Free Omar Khadr

Omar Khadr is a little older than we are – 21. Unlike us, however, he is not young and carefree. Unlike us, he doesn’t do homework; he doesn’t watch football on weekends and he doesn’t have a girlfriend.

Omar Khadr is a detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

At age 15, the Canadian citizen was captured in Khost, Afghanistan, a child soldier of sorts, who had lobbed a bomb that killed an American sergeant who was leading his troops into the compound where Mr. Khadr was hiding. Imprisoned immediately, the list of human rights violations against him are not just shocking but enraging. That an adolescent, caught in the middle of an outright battle, should defend himself and then be punished so heinously for it is unthinkable. Sgt. Speers, who was at the receiving end of Mr. Khadr’s bomb, might have killed him instead – by accident or design, that is immaterial – but that would have been somehow acceptable, because American soldiers maiming and murdering civilians on the battlefield is, for some reason, much less unforgivable than an innocent Muslim boy trying to protect himself. Of course, America claims that it has footage of Mr. Khadr planting mines and a confession of espionage. But then again, America’s track record with truth is highly suspect – remember the Weapons of Mass Destruction?

In the meantime, Mr. Khadr has been denied access to lawyers, kept in extended isolation, withheld medicines from, to use his pain as means of surrender during interrogation and essentially brutalised, physically and psychologically – he was short-shackled and contorted into stress positions repeatedly. When Canadian newspaper, Toronto Star got their hands on a report compiled by Canadian Intelligence on their meeting with Mr. Khadr, it explicitly stated that he had bruises all over his body and had seemed to have been the victim of multiple assaults. Newsday’s Muneer Ahmed noted how the Pentagon sabotaged legal help for detainees and reported how Mr. Khadr’s account of abuse had been redacted by the American authorities to prevent their leakage. One of Mr. Khadr’s lawyers was even intimated of the horrific treatment meted out to prisoners, rather gleefully, by some Guantanamo’s guards. The US Department of Defence maintains its hypocrisy as they assure the world that the children in Gitmo are provided with all the counsel and support including education and health to help rehabilitate them into society. But all accounts with regard to Mr. Khadr state just the opposite.

The Canadian Government has, so far, done nothing which can be classified as noteworthy or taken the sort of step that a responsible government should be taking if its citizen rots in jail, under pretexts that are all too vague (Mr. Khadr had nine charges levelled against him, five of which were dismissed) and keeping in mind the age of the defendant at the time of the crime. That Mr. Khadr committed one is not being argued here, what is being said is that the administrations of the USA and Canada are turning a blind eye to the fact that a teenager was being punished for the sins of his family and father. All the boys in Mr. Khadr’s family, including his older brother Abdurrahman Khadr, were sent to military school at ages as young as 11. In the formative years of one’s growth, if one is brainwashed into violence and bombarded with knowledge cast in the shades of propaganda and terrorism, one is likely to accept and internalise those teachings. Can a 15 year old boy be held responsible for the machinations of the adults in his life? If those adults were terrorists, does it become OK to inflict punishment on the boy? This whole business seems nothing but a perverse revenge drama being played out at the expense of international law and civil rights. The Canadian Government is showing itself to be racist and deferential to the US government by refusing to take adequate steps. It is proving to a weak and impotent aegis for its citizens. One wonders if they would be as indifferent if Omar Khadr were John Smith.

Amnesty International has also urged Canada to be more forthcoming its support of Mr. Khadr. While it is true and unsurprising that his family has little popular support in Canada, governments are guided by a higher justice and obligation towards their people, not by opinion polls. It is time Canada’s parliament stepped in and joined the fight that its youth have started to free Mr. Khadr. It must exert pressure on and demand explanations from the American government as to why Mr. Khadr continues to be held in the notorious facility despite most allegations against him having been dropped; indeed, what the remaining allegations are; what their evidentiary support is and why a fair trial has not been accorded to him even if he is in fact guilty of the charges. Canada must force the American government to explain the instances of torture and torment Mr. Khadr was subjected to and why all human rights were thrown out the window. Finally, Canada must insist on knowing how American soldiers are pardoned for the same crimes that the rest of the world’s civilians are thrown into horrific dungeons for and why a minor was treated as an adult throughout the whole process and period of detainment. In doing all this, Canada will pull the US down from its self-satisfied throne of insulation and induce accountability in its dealings with the global community, both military and otherwise.

The world needs to stop forgiving the atrocities that America commits, both on individuals and on nations. This time Canada needs to forget the Biblical adage of ‘Love thy neighbour’ and concentrate instead on the humanitarian ideals of freedom and justice. Canada needs to bring Omar Khadr home.