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compassion
January 29, 2010
**Edit: The Court issued a unanimous ruling condemning the government’s actions in the Khadr case, but stopped short of ordering them to intervene with US officials to have Khadr repatriated. I’ll quote a bit from the Globe and Mail article, since they archive stories for a woefully short period of time:
In an 9-0 ruling this morning, the Court said that Canada violated Mr. Khadr’s Charter rights by participating in illegal interrogation methods which included sleep deprivation.
It stressed that the constitutional breach is ongoing and “continues to this day.”
However, the court said that before stepping in to dictate a Canadian response on a sensitive question of foreign policy, the federal government must be given a chance to rectify Mr. Khadr’s plight.
But should the government fail to act, the court warned that it has the power to move more overtly to aid Mr. Khadr.
So. “What you’ve done is wrong, and you should put it right, but we won’t make you. But we could”. I’m trying to look at this in a positive light, but I have no faith that our current government will move to protect Khadr unless forced to do so by the Court. I think they’ve only given Harper more time to stall. And stall he will.
One more quote from The Globe and Mail:
At one point in the hearing, Chief Justice McLachlin expressed concern that, with Mr. Khadr’s mistreatment in the distant past, it might be too late for the courts to take drastic action.
“He has suffered greatly, perhaps, and with great consequence,” she said. “But how does repatriation fix that?”
Well, for one thing, it STOPS THE TORTURE. Because I can’t imagine that life in Guantanamo these days is suddenly all ice cream and pony rides.**
I’m a ball of anxiety today, worrying about what the Supreme Court will decide in the case of Omar Khadr. For those of you who might not know who Khadr is, the quick version: he is the only citizen of a Western country still detained at Guantanamo Bay. He was arrested in Afghanistan at the age of 15, accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier, and has been in detention at Guantanamo ever since. He is now 23 years old. Unlike the governments of every other civilized nation in the world, the Canadian government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper has steadfastly refused to demand he be returned home to face trial in his own country. The US military wants to try Khadr in a military court rather than in a federal court, and the reason for this is that the evidence against him is as fragile as a month-old cobweb: blow on it and it will fall apart and disappear on the wind.
Browse through the comments section (at your own risk; I’ve been reduced to angry tears by it so many times that I avoid doing so anymore) of any online news article on Khadr and you’ll find a lot of hateful racist vitriol there, against Khadr, against his family, and against Muslims and Muslim-Canadians in general. Yes, his family’s associations are problematic. But the truth is, having been taken from Canada to Afghanistan and forced into combat by his own father and not some village-invading militia does not change the fact that Omar was a victim, a child soldier abused first by his own family, then by the US military, and then by the Canadian government in their refusal to offer him the protection every citizen deserves.
I don’t even care whether or not Khadr threw that grenade. I have confidence that the truth will be determined in court. But I don’t have confidence that any truth or justice will come from allowing this boy (man, now) to face trial by the American military. They have too much invested in producing a conviction to be trusted to view the facts fairly.
This morning when my alarm went off I dozed through the CBC radio news, and listening to this story I saw in my dream a 10-metre-tall Stephen Harper in a blue pinstripe suit (and a red toque with a Vancouver Olympics logo; it was a dream, don’t ask) standing at the gates to a medieval city, gazing out over the minus 35 windchill (I must have slept through the weather report as well) snowy landscape with a majestic sneer. Melodramatic I know, but cut me some slack, it was a dream. His giant eyelids slid down lizard-like over his cold, glittering eyes before he turned and closed the doors. Let’s hope the Court forces him to leave that door open a crack, so the abused child at his feet can scrabble in behind him to the safety of home.
Posted by jodi on January 29, 2010 at 9.17am
Categories: true patriot love