US Deserter Wins Appeal in Battle for Refugee Status Janice Tibbetts - Canwest News Service go to original
Canada’s refugee board was ordered by a judge to rehear an application by a US war resister to remain in Canada. Federal Court Justice Robert Barnes said that mistakes were made by Canada’a Immigration and Refugee Board when they turned down Joshua Key’s claim for asylum. In 2003, Key served eight months in Iraq as a combat engineer. On his return to the US on leave, he his wife and four young children moved to Canada to seek refuge. There are more than two hundred US war deserters in Canada avoiding service in Iraq. A recent poll shows that 64% of Canadians would let US war resisters stay in the country. On June 3rd the Canadian parliament passed a non binding resolution calling for deserters to be allowed to stay and to put a halt to deportations. So far Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a close ally of the Bush administration, has ignored the resolution. - The Real Network
Ottawa - A Canadian court has sided for the first time with a military deserter who fled to Canada seeking refugee status, ruling Friday that the U.S. soldier witnessed enough human rights abuses during a stint in Iraq that he could qualify for asylum. The decision also marked the first time that the Federal Court, which has heard a handful of cases involving deserters, concluded that military action against civilians in Iraq violates the 1949 Geneva Convention, an international prohibition against humiliating and degrading treatment. Federal Court Justice Richard Barnes ordered the Immigration and Refugee Board to reconsider the failed refugee claim of Joshua Key, a soldier who entered Canada with his wife, Brandi, and their small children in March 2005. Key, an army private, deserted during a two-week break from serving as a combat engineer in Iraq, where he spent eight months in 2003 and says he was involved in military-condoned home invasions against civilians. "This is a real breakthrough," said Lee Zaslofsky of the Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign. "What excites us is this may also apply to other war resisters who took part in Iraq."
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Americas & Beyond | July 2008 
Janice Tibbetts - Canwest News Service
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