Dear Councillor Bradford,

We are writing publicly to express our concern regarding your continued engagement with entities and sympathizers of the violent Eritrean regime despite repeated efforts by Hidmonna,  members of the Eritrean Canadian community and human rights advocates to seek clarification and meaningful dialogue with your office.

On May 23, you delivered remarks at an Eritrean Independence Day celebration organized by ENHOC and the GTECC. Following that event, Hidmonna, together with individuals actively engaged in human rights advocacy, wrote to your office seeking clarification regarding your participation and requesting an opportunity to discuss our concerns.

Along with our initial letter, we provided your office with a detailed briefing document summarizing the Eritrean regime’s record of serious and systematic human rights violations. The briefing referenced findings by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea, which concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity had been committed in Eritrea since 1991. Importantly, in 2013, Canada’s federal government had to expel the head of the Eritrean Consulate General Office in Toronto as he was found to force Eritrean-Canadians to pay 2% of their Canadian earned income to the regime.

Additionally, the briefing also included anonymized accounts of alleged transnational repression affecting Eritreans in the diaspora, including members of Eritrean-Canadian communities. These accounts illustrated how reported surveillance, intimidation, coercion, threats, and reprisals against family members abroad can affect the safety and civic participation of people living in Canada. The briefing was intended to provide your office with relevant context and to demonstrate why the concerns raised cannot be treated solely as matters of foreign policy. It is also worth noting that the UN Special Rapporteur to Eritrea has explicitly noted that the Eritrean regime is engaged in acts of transnational repression.

Your response to our initial letter caused further concern. Rather than substantively addressing the questions raised or the information contained in the briefing document, your response appeared to characterize our concerns about transnational repression primarily as foreign-policy matters falling within federal jurisdiction.

Transnational repression, however, is not solely a foreign-policy issue. When people living in Canada experience or fear surveillance, intimidation, coercion, harassment, or reprisals against relatives abroad because of their political views or human rights advocacy, the consequences are felt locally. These concerns affect whether residents feel safe speaking publicly, participating in community life, and engaging with elected representatives. And when you promote initiatives of an organization that is accused of promoting the propaganda of a violent foreign regime that is implicated in acts of transnational repression, you help spread and legitimize the fear.

Hidmonna subsequently sent a follow-up letter, endorsed by Eritrean-Canadian organizations and allied human rights organizations concerned with the issue of transnational repression, again requesting answers to our questions and an opportunity to meet. Despite these efforts, your office did not provide a substantive response. You subsequently attended the annual “festival” organized by the ENHOC and CECCO, and you have engaged other entities and individuals that are of great concern for us. Let us put it in plain language. The “festival” you attended and shared on your social media:

• is organized in-part by the Eritrean National Holidays Organizing Committee, which is an entity of the violent Eritrean regime;
• was opened by and honours the official representatives of the regime, and promotes themes and slogans given by the Eritrean regime;
• incorporates political seminars often led by sympathizers or officials of the Eritrean regime, which advance the regime’s propaganda;
• as the Chair of CECCO previously admitted to CBC, funds raised through the festival go to the Eritrean regime; and,
• while trying to hide behind the national flag of Eritrea and outdoor parties, it also raises the flag of the violent and sole political party in Eritrea that is responsible for all the atrocities.

Given these realities, your attendance and sharing of images on social media about the “festival” is rather problematic as it legitimizes groups and initiatives that put the lives of Torontonians at risk.

We are therefore issuing this open letter, collectively with the endorsing organizations below, as our reasonable questions remain unanswered, the evidence and community experiences presented to your office do not appear to have been meaningfully addressed, and your engagement with the organizations in question has continued. We believe elected officials have the responsibility to do their due diligence and meaningfully engage individuals and organizations that raise important concerns, which in this case, you have not demonstrated.

We remain open to have meaningful engagement with you on this important issue.

Sincerely,

Mahdere Berhe

Director of Refugee Advocacy

‘Hidmonna’: Eritrean-Canadian Human Rights Group

This Letter is Endorsed by below Human rights and Community organization

1. Human Rights Action Group (HRAG)
2. Alliance of Genocide Victim Communities
3. Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project
4. Love & Peeace Community of Adikeieh in Winnipeg (LAPCOAW)
5. Meley Eritrean Canadian Community in Brandon
6. Meley Eritrean Canadian Community Winnipeg
7. Eritrean Canadian Youth Congress (ECYC)
8. Meley Eritrean Calgary Community