The Case Of Omar Khadr

Canadian citizen Omar Khadr was detained by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in July 2002 and transferred to Guantánamo Naval Base in October 2002. He was 15 years old when he was taken to Guantánamo and has spent more than a quarter of his life there, now in his sixth year of confinement. Khadr alleges he was repeatedly subjected to torture and cruel treatment during multiple interrogation sessions in U.S. military custody at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay. On January 12, 2009, Human Rights First, along with four other prominent human rights groups, sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama, urging Obama to drop the military commission charges against Khadr and either repatriate him to Canada or prosecute him in U.S. federal courts.

The Plight Of Omar Khadr - Another Afghan War Torture Scandal

Torture is not a blemish on an otherwise humanitarian intervention in Afghanistan. Rather, it has been--along with indefinite detention and sundry other violations of international law--part and parcel of the war from the beginning. This is not primarily the result of mistakes, or of bad apples among the occupying forces or their Afghan relays. Torture and other violations of civil liberties are, in fact, the age-old tools of imperial domination. Khadr is but one of countless victims of what is, as described by Irene Khan of Amnesty International, a modern day “gulag.” The U.S. archipelago of torture and extra-legal detention stretches much farther than the long ago Russian one, because today’s empire extends its reach around the world.

Omar Khadr`s Case Shows That Everyones Rights At Risk

One of the sad byproducts of our present political moment is that we have allowed our most basic rights to become the subject of a political tug of war. Rather than keeping our political discussions to how to best interpret and apply the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other Canadian laws, we have moved into dangerous territory where we can rightly wonder whether our rights will be upheld at all. For that, we can thank Omar Khadr and Stephen Harper, the alleged child soldier and the prime minister who has chosen to ignore a 9-0 Supreme Court decision that found Canada complicit in breaking Khadr's Charter rights

Torture as a Foreign Policy The Omar Khadr Decision

The Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that the government of Canada violated Omar Khadr’s rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that those violations continue, and that those violations contribute to his ongoing detention. The court was referring to the fact that officials from Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) interrogated Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay and gave their interrogation records to Khadr’s U.S. captors after being told that U.S. officials had tortured Khadr (by severe sleep deprivation) for three weeks to “make him more amenable and willing to talk” to the Canadians and that he would be placed in isolation after the interrogation.

Canadian Government Must Respond To The Supreme Court Ruling of Canada That Omar khadrs Right`s Have been Violated

The Court issued a declaration that the actions of Canadian intelligence officials, who interrogated Omar Khadr at Guantánamo Bay knowing that he had been subject to “improper treatment by US authorities”, breached his rights under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court finds that Canada “actively participated in a process contrary to Canada’s international human rights obligations and contributed to Mr. Khadr’s ongoing detention so as to deprive him of his right to liberty and security of the person guaranteed by s.7 of the Charter, contrary to the principles of fundamental justice.”

Judge runs In Circles Over Omar Khadr`s Boycott of Injustice

Khadr scrawled the statement on a sheet of paper under the heading "Arabic-English language class." "Your honour, I'm boycotting this military commission because, firstly, the unfairness and unjustice of it. I say this because not one of the lawyers I've had, or human rights organizations, or any person, ever say that this commission is fair or looking for justice, but on the contrary they say it's unfair and unjust and that it has been constructed to convict detainees, not to find the truth (so how can I ask for justice from a process that does not have it or offer it) and to accomplish political and public goal.