A lawyer representing a group of six Afghan nationals, including two soccer players who played on the Afghanistan women’s national soccer team, says the women fear that the Taliban will “harm them” or “kill them” if they are not brought to Canada.
The soccer players have applied for a judicial review that alleges the Canadian government issued them visas in the form of “facilitation letters” in 2021, their lawyer says, but has still not granted them safe refuge.
Maureen Silcoff, a Canadian refugee and immigration lawyer representing the group of Afghan nationals with Sujit Choudhry, told CTV’s Your Morning last week that the facilitation letters given to the two players indicated a clear promise that they were being issued Canadian visas.
According to court documents provided to CTV News, the facilitation letters were issued by Sen. Marilou McPhedran. The senator previously said she believes she sent about 640 letters to Afghan nationals in 2021.
The identities of the two Afghan women and the other four Afghan nationals Silcoff is representing have been redacted in the court documents provided to CTV News for their safety.
In April, The Canadian Press reported, McPhendran told the House immigration committee that she had been given a template for the visa facilitation letter by George Young, who at the time was serving as chief-of-staff for the minister of national defence.
Facilitation letters shown in the court documents given to CTV News say, “The Canadian Government validates that the names identified below have been granted a VISA to enter
Canada. Please allow these persons safe travel to the Hamid Karzai International Airport so that they can board their organized flight.”
The letters are stamped by Global Affairs Canada and include the federal government’s letterhead.
International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan, who served as minister of national defence in 2021, told the House immigration committee he was unaware that McPhendran had sent facilitation letters to Afghan nationals in 2021 because he was not checking his email at the time.
Silcoff told Your Morning that the facilitation letters sent to the soccer players also include a message from FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino, who at the time was working with McPhendran to help issue these letters.
“[FIFA] helped obtain the visa facilitation letters from Canada,” Silcoff said, “and they issued these letters to female players and others associated with them, because FIFA understood the severe risk that these people faced.”
But according to federal officials, those who received facilitation letters were informed of the limitations at the time.
CTV News reached out to Global Affairs Canada for comment, and was directed to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
In a statement, IRCC spokesperson Remi Lariviere said the federal government sent letters such as those the Afghan women said they received to eligible Afghan nationals to "help them clear checkpoints on the way to and at the airport in Kabul in August 2021."
The IRCC did not authorize any third parties to issue these letters on its behalf, the department said.
But, Lariviere said, these letters did not confer status or rights, and were not valid for travel to Canada.
"They could not be used to enter Canada or board a flight to Canada. This information was explained to IRCC applicants receiving authentic facilitation letters," Lariviere said in an email Wednesday. "The facilitation letters were solely intended for use within Afghanistan to assist applicants to navigate Taliban checkpoints to travel to the Kabul airport and the staging area near the airport during the evacuation period."
The federal government has in place special measures to support Afghan refugees, through which more than 30,000 people have entered the country.
Unless refugees are able to connect with a private sponsor, they can't apply directly to Canada for resettlement.
Instead they must be identified by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for resettlement, then will be "carefully screened," for issues related to security, criminality and health, the federal government says.
The UNHCR says those seeking asylum in Canada can apply once physically present in Canada, or when trying to enter at a port of entry, though they must meet certain criteria.
Unlike travelling to Canada from some countries, such as the U.S. and much of Europe, those coming to Canada from Afghanistan must have a visa to visit or pass through.
According to Silcoff, as it stands, there are no other immigration options for the soccer players.
“They're living in fear and they're living in hiding, and I think the time to act is now.”
Silcoff said that these two players are especially vulnerable because they were part of the team that came forward in 2018 with allegations that Keramuddin Karim, then-president of the Afghan Football Federation, had sexually assaulted players on the Afghan women's soccer team.
“The FIFA ethics committee had found that [Karim] had perpetrated sexual assault and engaged in sexual misconduct against players on the team,” Silcoff said.
Karim remains in Afghanistan and is aligned with the Taliban, the lawyer said.
“The impact on players is severe,” Silcoff told Your Morning, “because soccer wasn't simply a pastime for them, it was actually their profession. And not only that, it was a symbol of freedom for them. It was a symbol of empowerment for them. And it also showed the possibilities that the future held for Afghan women.”
Silcoff said the Taliban is targeting female athletes still living in Afghanistan.
“Not only have their dreams been shattered, but they don't know, from day to day, whether the Taliban will find them and harm them, or possibly even kill them.”
With files from The Canadian Press
