of citizenship has deep significance for the Trudeau government. During the 2015 Canadian federal election campaign, Trudeau made a campaign issue out of the efforts by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper to strip Canadian citizenship from dual citizens convicted of terrorism, espionage or treason.</p>
<p>During an election debate, Trudeau memorably told Harper that a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxCxzXcMGlc">“Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”</a> and that removing citizenship from some diminished it for all. Once in power, Trudeau’s government <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/citizenship-act-amendments-senate-thursday-1.4163656">repealed Harper’s law</a> while retaining the right to strip Canadians of their citizenship if they fraudulently obtained it.</p>
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<p>How to deal with citizens who have gone abroad allegedly to support IS remains a pressing issue for a number of Western countries. The British government has now repeatedly tried to address the matter by stripping people of British citizenship where possible, most <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/shamima-begum-uk-citizenship-stripped-home-office-sajid-javid-a8788301.html">prominently in the case of Shamima Begum</a>, a London schoolgirl who travelled to Syria and married a Dutch member of IS. </p>
<p>In that context, Letts’s treatment represents a win-win-win for the British government. The act demonstrates that it isn’t just non-white Britons such as Begum who are being targeted for such treatment. It also ensures that Letts won’t be a security issue in the UK in the future, and it plays well in some quarters of the media where Letts has been nicknamed <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9750992/jihadi-jack-dad-isis-torture/">“Jihadi Jack.”</a></p>
<h2>Not the time to anger allies</h2>
<p>With an eye on Britain’s post-Brexit future, however, the treatment of Canada has a wider significance that seems absent from debate about the Letts case in the UK. Canada is a colonial creation of the UK and the two have close historical ties that continue today. The apparent lack of consideration for Ottawa’s perspective in the Letts case represents a certain lingering colonial arrogance on the part of the British government.</p>
<p>At one time, London could have snubbed a close friend, ally, and former colony without consequences. But now, as it prepares to leave the European Union, Britain needs all of the friends and trade agreements it can get. One of Dominic Raab’s first destinations after becoming foreign secretary in the new Johnson government was to Ottawa to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/06/raab-says-brexit-will-bring-huge-series-of-upsides-for-uk-trade">discuss the possibility of a Canada-UK trade agreement.</a></p>
<p>Ironically, given the revocation of Letts’s British citizenship, when Raab met with Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland, her focus was not on a trade agreement but rather on the <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/freeland-british-counterpart-share-views-on-canadians-detained-in-china-1.4538319">treatment of Canadian citizens</a> currently imprisoned in China. </p>
<p>Canadian priorities are not going to be more favourably inclined toward the needs of the Johnson government for a trade deal given the Letts case. It may not just be members of the EU offering a frosty reception to Johnson at the upcoming G7 summit in Biarritz. Post-Brexit Britain will soon discover that loyalty is a two-way street.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Hewitt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The UK needs all the friends it can get after Brexit – angering Canada isn’t a good move.Steve Hewitt, Senior Lecturer in the Dept of History & the American and Canadian Studies Research Centre, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1203112019-08-19T14:39:41Z2019-08-19T14:39:41ZJack Letts: why revoking citizenship from IS recruits hasn’t caused an outcry – even from those who object<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288498/original/file-20190819-123731-saaogz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C6%2C1069%2C553&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jack Letts: no longer a British citizen. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeBab40Ooe8">'Jihadi Jack' makes appeal to come home via SkyNews on YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jack Letts, a man from Oxford who joined Islamic State (IS) and is currently in a Kurdish-run prison in Syria, was <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/jihadi-jack-stripped-of-uk-citizenship-sky-sources-11788024">stripped of his British citizenship</a> by the former home secretary, Sajid Javid, reportedly in one of his final acts before becoming chancellor. In June, Letts admitted in an interview <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48624104">with the BBC</a> that he had been ready to become a suicide bomber and to being an “enemy of Britain”. He said: “I made a big mistake.” </p>
<p>Letts has dual Canadian nationality through his father and so has not been left stateless, but Canada said it <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/jihadi-jack-citizenship-uk-canada-1.5251437">was disappointed</a> by the decision to revoke his British citizenship. Two former British ministers have also <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/foreign-affairs/news/105978/sajid-javid-facing-tory-backlash-and-canada-rift-after-stripping">spoken out against</a> the decision, on the grounds that it sets a bad example and could potentially undermine anti-extremism work. Such reactions may be partly driven by international perception and the potential of damaged relations with <a href="https://www.news18.com/news/world/canada-slams-uk-decision-to-off-load-islamic-state-fighter-jihadi-jack-2275597.html">Canada, a traditional British ally</a>. </p>
<p>The issue of nationality is crucial. It is <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/british-citizenship-removal-isis-terrorists-extremists-stateless-illegal-blocked-court-bangladesh-a8645241.html">illegal</a> to leave a person stateless by stripping them of their citizenship. Crucially, Letts has never been tried in a British court.</p>
<p>His case has similarities with that of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/31/sajid-javid-accused-shamima-begum-case-syria">Shamima Begum</a>, the British teenager whose citizenship was revoked in February 2019, although her family has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/10/lawyer-for-uk-isis-woman-shamima-begum-says-police-building-criminal-case">lodged an appeal</a>. The decision to revoke her citizenship was partly taken on the basis that she had dual Bangladeshi nationality and so would not be made stateless – but this point has yet to be challenged in court. </p>
<h2>No outcry</h2>
<p>Begum’s case gained widespread media attention, but there was little, if any, public outcry over the decisions to revoke her British citizenship. A <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/f6385dae-34fd-11e9-af57-67fad969c339">YouGov poll</a> in February found that 76% of those surveyed supported the decision. It is early days, and therefore too soon to tell the public reaction to the Letts case. </p>
<p>But why are potentially unjust decisions or actions by governments readily accepted by their populations? It’s a question that my colleagues and I have considered as part of our wider research <a href="https://www.uclan.ac.uk/research/explore/projects/the-peace-and-justice-studies-network.php">into peace and justice</a>. </p>
<p>Our interest in public acceptance of the state’s action doesn’t ignore the potential difficulties in challenging acts of parliament. These can only be <a href="https://www.leighday.co.uk/Human-rights-abuse-claims-judicial-review/Further-insights/Judicial-review">challenged by judicial review</a>, and on limited EU or human rights grounds. The challenger must have “sufficient interest” in the outcome – conditions which are not simple to meet – and few would have the legal knowledge to undertake such action. </p>
<p>The public can still mobilise support for reviews or appeals, or make their disquiet known via political protest, or <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12478">social media</a>. But there hasn’t been a widespread social media campaign against the UK’s decision to revoke British citizenship of IS fighters. </p>
<h2>Not an ‘ideal’ victim</h2>
<p>Even if observers doubt the legality or morality of abandoning a fellow citizen in a Syrian camp, they may justify such actions via the technique of what’s called “<a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396607/obo-9780195396607-0140.xml">neutralisation</a>”. The term was originally applied to offenders, but is a technique used to neutralise any guilt we may experience for our action or inaction. It refers to the practice of denying responsibility, appealing to higher loyalties such as UK interests, asserting our own good character, and claiming ourselves to be potential victims – in this case, of terrorism. </p>
<p>The claim by Begum’s lawyer that she was a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48444604">victim of grooming</a> gained little public support, perhaps because of a perception that she is not innocent, nor an “<a href="http://criticallegalthinking.com/2015/08/05/nils-christies-ideal-victim-applied-from-lions-to-swarms/">ideal victim</a>”. </p>
<p>When Begum was interviewed by journalists, she showed neither weakness nor repentance and appeared antagonistic to a British way of life, despite her desire to access British <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/14/shamima-begum-friends-kadiza-sultana-amira-abase-joined-isis-syria">medical care</a> for her son, who later died. Public opinion is scathing of those who reject perceived <a href="https://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/learners/uk-life/life-uk-test/values-and-principles-uk">British values</a> and related responsibilities, yet seek the benefits that come from British rights, such as medical care and education. </p>
<p>This linking of rights and responsibilities feeds into wider research showing that citizenship is increasingly <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14782804.2017.1397503">framed in terms of a privilege</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/09/terror-suspects-british-citizenship-european-ruling">not a right</a>, by those countries stepping up removal of it, and seeking to legitimise doing so.</p>
<h2>Fear enables actions to go unchallenged</h2>
<p>Both Begum and Letts stoke fears about potential terrorism attacks in Britain, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40971987?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">and research</a> has long argued that fear enables the restriction of civil liberties. </p>
<p>It’s possible that part of the vitriol against Begum is because she’s seen as an “<a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/1/28/14425658/fear-of-refugees-explained">outsider</a>” – a non-white British Muslim. Such fear of “the other” can be interpreted as <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/xenophobia">xenophobia</a>. But these fears don’t operate in a vacuum. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-45784642">Recent research</a> also suggests that young people living in the UK also have extreme fears about terrorism, reportedly fuelled by social media reports on extreme acts. </p>
<p>In a fearful climate, seeing others you believe may harm you can evoke considerable anxiety and animosity. Both these emotions can enable illegitimate actions to go unchallenged. And even those people who have serious concerns about the actions of their government may not publicly protest, offer support, or challenge the decision, perhaps <a href="https://www.brainfoodblog.com/blog/2017/9/13/bystander-effect-and-sending-help">believing others will</a>, or fearing repercussions if they do so. </p>
<p>If people are challenged about why they didn’t speak out about a particular case, they may admit that justice was miscarried and express a hope that the mistake will be corrected on appeal, or claim that the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/icon/article/12/1/35/628590">law provided for an exception</a>. </p>
<p>While governments may not always keep to the strict letter of the <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/rule-of-law">rule of law</a> – a fundamental British value – public opinion is often driven less by such concerns, than by emotional, if irrational, responses in perceived emergency situations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim McGuire does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why do people readily accept potentially unjust decisions by their government?Kim McGuire, Senior Lecturer, Lancashire Law School, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1051982018-10-17T22:55:56Z2018-10-17T22:55:56ZWhy Canada must prosecute returning ISIS fighters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241118/original/file-20181017-41122-br0nrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nadia Murad, co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, listens to a question at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8, 2018.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/06/nadia-murad-isis-sex-slave-nobel-peace-prize">Human rights champion Nadia Murad</a> was recently co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In August 2014, Murad’s village in northern Iraq was attacked by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and she was sold into sexual slavery.</p>
<p>She managed to escape, sought asylum in Germany in 2015 and has fought for the rights of the Yazidi minority ever since. Upon becoming a Nobel laureate, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nobel-prize-peace-murad-statement/yazidi-activist-nadia-murad-on-receiving-the-nobel-peace-prize-idUSKCN1MF1XE">she said:</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We must work together with determination — so that genocidal campaigns will not only fail, but lead to accountability for the perpetrators. Survivors deserve justice. And a safe and secure pathway home.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Accountability has become a key issue. While the United States-led international coalition has dislodged ISIS from the cities it had occupied and controlled, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/world/middleeast/isis-syria-raqqa.html">namely Mosul and Raqqa</a>, the group is weakened but not dead. </p>
<h2>ISIS remains a force in the Middle East</h2>
<p>Both the U.S. Department of Defense and the United Nations estimate that approximately <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20180823-counting-islamic-state-members-impossible-task">30,000 ISIS fighters</a> remain in those countries.</p>
<p>At the same time, a significant number of foreign fighters from places like Canada, the U.K. and Australia have fled Iraq and Syria. Numerous countries are struggling to find <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/world/australia/citizenship-isis-khaled-sharrouf.html">policy solutions</a> on how to manage the return of their nationals who had joined the group. </p>
<p>The Canadian government has stated publicly that it favours taking a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/hamilton-trudeau-town-hall-1.4481025">comprehensive approach</a> of reintegrating returnees back into society. Very few foreign fighters who have returned to Canada have been prosecuted.</p>
<p>Things are about to become much more complicated for officials in Ottawa. Stewart Bell of <em>Global News</em>, reporting recently from Northern Syria, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4526514/canadian-isis-caught-in-turkey/">interviewed</a> Canadian ISIS member Muhammad Ali who is being held by Kurdish forces in a makeshift prison.</p>
<p>Ali admits to having joined ISIS and acting as a sniper, and playing soccer with severed heads. He also has a digital record of using social media to incite others to commit violent attacks against civilians and recruiting others to join the group.</p>
<p>Another suspected ISIS member, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/06/suspected-british-isis-fighter-could-face-repatriation-to-canada">Jack Letts</a>, a dual Canadian-British national, is also locked up in northern Syria. The same Kurdish forces are adamant that the government of Canada repatriate all Canadian citizens they captured on the battlefield.</p>
<h2>Soft on terror or Islamophobic</h2>
<p>The issue of how to manage the return of foreign fighters has resulted in highly political debates in Ottawa, demonstrating strong <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/plan-to-deal-with-returning-isis-fighters-sparks-fiery-exchange-between-scheer-pm-1.3698183">partisan differences</a> on policy choices and strategies to keep Canadians safe. </p>
<p>The Liberal government has been accused of being soft on terrorism and national security, while the Conservative opposition has been charged with “fear mongering” and “Islamophobia” for wanting a tougher approach, namely prosecuting returnees.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A member of the Asaish Kurdish security force shows a reporter the inside of an ISIS fighters house in February 2017 in Bashiqa, Iraq. The town in the Mosul district was liberated in November 2016 after being under ISIS control for two years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the most important point is that Canada has both a moral and legal duty to seek justice and uphold the most basic human rights of vulnerable populations. </p>
<p>ISIS and other jihadi groups have engaged in systematic mass atrocities against minorities in Iraq and Syria, including Christians and Shiites. ISIS has demonstrated a particular disdain for the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/A_HRC_32_CRP.2_en.pdf">Yazidi minority in Iraq</a>. The Canadian government <a href="http://natoassociation.ca/canadian-government-acknowledges-isis-genocide-against-the-yazidis-now-what/">recognized the group’s crimes against the Yazidis</a> as genocide. </p>
<p>As a state party to the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf">Rome Statute</a> of the International Criminal Court, and a signatory of the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crimeofgenocide.aspx">Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide</a>, Canada has a responsibility to uphold these international legal conventions when formulating carefully crafted policy responses that deal with returning foreign fighters.</p>
<h2>Trials can serve as deterrents</h2>
<p>Canada has the option to prosecute its nationals in domestic courts using the <a href="http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-45.9/page-2.html#h-5">Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act</a>.</p>
<p>Open trials can serve as means by which to lay bare ISIS’s narrative and to help counter violent extremism and future atrocities. </p>
<p>They can also serve as a deterrent and warning to other Canadians who might try to join ISIS as it mutates and moves to other countries in the world like Libya, Afghanistan, Egypt, the Philippines, Pakistan or in Mali, where Canadian peacekeepers have just been deployed.</p>
<p>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. No doubt Nadia Murad would agree.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle Matthews is affiliated with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute </span></em></p>If Canada truly stands for multiculturalism, pluralism, the rule of law, global justice, human rights and the liberal international order, we must prosecute our citizens who have fought with ISIS.Kyle Matthews, Executive Director, The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.