The treatment a U.S. official said Omar Khadr received at Guantanamo Bay to prepare him for an interview by a member of foreign affairs was a violation of international human rights, a Canadian federal court judge ruled on Wednesday.
It is no great surprise that human rights violations are going on in Guantanamo, it is damning however that two governments of countries who pride themselves on rights and freedoms allowed the torture of a child. In Canada Khadr if charged with a crime would be protected under the Youth Act. And yet Canadian officials raised no alarm when they found out he was being subjected to torture.
Canadian and American governments bear an enormous responsibility not only in setting back human rights but also in ensuring there will continue to be terrorist incidents. Some of course find the torture of a child perfectly fine. The comments at both CTV and CBC are disgusting and as one commenter said “makes me less and less proud to be Canadian”
Image via WikipediaSome have argued that he was responsible for the death of a soldier. To which I wonder is that not the risk our governments are willing to take when they send troops to war? Is the new war rich countries sending troops to rob poor countries of their resources and the people of those poor countries rather than protect themselves are supposed to say OH HAI! and serve tea/beer/crumpets?
How does one murder a combatant in the heat of battle? In any case the original details of the incident were shown to be wrong. Khadr was not the only person who could have thrown the grenade and likely wasn’t.
It is time our government showed some respect for human rights, the Geneva Convention and basic decency. Bring Khadr home. As commenter carlbailey said to another commenter with the mindset of the conservatives;
quote mr.calgary:
“I knew what was right and wrong when I was 15.”
so, how old were you when you forgot the difference?
or did you just decide to ignore it altogether in favour of blind ignorant hatred.
Canada has behaved shamefully. And up until this past year, there was absolute radio silence from the government and media regarding Khadr’s case.
I’m glad that the media has stopped referring to the special ops soldier that Khadr allegedly killed (while under attack and seriously wounded) as a “medic”.
Canada also has a responsibility to provide Khadr’s defence team with what may be the only surviving copy of the original U.S. post-battle report containing the information about the other Afghan soldier who survived the fire fight with Khadr but was subsequently shot :
“A critical U.S. post-battle report may contradict other accounts of the July 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. Military prosecutors told a Guantanamo court last month that the original report had gone missing so the sole copy is now in Canada’s files.
“The U.S. government has somehow lost this report even though it was theirs, they can’t find it, they won’t give it to us because they can’t find it, so our only way to get that document was to get it from Canada,” Whitling said. “So it’s an ironic situation but that was one of the more important documents that was of issue – it does contain potentially exculpatory information.”
The Star