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Hundreds protest against deportation of
Palestinians: Demonstrators say failed refugee claimants to be returned to Gaza
Strip and West Bank Montreal Gazette Sunday,
By CATHERINE SOLYOM
Whatever side of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict you may be on, it's clear from the endless
headlines that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are not the safest places to
be.
Yet Canada is nevertheless set to
deport about 40 Palestinians over the next few months, said a group of about 500
demonstrators as they marched through downtown Montreal yesterday.
"They're deporting people back to
military occupation," said Rabie Masri of the Coalition Against the
Deportation of Palestinian Refugees, one of several groups that organized the
demonstration down Ste. Catherine St. W. yesterday. "We hope (Paul
Martin's) minority government will finally put an end to this situation."
Masri said it's not easy - bureaucratically speaking - for the Canadian
government to deport stateless Palestinians. Sometimes it must deal with two
different countries: first with Jordan for those going back to the West Bank,
and with Egypt for those going to Gaza. There are currently six young
Palestinians in Montreal living underground to avoid being sent back there,
Masri said.
Ahmad Mustapha, 26, may soon be in the
same situation. "Like the 40 others, I have been refused refugee
status," said Mustapha, an engineer who was born and raised in a refugee
camp in Lebanon. "I'm basically waiting to be deported." He and others
at the march decried the system that refused them in the first place. Since
2002, it is up to one Immigration and Refugee Board judge to decide the fate of
refugee claimants, often with little knowledge of the home country, and with no
chance for claimants to appeal based on the merits of their case.
When Mustapha explained that he
couldn't get work in Lebanon, for example, an IRB judge told him he hadn't
looked hard enough. "But as a Palestinian it is illegal for me to work as
an engineer in Lebanon," he said.
As demonstrators marked the anniversary
of the massacres at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in Lebanon - on Sept. 16
to 18, 1982, up to 2,000 Palestinians were killed by right-wing Christian
militias - they also expressed particular concern for the Ayoub family
here.
Before coming to Canada three years
ago, Khalil Ayoub, 67, Nabih Ayoub, 69, and his wife, Therese Boulos Haddad, 62,
had been living on the run or in refugee camps for about 50 years. Now they have
spent more than seven months confined to the basement of a Notre Dame de Grace
church to avoid deportation, with no response from Immigration Minister Judy
Sgro other than to say refugee claimants should not seek sanctuary in
churches.
"(The Ayoubs) could be your
parents or your grandparents," Masri told the crowd of about 500 people.
"All we want is for them to be able to live the last few years of their
life in dignity and peace in Canada."
csolyom@thegazette.canwest.com
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