B.C. mother of abducted children feels Trudeau has failed her

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A year after her children were allegedly abducted by their father and eventually taken to Iran, Alison Azer says she feels let down by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called their safety a "high priority" but has failed to secure their return.

The wrenching family drama, and Ms. Azer's disappointment, has highlighted the human cost of Canada's severed ties with Tehran, which Mr. Trudeau has vowed to restore. But the mother of four from Courtenay, B.C., says that campaign promises ring hollow with her children living thousands of kilometres away in the care of an international fugitive.

On the eve of a grim anniversary, she's calling for the Prime Minister to show "leadership" and contact his Iranian counterpart to negotiate the safe return of her kids.

"It can be as straightforward as a phone call," she said. "It can be as straightforward as making good on a promise."

Ms. Azer's year of agony began on Aug. 21, 2015, when RCMP officers arrived at her door to say that her children had not boarded their return flight from a vacation with their father in Europe.

In an op-ed in today's Globe and Mail, she describes her failed court fight to keep the children from travelling internationally with either parent; her eleven-year marriage to Saren Azer had dissolved bitterly in 2012 after she says he threatened to kill her and the children.

IN HER OWN WORDS: A mother's plea: Canada must combat child abduction

Ms. Azer's travel concerns were prescient. During the vacation, Mr. Azer – an Iranian Kurd who came to Canada in the 1990s as a refugee – had taken the children to a contested, Kurdish-controlled section of northern Iraq.

The children – Sharvahn, 12; Rojevahn, 10; Dersim, 7; and Meitan, 4 – are her "life," she says. Since the alleged abduction, Ms. Azer's life has been consumed with trying to bring them back.

"I wake up every morning unsure of how I'm going to make it through the day," she said on Sunday. "Because the grief is just colossal. And the fear could be paralyzing. But I can't afford to give in to the fear. And I can't afford to give in to the grief."

Last October, she went to Iraq by herself for several months, travelling through war-torn parts of the country until she arrived at what she thinks was the village where her children were staying. Local elders met with her, but only to buy her ex-husband time to flee, she now believes. In February, he took the children to Iran, where he has family.

Coming home empty-handed, Ms. Azer continued to press her case. She was motivated, she says, by fear. "The children aren't safe," she said. "I am terrified for them. That's what has kept me going."

A social-media campaign around her website, FindAzerKidsNow.com, has garnered heavy press attention. But the case hasn't always seemed like a high priority for the Trudeau government, or the Harper government before it, Ms. Azer says.

"Since the [alleged] abduction our government has constantly been four steps behind," she writes in the op-ed.

Not content with what she saw as a complacent bureaucratic effort, Ms. Azer continued her lobbying in Ottawa. She has visited the capital eleven times to discuss her children with government officials. In May, she met with the Prime Minister, who assured her that the Azer file would not leave his desk until the children were safely home, she said.

And in June, there seemed to be a breakthrough: Iranian officials, acting on an Interpol Red Notice, detained Mr. Azer on four charges of child abduction. But Ms. Azer claims that Canadian officials didn't respond when Iranian law enforcement contacted them about the arrest, and eventually the charges were dropped.

The Canadian government denies this. "The Iranian authorities never reached out to Canada when they brought Mr. Azer in for questioning," said Omar Alghabra, a Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Alghabra insists the government has been working diligently on the case. "Dozens of officials here at Global Affairs, with the RCMP, and seven missions abroad, have been putting hundreds of hours into this file to find every possible way to bring the children home safely," he said. "We will not stop until the safe return of the children to Canada."

Meanwhile, he said that Mr. Trudeau has spoken about the case with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, whose country represents Canada's interests in Iran.

But Ms. Azer believes Canada's failure to secure the children's return is partly due to the absence of Canadian diplomatic staff on the ground in Iran. In 2012, the Harper government severed ties with the theocratic country over its human-rights record, nuclear program and belligerent stand toward Israel. The Canadian embassy was shuttered and Iranian officials expelled from Canada.

Still, Ms. Azer insists that the government could do more to engage with Iran. She's asking Mr. Trudeau to call Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and discuss the situation directly.

Nader Hashemi, a Canadian expert on Iran who teaches at the University of Denver, says it may not be so simple. The cutting of diplomatic ties caused a deep rift between the countries, he points out, with little contact between governments and plenty of bad blood.

"This is a perfect example of a situation where Canadians who are normal citizens and have some relationship with Iran are paying the price for a narrow-minded ideological decision by the Harper government," he said.

That diplomatic vacuum, coupled with what she sees as bureaucratic foot-dragging, has left Ms. Azer feeling let down. "I still don't feel like I have my government behind me," she said.

Reluctantly, she has tried to fill what she sees as a void of government action with a tireless, one-woman campaign.

"I never felt that I should have to become an expert on the geopolitics of the region," she said. "I am a mom. All I want is my kids back."

Editor's note: An earlier digital version of this story incorrectly misquoted Mr. Alghabra when he spoke about the Iranian authorities reaching out to Canada. The quote should have read, "The Iranian authorities never reached out to Canada when they brought Mr. Azer in for questioning," not "into custody." This version has been corrected.