Two Canadian women and at least one child have been freed from an ISIS detention camp in Syria, CTV News has confirmed.
The women include Kimberly Polman, who was arrested by Kurdish fighters in Syria in 2019 and detained for her alleged association to ISIS. The other woman and her daughter have not been identified. Polman is expected to arrive in Montreal Tuesday night.
Polman has insisted that she was lured to Syria in 2015 by her husband, an ISIS member who she met online. Speaking to CTV National News earlier in 2022, Polman described dire camp conditions and her deteriorating health.
"Mentally, I’ve gone downhill, especially the last year," Polman said at the time. "I attempted to take my life several times and I can see serious signs of depression in some of the other Canadian women as well."
Polman, the other woman and the child were being held in Roj camp in northeastern Syria, which is currently home to more than 2,600 internally displaced persons (IDPs), and reportedly includes the wives, widows and families of ISIS members.
"I wish that I hadn't got caught up in a world of lies," Polman previously said from the detention camp.
Nearly 50 Canadians are believed to be held in camps like these in northeastern Syria, which are run by U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters. According to Human Rights Watch, more than half of those Canadians are children, many under the age of seven.
Canada has appeared hesitant to repatriate adult citizens from Syrian detention camps, while countries like Germany, Denmark and France have organized releases with the help of local Kurdish officials.
In Sept. 2021, Ottawa-base lawyer Lawrence Greenspon sued the federal government on behalf of 11 families in an effort to bring 26 Canadians home from Syria: 14 children, four men and eight women, Polman included.
"They are living in terrible, terrible conditions and we are going to federal court to try and require Global Affairs Canada to make an official request for their repatriation," Greenspon told CTV National News on Tuesday. "All that [Kurdish officials in Syria] require is an official request by Canada in order to make that happen."
Greenspon filed a similar motion in 2020 for a five-year-old orphan, who was quickly brought to Canada to live with family members after a Canadian delegation met with Kurdish officials to finalize her release. Another four-year-old girl was brought to Canada from a Syrian camp in 2021, but her Canadian mother was left behind. Greenspon is still awaiting official confirmation from Global Affairs Canada about Polman's release; once verified, he says it will be a significant development.
"Being the first time that Global Affairs Canada is involved in the repatriation of an adult woman, it gives hope to all of the remaining Canadians that they hopefully will be brought home as soon as possible," said Greenspon, who is now trying to repatriate 23 Canadians in Syria. "Our position has always been that more than 20 countries have so far successfully and safely repatriated thousands of their nationals."
In Jan. 2021, Global Affairs Canada quietly adopted a policy framework that may have allowed Polman to qualify for "extraordinary assistance" and repatriation due to an "imminent, life-threatening medical condition, with no prospect of receiving medical treatment" in Syria. Global Affairs Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Feb. 2022, United Nations human rights experts issued a press release urging Canadian authorities to repatriate Polman, "who has life threatening illnesses, and who is being held at a camp under conditions meeting the threshold of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment." A Doctors Without Borders examination found Polman was suffering from conditions like hepatitis.
"The Canadian authorities’ outright refusal to assist her so that she has urgent access to healthcare, or at the very least to facilitate the transfer of money from her family so that she is able to improve her health and living conditions, is a clear violation of her right to health and could amount to violations of the right to life and the prohibition of cruel and inhumane treatment," the UN experts said.
According to a February 2022 Human Rights Watch article, Global Affairs Canada simply needed to email proper Kurdish authorities in Syria to secure the release of Polman and an unnamed child; a former U.S. ambassador even agreed to escort them to the nearest Canadian consulate in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi's Kurdistan Region, to ensure Canadian officials wouldn't be put in harm's way.
"Following the fall of the Islamic State in northeast Syria, they were rounded up with tens of thousands of other foreigners and Syrians and Iraqis in this region by the Kurdish-led authorities," Human Rights Watch Canada director Farida Deif explained to CTV National News. "The women and children were placed in detention camps, the men were placed in prisons."
In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch described Polman as a U.S.-Canadian dual citizen who converted to Islam as an adult and mostly lived in Canada before travelling to Syria to be an ISIS nurse. Although Polman has expressed remorse and regret for her decisions, Deif says there has been "a lack of political will" to bring detainees like her home.
"While we welcome the steps that have been taken to repatriate a handful of Canadians, really this sort of piecemeal approach that the Canadian government is taking is ineffective," Deif added. "They should all be repatriated to Canada, rehabilitated, reintegrated, and anyone who may have committed crimes should be prosecuted here in Canada for those crimes."
Alexandra Bain, the director of Families Against Violent Extremism, says some have been detained in Syria for as long as four years.
"Canada has abandoned these people: they have never sent any food, they have never sent any water, they've never sent medicines, no books for kids," Bain told CTV National News. "Our organization has gone in four times and we're preparing for a fifth, and the Canadian government has done absolutely nothing to help these families."
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin and Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino separately declined to comment on the Canadians' release.
"We are of course aware of Canadians being detained in Syria, and we spend a lot of time monitoring them with stakeholders and watch carefully and what's going," Trudeau said. "We particularly pay attention to the wellbeing of children in that area, but as you know, I don't comment on direct operations."
Mendicino said it will be up to law enforcement agencies to decide if the women could face charges in Canada.
"Supporting a terrorist group, whether here or abroad, is a serious criminal offence, and those who engage in that kind of activity will face the full force of the law," the public safety minister said. "Our number one concern will always be the safety and security of Canadians."
With files from CTV National News Parliamentary Bureau Reporter Annie Bergeron-Oliver and CTV National News Chief International Correspondent Paul Workman
