Omar Khadr: not welcome at the Winter
Olympics!
Friday 12 February is the first day of the Vancouver Winter Olympics (12-28
February). Over the next two weeks, all eyes will be on Canada as it welcomes
the world to join in its grandiose celebration of these games. Largely
overlooked by the corporate and media circus of the Olympics is Canada’s stance
on human rights, with the games being played on land stolen from Canada’s
indigenous people.
Furthermore, in the “war on terror”, Canada has found itself openly complicit in
the rendition and torture of its own citizens.
The Canadian government has consistently refused to seek and has blocked the
return of Omar Khadr from Guantánamo Bay. Aged 23, Omar was 15 when he was
captured by the Americans after a gun battle in Afghanistan. He has been held at
Guantánamo Bay since October 2002 and was previously held at Bagram. He faces
charges of allegedly throwing a grenade at American soldiers in Afghanistan,
although accidentally released Pentagon papers have stated that there is no
actual evidence of this. In 2003, Canadian interrogators were allowed to
question him at Guantánamo Bay where he showed them his wounds and the effects
of the torture he faced. Information learned from this interrogation was then
handed over to the Americans to help their prosecution case. In 2008, a video of
one of Omar Khadr’s interrogations, after sleep deprivation, in 2004, was
released:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQHFFbD_-Pg
A long-standing court battle has been ongoing in Canada to force the Canadian
government to seek Omar’s return to the country. On 29 January 2010, the
Canadian Supreme Court stopped short of ordering the Canadian government to
demand Omar’s return to Canada and instead ruled that his fundamental human
rights had been violated under the Canadian constitution and it beseeched the
government to call for his return or that it may otherwise be compelled to order
this judicially. The Canadian government has yet to act.
Speaking earlier this week about child soldiers, Canadian Senator and commander
of the UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda in the 1990s, General Roméo Dallaire,
stated that Canada’s move away from promoting human rights internationally and
its stance on child soldiers was largely reflected in its treatment of Omar
Khadr:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Khadr+treatment+reflects+Canada+moral+drift+Dallaire/2551292/story.html
The Amnesty International group in Kirkbymoorside
has put together the following letter (and attached) to be sent to Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Please ask friends, family and colleagues in the
UK and elsewhere to send this letter to the Canadian Prime Minister and to the
Canadian High Commission/Embassy in your country, preferably over the next two
weeks.
London Guantánamo Campaign
London.gtmo@gmail.com
www.guantanamo.org.uk
e-mail: Harper.S@parl.gc.ca
The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
OTTAWA ON K1A 0A2
Canada
Dear Prime Minister:
I am writing to appeal to you to bring Omar Khadr home to Canada. President
Obama has declared that he wishes to see the detention centre at Guantánamo Bay
closed: the US Government would surely welcome a request from the Canadian
government for his repatriation.
The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously ruled that, when they interrogated
him in 2003 and 2004, Canadian officials participated in his unlawful treatment
in Guantánamo, violating his human rights. The interrogation of a youth detained
without access to counsel, to elicit statements about serious criminal charges,
while the interrogators knew that the youth had been subjected to sleep
deprivation and also knew that the fruits of the interrogations would be shared
with the prosecutors, offended the most basic Canadian standards about the
treatment of detained youth suspects.
The Supreme Court ruled that Omar Khadr was entitled to a remedy. It reversed
the order the lower courts had made requiring the government to seek his
repatriation and concluded that the appropriate remedy in this case was simply a
judicial declaration that Omar Khadr’s rights under the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms had been violated. The best remedy now would surely be for
the Canadian government not to wait for the conclusion of the Military
Commission process in the United States of America, but to seek Omar Khadr's
immediate repatriation. The Government should also recognise that he was a
teenager when first taken into custody and that repatriation must be followed by
rehabilitation and resettlement.
Yours sincerely
-----------------
Please also send to the High Commission in London:
High Commissioner James Wright
Macdonald House,
1 Grosvenor Square,
London W1K 4AB
Amnesty Canada has also produced the following information action:
http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/canada_bring_khadr_justice.php
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