Refugees

Guantanamo Refugee Sponsorship

In the summer of 2008, Trinity-St. Paul’s was approached by the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR) and Anglican United Refugee Alliance (AURA) to consider refugee sponsorship for a detainee currently held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison.  The CCR joined Amnesty International in an international effort to bring resolution to the situation of the detainees in Guantanamo.  After several occasions for discussion at Public Witness Circle and Church Board meetings, and at a congregational discussion in December 2008, the Board of TSP voted unanimously in early February to support the submission of a refugee sponsorship application for a Guantanamo detainee.

The detainee we are sponsoring is Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad who goes by the nickname of Bilal.  He is a Syrian Kurd who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo without charge since 2002.  The Gospel’s call to compassion and solidarity inspires us to sponsor this detainee who cannot return safely to Syria for fear of persecution after being held at Guantanamo and because he is Kurdish. Repression of Kurds in Syria is well-documented.  Bilal is a single man without children.  Should our application be successful, TSP would be responsible for supporting Bilal for one year.

In February, TSP submitted a sponsorship application for Bilal to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, thereby joining this national and international effort.  At the same time, we took part in a press release put out by the Canadian Council for Refugees, highlighting the work of the five churches in Canada who are each sponsoring a detainee, and encouraging the Canadian government to help resolve the situation of the detainees at Guantanamo.

We proceed by the due diligence done by our partners and by the general knowledge of the unjust circumstances that led to many of the men being detained at Guantanamo.  We understand that some of the detainees were sold for bounty to the U.S. government.  We now wait upon our government.  We are exploring the possibility of partnering with another congregation in Toronto to collaborate on Bilal’s sponsorship.  We welcome any at TSP to join the sponsorship committee.

Read Sonya Wu-Winter's sermon containing reflections on our Guantanamo refugee sponsorship: "The Discomfort of Job"

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