Canadian churches follow Old Testament tradition in giving haven to refugees By Michelle Macafee

The Canadian Press, August 10, 2003

MONTREAL (CP) — The dim, cramped, muggy choir room of Union United Church is hardly a home for Menen Ayele and her three young children.

But it’s the only safe shelter the Ethiopian woman says she has after her refugee claims were recently denied and she and her family were ordered deported.

Instead of going to the airport last week as required, Ayele showed up at Union United, Montreal’s oldest black congregation. She desperately sought sanctuary so she could try to plead her case to Immigration Minister Denis Coderre.

“I think I am safe for the moment,” said Ayele, 42, whose drawn face and dark eyes reflect her string of sleepless nights.

“It’s difficult, especially at night. There’s not much fresh air, the children want to go out and play, but I have no choice. My only hope is in the church.”

Ayele is among several refugee claimants across Canada who have recently turned to the church for protection against deportation.

* In Halifax, Sanja Pecelj has spent four months in an Anglican church to avoid deportation to Serbia-Montenegro.

* In Quebec, two different Colombian families have spent the summer in churches in Montreal and North Hatley.

* Last November, a Nigerian family spent about a month in a Roman Catholic church in Calgary in an effort to protect the four daughters from genital mutilation.

While each story is rooted in the refugees’ terror that returning home would mean injury, imprisonment or even death, they are subjected to heavy scrutiny by church officials who know they are breaking the law by helping claimants avoid their scheduled departures.

“It’s a form of civil disobedience,” said Keith Baxter, president of the refugee committee at Unitarian Universalist Church in North Hatley.

“But if someone is bleeding at your door you take them in and call an ambulance.”

The church in Quebec’s Eastern Townships is currently offering sanctuary to Doris Borja Hurtado, 21, and her father, German Borja, who face deportation to Colombia.

In the case of Ayele, she and her children, Bethel, 13, Meron, 12, and Beruk, six, have lived in Montreal since 2001.

They fled Ethiopia after Ayele was imprisoned and beaten for 20 days for her work with the All Amhara People’s Organization, a political group fighting for the Amhara ethnic group. Her husband disappeared during the crackdown.

“I fear for my life if I go back,” said Ayele.

Her request for refugee status was initially rejected last August because the Immigration and Refugee Board ruled her claims of torture were not plausible. Last month, Citizenship and Immigration Canada turned down her request for consideration under humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

The idea of seeking asylum in a church stems from the Old Testament, said David Reed, a theology professor at the University of Toronto.

In the precursor to nation states and their laws and judicial systems, an accused facing tribal justice could find safety inside a walled “city of refuge.”

“The point would be that there would be temporary safety in order for there to be negotiation and some sense of justice,” Reed said in an interview.

Today, religious leaders have become the negotiators while politicians and justice officials have respected the sanctity of the church and declined to forcibly remove people for their deportations.

“It’s an area of the relationship between religion and society that has not been either challenged or eroded,” said Reed.

“I don’t believe it’s a matter of laws as much as it’s a matter of moral respect.”

Coderre was unavailable for comment. He has repeatedly said he “doesn’t negotiate” with people staying in churches.

“There is a process that is available to individuals,” said Sarah Bain, an aide to Coderre. “There are tools at their disposal and going into a church is not one of the steps in the procedure.”

Rev. Darryl Gray, the minister at Union United, said he’s committed to helping Ayele – as he did an Algerian and a Zimbabwean family last year – because there should be more protections in place to guard against “human error” in the refugee process.

Gray says he has fielded almost weekly requests for sanctuary in the last 18 months, all involving refugees. He turns most people away, however, because they are often economic refugees who can’t prove they face physical danger.

As for Ayele, there’s nothing to legally stop police or immigration officials from physically removing her and others from churches, and arresting church staff and volunteers who help them.

But Gray remains determined.

“We’re still doing what the church has been created to do, that is to protect and provide for those in need,” he said.

“What we believe is if you have a religious institution you are talking about consecrated, sacred space and I believe the politicians – most of whom are religious people – still have that reverence.”

Gray is helping Ayele with her appeal to Coderre to order an independent review of the case or grant a ministerial permit allowing her to stay in Canada.

She hopes to continue her sales job and keep her children in school.

“I am not a terrorist, I am not a dangerous, bad woman,” said Ayele. “My only wish is to live in peace and raise my children.”

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