Soleiman Faqiri: Five Years of Injustice Must End*
Alex Neve and Monia Mazigh
Five years ago, on December 15, 2016, Soleiman Faqiri died after being held in solitary confinement for eleven days at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario.
Soleiman was 30 years old. He had over 50 bruises and other injuries over his body, including his wrists, ankles and neck. He had been beaten and kicked repeatedly and was twice pepper-sprayed in the face. He was wearing what is known as a spit hood over his head. His legs were shackled, and his hands were cuffed behind his back. He was lying prone, face down on the floor of his cell when he died. All in about twelve minutes.
This violence was meted out by six prison guards. In fact, because of the number of guards involved, police investigators said they were unable to determine whether any of them should be held criminally responsible.
As they mark the fifth anniversary of his death, Soleiman’s family remains trapped in an agonizing limbo of no answers and no accountability. No family should have to endure that. Nothing less than Canada’s international human rights obligations requires full justice.
Soleiman Faqiri came to Canada with his parents, three brothers and a sister over 20 years earlier, as refugees from Afghanistan. He excelled in school, was a star rugby player and was studying engineering at the University of Waterloo when he began, at the age of 19, to suffer from schizophrenia following a head injury suffered during a car accident.
Soleiman was surrounded by a loving family, but it was still an immense challenge ensuring that he received the mental health support he required.
On December 4, 2016 he was arrested on charges of assault and uttering threats. He was taken to the correctional centre and held in segregation. Over the eleven days that followed, as Soleiman’s psychological state deteriorated, his family sought four times to visit him and bring his medication and health records. They were refused.
A decision was eventually made to transfer Soleiman to a mental health facility, where he should have been held all along. But that came too late. He never made it to the institution where he would have received appropriate medical treatment rather than brutalizing corrections restraint.
The journey since then for Soleiman’s family has been impossible to believe. His brother Yusuf shared their deep anguish in a Globe and Mail opinion piece earlier this fall. Soleiman’s mother has summed up their devastating pain by noting that “it took them eleven days to destroy what we built in eleven years,” referring to the progress the family had been making in treating his mental health.
The first autopsy concluded that the cause of death was “unascertained”. On that basis a local police investigation into the case was closed.
After an eyewitness, John Thibeault, came forward -- a man who had been in the cell opposite Soleiman -- the case was reopened by the coroner’s office in 2019. Mr. Thibeault had been reluctant to provide evidence until he was out of prison, fearful of retribution. The reopened investigation was assigned to the Ontario Provincial Police, but was later shut down.
Soleiman’s family, supporters and human rights, mental health and prisoner advocacy groups did not relent. They maintained pressure and earlier this year Ontario’s top pathologist, Michael Pollanen, conducted a review of the initial autopsy. Dr. Pollanen concluded that Soleiman died as a result of his treatment at the hands of the guards. The case has been returned to the Ontario Provincial Police for yet another criminal investigation. There will also be a Coroner’s Inquest sometime next year.
In life, Soleiman Faqiri’s rights were clearly violated. His right to receive the mental health treatment he required. His right not to be held in extended solitary confinement, which undeniably amounted to torture in his circumstances. His right not to be subjected to the frenzy of violent treatment at the hands of the multiple guards who restrained him, and which led to his death.
Those human rights violations have continued over the five years since his death. Numerous international human rights instruments, including the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (“Mandela Rules”), the Convention against Torture, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights all lay out clear obligations around independent investigations of a prisoner’s death and allegations of torture and ill-treatment, and for there to be accountability and effective remedies for human rights violations.
These five years of justice delayed are a glaring instance of justice denied. It must end now. That is owed to Soleiman and his family, and to all of us.
Impunity undermines all of our rights. Justice is in our collective interest.
* Marking the 5th anniversary of his death, a Vigil for Soli will be held in Toronto on Saturday, December 18th at 6 pm in Dundas Square. This post, co-authored with Monia Mazigh, also appeared as an Opinion Piece in the Ottawa Citizen on December 22, 2021.
