(The following article is from the October 1-15, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

PV Vancouver Bureau, with files from Canadian Press

Anti-war activists across the country are celebrating an important legal victory in the campaign to allow U.S. war resisters to stay in Canada.

     On Sept. 22, a Toronto judge refused to send Jeremy Hinzman back to the United States to face prosecution for desertion. The reprieve from a deportation scheduled the next day came after Federal Court heard that an Immigration official made serious errors in assessing the hardships Hinzman and his family would face if forced back to the U.S.

     "Of course, we're elated - we weren't expecting this much, so it's a nice surprise," Hinzman said after the decision was released. "(But) we're not out of the woods at all. We just have a stay of removal."

     Hinzman's lawyer Alyssa Manning told Justice Richard Mosley that evidence suggests outspoken critics of the 2003 invasion of Iraq face harsher treatment than others who leave the U.S. military. Another prominent war resister, Robin Long, was sentenced to 15 months in prison last month after prosecutors mentioned a media interview he had given in Canada before he was deported in July.

     As one of the first of scores of soldiers to seek refuge in Canada rather than fight in Iraq, Hinzman's case has been highly public.

     "He is the person associated with objections to the war in Iraq," Manning told the court.

     Crown lawyer Stephen Gold called it "speculation and surmise" that criticizing the U.S. military in public has led to harsher sentences for deserters. "It is not really for us to pass judgment on a military code in a foreign country," Gold said.

     Hinzman, now 29, came to Toronto with his wife and young son in January 2004 just before his 82 Airborne Division unit was scheduled to deploy to Iraq, and after his application for conscientious-objector status was rejected. The Canadian government and two courts rejected his refugee claim on the basis he faces prosecution, not persecution, in the U.S.

     Hinzman argued for the deportation stay while the courts decide if they will review Ottawa's rejection of his bid to remain in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. A ruling on the humanitarian application will probably take just a few months, Mosley wrote in rejecting Gold's contention the immigration and justice systems would be hurt by giving Hinzman the reprieve.

     "Based on the evidence and submissions before me, I am satisfied that the applicants would suffer irreparable harm if a stay were not granted pending determination of their leave application," Mosley said in his three-page endorsement.

     Gold told the court Hinzman knew when he enlisted that he could face up to five years for desertion. But Canadian prosecutors and government officials who make such claims have refused to admit that the U.S. military routinely lies about terms of enlistment when signing up recruits.    

     Manning said Hinzman and his family would face undue hardship if deported, since this would mean being separated from his wife, six-year-old son and newborn daughter.

     In June, a non-binding motion passed in the House of Commons called for the deserters to be allowed to stay in Canada permanently as conscientious objectors.

     Following the Sept. 22 decision, the War Resisters Campaign called again on the Harper government to act on the Commons' motion and to cease deporting Iraq war resisters.

     A month earlier, on August 22, Robin Long was sentenced to 15 months in prison at a military penitentiary. He also received a dishonourable discharge which will follow him the rest of his life. Long was deported from Canada when federal Justice Anne McTavish ruled that he had not proven that he faced irreparable harm if returned to the U.S. He is serving his sentence at Miramar Naval Consolidated Brig near San Diego.

    Letters of support can be sent to: Robin Long, PO Box 452136, San Diego, CA 92145-2136.

     For updates on the War Resisters Campaign, visit http://www. resisters.ca.