Iraq war resister Jeremy Hinzman, formerly of the 82nd Airborne, has been in Canada since January of 2004. He has applied for refugee status in Canada on the basis that he will be persecuted if he is forced to return to the United States.
The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) denied his claim for refugee status, whereupon Mr. Hinzman appealed to the Federal Court of Canada. The Federal court has now given Mr. Hinzman leave to appeal, thus opening up an avenue for the IRB's decision to be overturned.
Justice Sean Harrington of the Federal Court granted leave to appeal to Jeremy Hinzman today.
Jeremy is an American soldier who refused to participate in the war in Iraq.
The Immigration and Refugee Board decided that he does not qualify as a Convention Refugee, despite substantial jurisprudence to the contrary.
Now, the Federal Court has granted leave, meaning that there is a serious possibility that the Immigration and Refugee Board made a decision which was wrong in law.
Oral hearing date is February 7th, 2006.
Background:
During the period of 1965-1973 more than 50,000 draft-age Americans made their way to Canada, refusing to participate in an immoral war. At the time, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said: "Those who make the conscientious judgment that they must not participate in this war... have my complete sympathy, and indeed our political approach has been to give them access to Canada. Canada should be a refuge from militarism."
Now, more than 30 years later, Canada is faced with the same moral choice - to give refuge to those who refuse to be accomplices in the U.S.-led war on Iraq, which many legal opinions have deemed illegal under international law.
In January 2004, Jeremy Hinzman, a soldier in the 82 Airborne Division, arrived in Canada with his family to seek refugee status. Since then he has been joined by a growing number of U.S. soldiers seeking a safe haven in this country. After having ruled that it would not hear evidence as to the illegality of the U.S. war in Iraq, the Immigration and Refugee Board recently ruled against Hinzman's application for refugee status.
But his case is being appealed and the underlying issue--whether Canadians, through our government, will show the courage to provide sanctuary for those who refuse to participate in a war of aggression and occupation, even where that war is waged by a regime as powerful as the US government--is one that will continue to face us for some time.
Sources: Jeff House (www.rabble.ca/babble) and the Timmins Times