James Loney (peace Activist) - After Rescue

After Rescue

In June 2006 Loney entered headlines again for joining in the protest against the controversial use of security certificates to detain foreign residents in Canada for years without charges or trial.

On June 20, 2006, Loney and several other staff members of the Ontario Catholic Youth Leadership Camp held a press conference in Toronto in which they claimed the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic charitable organization, shut down the camp after learning about Loney's sexual orientation upon his return from captivity. The Ontario Knights of Columbus denied this was the reason for closing the camp. The camp re-opened the following summer under the same name but with a new director and staff.

On that same day, Loney and his partner Hunt were honoured at the Toronto 2006 Pride Day Gala with the Fearless Award.

According to a November 11, 2006 report in the Guelph Mercury of a speech he'd given to university students on November 9, Loney refused to wear a poppy on Remembrance Day. Loney claimed that it "says we have to be ready for the next time - vigilance."

Canadian singer-songwriter, Jon Brooks, wrote two songs on Jim Loney on his CD Ours And The Shepherds in response to the controversy. 'Jim Loney's Prayer Part I' and 'Jim Loney's Prayer Part II' were chosen as bookends to the track list on a CD about Canadian war stories.

On December 8, 2006, Loney, Kember and Sooden publicly forgave their captors at a press conference held at St. Ethelberga’s Peace Center in London, England. On this same day a year before their kidnappers had threatened to execute them. In their joint statement of forgiveness they said, “We unconditionally forgive our captors for abducting and holding us. We have no desire to punish them,” and “Should those who have been charged with holding us hostage be brought to trial and convicted, we ask that they be granted all possible leniency. We categorically lay aside any rights we may have over them.” (Follow this link for the full text of their statement.)

On May 23, 2007 James released a public statement saying that he would not be testifying against his captors who are now in U.S. custody citing the lack of transparency in Iraqi courts, the limited access to lawyers and the death penalty. “I recently informed the RCMP that I will not testify. I cannot participate in a judicial process where the prospects of a fair trial are negligible, and more crucially, where the death penalty is a possibility.”

Loney was one of 250 Canadians who risked charges under Canada’s anti-terrorism legislation in the spring of 2009 for contributing towards a plane ticket for Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian man who was detained by the Sudanese government at Canada’s request, tortured, imprisoned for two years without charge and then denied travel documents to return to Canada. The ticket Loney helped purchase exposed how the government was actively blocking his return and led to the June 2009 court ruling which forced the Canadian government to bring him home. Loney was one of thirty supporters who were on hand to welcome Abdelrazik home upon his arrival at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on June 27, 2009.