Fair is Fair: Ukrainians Call for Deportation of KGB Veterans in Canada
Fair is Fair: Ukrainians Call for Deportation of KGB Veterans in Canada
November 14, 2008
Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association: Deport all ex-KGB veterans from Canada
In a press release today, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) http://www.uccla.ca/media.htm is calling on Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan to immediately denaturalize and deport anyone living in Canada who was once a member of the KGB or any Soviet secret police organization.
The UCCLA is responding in part to a November 12, 2008 story in the Vancouver Province http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=dc14dabd-680c-4878-a133-0cf3997abddf in which former KGB officer Mikhail Lennikov and his family face deportation from Canada within four months unless Minister Van Loan intervenes.
Lennikov has lived in Canada since 1997 and applied for permanent residency in 1998. According to Lennikov, he was recruited out of university to work as a Japanese translator for the KGB. He now fears he could be jailed and tortured if forced to return to Russia.
UCCLA’s chairman Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk is unmoved:
“Canada should not be a haven for former members of any communist state’s secret police forces, regardless of whatever duties they may claim they performed. Simple membership in the NVKD, SMERSH or KGB should be sufficient grounds for excluding such a person from Canada, whether they made application for admission as an immigrant or refugee.”
The UCCLA argues that…
Residents of Canada who served in the NKVD, SMERSH and KGB enabled the Soviet regime to indulge in the mass imprisonment, murder and enslavement of millions of innocent men, women and children. These secret police forces spied upon, exiled, tortured, murdered and oppressed their fellow citizens, not only in times of war but also during times of peace. Any person who was a member of these formations, or affiliated ones, simply by assisting in their functioning, made it possible for such war crimes and crimes against humanity to be perpetrated.
Dr. Luciuk believes that anyone joining an organization like the KGB should have been aware of its history:
“Anyone who served in such a secret police body would have known of its actions, past and present, and should not have allowed himself or herself to be used for the criminal purposes carried out by an authoritarian state.”
The UCCLA is also inviting the “relevant authorities to investigate” the immigration consultants and lawyers who allegedly advised Lennikov and others that membership in the KGB and similar organizations would not prevent them from successfully entering Canada.
Amnesty International has intervened in this case on behalf of Lennikov and his family.
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