Stop The Cover Up! Transparency and accountability for Soleiman Faqiri Now!

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers, representing 56,300 members condemns the in-custody execution of Soleiman Faqiri and joins the call for full transparency, accountability, and justice for his family.

Mr. Faqiri, a man with schizophrenia, loved and supported by his family, and deserving of and requiring medical attention, was placed in segregation where he was brutally beaten and tortured. He was shackled and pepper sprayed with at least six armed guards present. That Mr. Faqiri was beaten is not in dispute. That he is dead as a result isn’t either. A coroner’s report revealed more than 50 signs of “blunt impact trauma” on his body, including on his neck, at the time of his death.

Why did the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) refuse to lay charges? The only people present in addition to the deceased were jail guards.

We ask ourselves how a person requiring medical support wound up beaten to death by an armed gang working for corrections.

We expect the OPP and Crown Attorney to release the details of their “investigation”. We know from experience and history that police often cannot be trusted to perform their duties properly in the absence of scrutiny, and particularly with regard to racialized or mentally ill persons. This country has a long history of ongoing violent acts against racialized citizens by various authorities.

We cannot accept wilful immunity for violent crimes. We call for criminal charges to be laid against those responsible for the premature death of Soleiman Faqiri, just like they would, had this been a white person beaten to death by a gang of racialized people. We are well aware that this likely would be a different conversation were that the case.

Soleiman Faqiri should be alive today. Instead, he paid the ultimate price for his mental illness. Deprived of his life, and now deprived of justice, we will remember. We stand with Mr. Faqiri’s family and continue to demand for transparency and accountability into the death of Soleiman Faqiri.