We did it! After a very long campaign, we have secured permanent resident status for Dima Siam, who has lived over 30 months under a cruel and heartless Canadian deportation order to Syria based on a minor paperwork error.

Congratulations to Dima, Mohammad Al Rayyan, and your four children. Hundreds of other Syrian refugees remain under deportation order from Canada. We still have so much work to do.
Below is Dima's statement of thanks: 

The recent Supreme Court of Canada judgment in the NS case – deciding whether a woman who brought charges of childhood sexual abuse against male relatives could wear her niqab while providing testimony – sparked much discussion that reflected the ongoing tension of a Canadian society where misperceptions and mistrust of anything associated with Islam remain a constant.

Part of those tensions reflect an Islamophobic lens that, as University Of Ottawa professor Natasha Bakht points out, positions the niqab as a symbol that is “experienced by non-wearers as a form of confrontation or criticism against national ways of living and dressing.”