It shouldn’t take a court order.
I’ve been following the story of Suaad Hagi Mohamud since I first read about her on the Toronto Star in July. It infuriates me.
The short form appears to be: a Somalia-born Canadian citizen, in Kenya to visit her mother, was detained at the Nairobi airport when on her way home to Toronto. Airport security staff felt that she did not ressemble her passport photo, and apparently refused to accept Mohamud’s other identification, including several other pieces of photo ID, and she was not permitted to board her flight; she was held in airport custody for four days and in jail for eight before she was released on bail without travel documents. The Canadian High Commission in Nairobi was contacted.
At this point, in my opinion, events should have gone as follows: the consular officials arrange an interview with Mohamud, ask for references in Canada, and contact those people (it is, as will be described, quite clear that there were people in Canada who could vouch for her identity). Perhaps they examine her identification themselves. Then they help her get home.
After the Toronto Star – which, along with the CBC, seems to be one of the few major media sources that has been covering the story at all* – got in contact with Mohamud’s family, including her ex-husband and son, and her work supervisor, among others, and began running articles about her, the government first insisted that she was not who she said she was, then agreed to check her fingerprints against the prints made when she arrived in Canada and made her refugee claim. More delays, and more people came forward in Canada to vouch for Mohamud.Then the Canadian officials said that the prints were no longer on file (“Officials then said they no longer had the file containing Mohamud’s fingerprints, taken during her immigration 10 years ago”, according to the Star. After more stalling, they agreed to a DNA comparison to Mohamud’s son in Canada. However, as of Saturday, “[S]pokespeople for the foreign affairs department and Canada Border Services Agency refused to say if the government would accept DNA tests as proof of identity”.
Our government has been stalling on this matter for two and a half months, while a child in Canada wonders if his mother will come home, and that mother wonders if she will face jail in a foreign country, or have a life to come back to here in Canada. (Incidentally, and disturbingly, no one from the federal government appears to have ever stated that, because people in Canada were asking for their loved one to come home, and they were alleging that the person who said she was that loved one was not, they were looking for her.)
There is no excuse for their stalling, and it must end, now. The results of the DNA test are in. Though DNA does not encode a name, the test results have told us that the woman stranded in Nairobi is the mother of a boy in Canada, whose identity and status as a citizen has also been ascertained. Enough is enough, and the government should recognize that they need to act now. Mohamud and her Canadian lawyer have already had to fight far more than they should have to get government officials to take action on her case, including filing multiple affidavits, providing multiple pieces of identification, and providing numerous references. The Canadian consulate should have new travel documents issued to Mohamud now, and they should pay for an immediate flight back to Toronto.
But the case should not end there. If Canadian citizenship is to mean anything, not one of us should let this go. The Harper government cannot redeem what has been done to Mohamud, and I for one have no doubt at all that it would not have happened to a white woman named Mary Smith.
I want to see a joint statement from both Harper and Lawrence Cannon on the front page of every newspaper in the country tomorrow, acknowledging that Mohamud was treated wrongly. “We wronged you, and we are sorry.” I want to see some indication that the consular officials who decided she was an “imposter” will be fired. Lawrence Cannon should resign from his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs; he is clearly unable to ensure that his department provides appropriate support to Canadian citizens. I want a statement that lays out what they will do in the future to ensure that Canadians in trouble abroad will receive adequate and timely assistance from their government (and without idle speculation from said government that perhaps a hypothesized sister is sharing a Canadian woman’s passport). I want to know how they will ensure that all Canadian citizens, regardless of whether they were born in Canada or are immigrants, regardless of whether they came here as refugees or through the points system, will receive that assistance and support.
I want to know that compensation will be offered to Suaad Hagi Mohamud for the lost time with her son, as well as the lost wages and the money she had to spend to obtain justice from her government for the two and a half months of her ordeal.
Mohamud’s lawyer has said that he will file for a court order to require her to be repatriated tomorrow, if necessary.
The just response is obvious. It shouldn’t take a court order.
*Though Dr. Dawg has, and that’s a blog that I’ll be following.
[...] Suaad Hagi Mohamud: facing prison in Kenya or deportation to Somalia after the Canadian High Commission concluded she was an impostor and voided her passport, left hanging for nearly three months, fortunately helped by the level of vocal support she received from the local Somali community, the media, and a committed lawyer. Though she is not yet home, government officials have said that emergency documents are being prepared; it is not clear how long it will take. They have not yet said if she will be forced to pay for her own flight home, and no one from the government has stepped forward to take responsibility and offer an apology. [...]