Canada Reverses Blocking of Citizenship for Russian Migrant Convicted of "Crime" of Speaking Out Against Russian Atrocities in Ukraine

Good that sanity prevailed on this issue.

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Last week, I wrote about the case of Maria Kartasheva, a Russian immigrant whose application for Canadian citizenship was blocked because a Russian court convicted her of the "crime" of speaking out against Russian atrocities in Ukraine. She could even potentially have been deported back to Russia, where an eight-year prison sentence awaited her. For reasons outlined in my earlier post, this was a truly ridiculous decision. Fortunately, Canada's Ministry of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship  has now announced a reversal of this previous action, and Kartasheva will be granted citizenship, after all:

A Russian antiwar activist living in Ottawa has been granted Canadian citizenship after all, despite a conviction in Russia that threatened to disqualify her.

Maria Kartasheva, 30, has lived in Ottawa since 2019.

She was convicted under a Russian law passed shortly after the full-scale invasion in of Ukraine in February 2022. The law prohibits "public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation."

Her convictions stem from two blog entries from March 2022, when she posted photos and wrote in Russian expressing her horror at the Bucha massacre…..

Under Canadian immigration rules, if an applicant is charged with a crime in another country that could be indictable under Canada's Criminal Code, their application can be revoked or refused….

According to a December letter from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the crime she committed in Russia "would equate to false information under subsection 372(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada…."

On Tuesday afternoon, Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller said in a social media post that Kartasheva "will not face deportation and has been invited to become a Canadian citizen."

I am happy that sanity prevailed in this case.  But it's ridiculous the issue was ever in doubt in the first place. Speaking out against horrific war crimes is surely not the kind of "crime" that can ever justify denial of citizenship or deportation from any liberal democracy worthy of the name.

Since the start of the conflict, I have been making the case that the US and other Western nations—including Canada –  should open their doors to Russians fleeing Vladimir Putin's increasingly repressive regime. Even for those who wouldn't go as far in this direction as I advocate, the case of a dissenter facing imprisonment for speaking out against Putin's war war should be a no-brainer.