November 15, 2017

On December 4th 2016 Soleiman Faqiri was temporarily housed at the Central East Correctional Centre (CECC) in Lindsay Ontario while awaiting a bed at the Ontario Shores Centres for mental health. Eleven days following that, on December 15 2016, Soleiman was killed by guards after they had applied force on him.  The Corners report showed that Soleiman has sustained 50 injuries on his body; a significant number of which were due to blunt impact trauma. 

The following is a statement from the Justice for Soli coalition after learning that the Kawartha Lakes Police Service will not be pressing charges against those responsible for the death of Soleiman Faqiri.

Readers should know that this is the second time that a Muslim coping with schizophrenia has died after spending time in the Lindsay Detention Centre. The first was Somali refugee Abdurahman Ibrahim Hassan, who died in a Peterborough Hospital. Hassan was under indefinite immigrantion detention at Lindsay. Fellow immigration detention inmates went on hunger strike to demand an inquest into his death.

The following is a statement from the family of Soleiman Faqiri after learning new details surrounding his death.

Afghan Canadian Soleiman Faqiri died in Lindsay Correctional Facility in December 2016. His family wants answers. His brother, Yusuf Faqiri, will be in Ottawa on May 16 to discuss his family's fight for justice.

The Justice For Soli in partnership with Muslim Link and the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project is hosting this event on May 16 at 7pm at the University of Ottawa aimed at engaging people in Soleiman Faqiri's family fight for justice, as well as raising awareness about the crisis within Ontario's correctional facilities, particularly in terms of the treatment of people living with mental illness.

Register to attend the event online here.

Afghan Canadian Soleiman Faqiri, 30, was diagnosed with schizophrenia during his first year of university at Waterloo in 2005.

Farhat came to Canada in 1969 to marry and raise a family. Like other immigrants of her age and background she had many aspirations and hopes for her bright children. But in February 2001, her dreams were shattered when her son, gripped by paranoid delusions due to an undiagnosed mental illness, stabbed his friend and mentor of many years who succumbed to his injuries. What began was a nightmare as Farhat struggled with guilt over her son's crime, heartache over the deterioration of her son's mental health, fear for her son's safety in the Ottawa Carleton Regional Detention Centre (RDC), and frustration with a corrections system she discovered to be seriously flawed. But in the process, Farhat became an advocate for the rights' of prisoners and their families and reached out to the support networks that she could find in Ottawa.