Canada deports Tamil mother, leaving family behind

28 January 2014

Canadian authorities have deported a Tamil mother to Sri Lanka earlier this week, forcing her to leave her family behind in Canada.

Rajini Subramaniyam, who arrived in Canada in 2008, was deported earlier this week, and left behind her husband and two young daughters, who all hold Canadian citizenship.

There were highly emotional scenes at Toronto Pearson International Airport as she bid farewell to her daughters and the rest of her family, before boarding a flight to Colombo.

Canada has come under severe criticism for its treatment of asylum seekers, including from the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Last month Tamil Guardian questioned Canada's Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs and International Human Rights, Deepak Obhrai on his government’s policy on deporting asylum seekers to Sri Lanka despite overwhelming documented evidence of returned deportees facing detention, abuse and torture.

See his response here.

In 2011 Canadian authorities also decided to deport the widow of assassinated TNA MP Joseph Pararajasingham, who was gunned down in a church during a Christmas midnight mass, declaring her a terrorist “by association”.

See our earlier editorial on her deportation: Extraordinarily perverse (15 April 2011)

Also see our editorial: Asylum policies are extensions of Sri Lanka’s repression (16 January 2013)