Canada is one of the largest and among the most refugee-accepting countries on average accepting about 250 thousand immigrants every year from all over the world. Some immigrants get there easily while others not so.
But Canada is not just the second home and a refuge for students or individuals who go to the country with hopes for a better life or because of safety for their life. It is also the second home of many human rights violators. They come from all over the world, which includes Iran, China, Rwanda, etc.
Rwanda is a country with one of the world’s most atrocious human rights violations and a commander of its civil war had at one time been living in Toronto. His name is Désiré Munyaneza who ws also an impressive investor from the Hutu tribe, the group that fought against the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus during the country’s civil war causing the death of over 800 thousand people in just 100 days of the war.
In 1997 Munyaneza entered Canada on a forged passport from Cameroon and subsequently requested asylum claiming his life was in danger in Rwanda. In its review, the Canadian police found evidence of his involvement in the war crimes of the civil war in Rwanda and therefore rejected his petition. Years later in 2005 Munyaneza was arrested in his house in Toronto and tried in a court in Montreal. He was tried under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act 2000. This law had been passed by the Canadian parliament based on its international commitments under the rules of the Rome International Criminal Court. According to this law Canadian law, the country’s authorities had the right to try individuals against crimes against humanity, war crimes and acts of genocide. To have jurisdiction over such crimes, it is not necessary for the crimes to have been committed in the country where the individual resides or even that the victims of these crimes reside there. In other words, the mere presence of a suspect of these crimes any where provides the country of his presence with the jurisdiction to try the person.
These crimes of course have their own specific definitions and a person cannot be tried merely for any type of human rights violation. A person to be tried under these rules must have committed any of the following crimes:
1-Genocide, which is defined as any of the following acts that aims at annihilating the whole or a part of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: killing members of that group; inflicting serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group through deliberate acts crating difficult conditions for life for a group aimed at eliminating the whole or part of that group; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
2-Crimes against humanity which include any of the following inflicted against civilians: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law, torture, rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity.
3-War Crimes, which are defined as violations of the articles of the Geneva Convention of 1949 which include, willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health, extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement, taking of hostages, and other serious violations of the law applicable in international armed conflict.
Based on this law, Munyaneza was sentenced to life prison with no change of parole for 25 years. This trial was a consolation for the hearts of thousands of Rwandan war victims, in Canada and in Rwanda and other countries. This is a lesson for other violators of human rights who in recent years have fled to Canada and other safe heavens with the wealth they accumulated through plundering the people of their countries. Some of these violators are Iranians the names of 70 of whom have been identified by the European Union and the United States. These individuals have no right to enter Europe or the United States and whose property will be confiscated if they have any in the countries of these regions.
The important point that I want to make is that Iranian security officials among whom are torturers, have more than one name and passport that they use to enter Europe and the West. The duty and responsibility of alert Iranians living abroad is to identify these individuals, whether they are passing through or residing in these countries and alert the local police of presence. The world is getting smaller and smaller for violators of human rights. We must all work so that the justice that is not implemented in Iran will be implemented in international courts or local courts that have jurisdiction over such matters.
On this path, gathering evidence, documents etc is of prime importance because simply introducing a violator of human rights to the police is not sufficient and evidence must be presented so that an independent judge can follow up with the arrest and trial of the individual. Organizations that have for years been collecting such evidence and documentation on human rights violators can be of great help. All those who have been victims of human rights violations should report their cases to these organizations, creating the foundation for the implementation of justice.
