SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Canada Ignores Calls for Guantánamo Youth To Come Home
The Canadian government was today under fire for refusing to seek the repatriation of a teenage national held at Guantanamo Bay, who was shown desperately pleading for his country's help in recently released footage.
Jul 17, 2008
The Canadian government was today under fire for refusing to seek the repatriation of a teenage national held at Guantanamo Bay, who was shown desperately pleading for his country's help in recently released footage.
Liberal politicians and human rights groups criticised Canada's conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, for the lack of action saying it undermined attempts to eradicate the use of child soldiers.
Watch the video.
Toronto-born Omar Khadr's US military lawyer called on Harper to "stand up and act like a prime minister of Canada" and demand the teenager's return.
Footage of Khadr's Guantanamo interrogation was released this week by his lawyers, in the hope it would spur the government into bringing him into the Canadian justice system.
However, a spokesman for Harper said scenes of Khadr sobbing for his mother as he was interrogated by Canadian officials in 2003, would not sway the government's position.
"These videos were in possession of the previous government when they decided to pursue the judicial process for Mr Khadr to have his day in court in Guantanamo," Harper's chief spokesman, Kory Teneycke, said.
"The information is not new. We can't ignore the serious charges Mr Khadr is facing. The proper forum for determining his guilt or innocence is a judicial process not a political process. We're not affected by what's on the cover of newspapers."
Khadr's military lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler, along with his criticism of Harper, said yesterday that the military tribunals at Guantanamo "aren't designed to be fair" and designed "to produce convictions".
He said anyone who watched Khadr whimpering for his mother and still believed he had vowed to die fighting with a bunch of hardened al-Qaida terrorists is "crazy".
"The tape shows Omar Khadr not as a hardened terrorist but as a frightened boy."
"It just shows how unreliable anything that they extracted from this kid is would be at trial."
Khadr, who was shown in the video aged 16 and questioned after severe sleep deprivation, will have to remain at Guantanamo until he is prosecuted for war crimes in front of a special US military tribunal, later this year.
The liberal Canadian senator and ex-general Romeo Dallaire told Canada Television's (CTV) Newsnet programme that Khadr is a child solider and should be treated and given the same rehabilitation that Canada devotes to other child soldiers around the world.
"We're getting stabbed in the back," Dallaire told the cable channel. "We have worked for years to assist other nations in eradicating the use of children in conflict. But our own country doesn't even want to recognise that our own citizen (is a child soldier). No matter what his politics are, it's totally irrelevant.
"He's a child soldier that was abused and he's a child soldier that needs to be brought back into a formal process we signed up for."
Khadr, the son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US Special Forces soldier during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan in which he was badly wounded.
He was captured when he was 15 and could face life in prison if convicted
Amnesty International has described him as the first person to face trial anywhere in the world for war crimes allegedly committed when he was a juvenile.
The seven hours of grainy footage, recorded over four days of questioning by Canadian intelligence agents in 2003, shows Khadr breaking down in tears.
He is seen pleading for medical help for chest and back wounds that he said had not healed six months after his capture. He also described the torture and abuse he suffered at the hand of US officials.
Khadr denied killing Army Sergteant 1st Class Christopher Speer, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, during the 2002 battle in Afghanistan.
The footage was the first to publicly show interrogations inside the US military prison complex.
(c) 2008 The Guardian
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
The Canadian government was today under fire for refusing to seek the repatriation of a teenage national held at Guantanamo Bay, who was shown desperately pleading for his country's help in recently released footage.
Liberal politicians and human rights groups criticised Canada's conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, for the lack of action saying it undermined attempts to eradicate the use of child soldiers.
Watch the video.
Toronto-born Omar Khadr's US military lawyer called on Harper to "stand up and act like a prime minister of Canada" and demand the teenager's return.
Footage of Khadr's Guantanamo interrogation was released this week by his lawyers, in the hope it would spur the government into bringing him into the Canadian justice system.
However, a spokesman for Harper said scenes of Khadr sobbing for his mother as he was interrogated by Canadian officials in 2003, would not sway the government's position.
"These videos were in possession of the previous government when they decided to pursue the judicial process for Mr Khadr to have his day in court in Guantanamo," Harper's chief spokesman, Kory Teneycke, said.
"The information is not new. We can't ignore the serious charges Mr Khadr is facing. The proper forum for determining his guilt or innocence is a judicial process not a political process. We're not affected by what's on the cover of newspapers."
Khadr's military lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler, along with his criticism of Harper, said yesterday that the military tribunals at Guantanamo "aren't designed to be fair" and designed "to produce convictions".
He said anyone who watched Khadr whimpering for his mother and still believed he had vowed to die fighting with a bunch of hardened al-Qaida terrorists is "crazy".
"The tape shows Omar Khadr not as a hardened terrorist but as a frightened boy."
"It just shows how unreliable anything that they extracted from this kid is would be at trial."
Khadr, who was shown in the video aged 16 and questioned after severe sleep deprivation, will have to remain at Guantanamo until he is prosecuted for war crimes in front of a special US military tribunal, later this year.
The liberal Canadian senator and ex-general Romeo Dallaire told Canada Television's (CTV) Newsnet programme that Khadr is a child solider and should be treated and given the same rehabilitation that Canada devotes to other child soldiers around the world.
"We're getting stabbed in the back," Dallaire told the cable channel. "We have worked for years to assist other nations in eradicating the use of children in conflict. But our own country doesn't even want to recognise that our own citizen (is a child soldier). No matter what his politics are, it's totally irrelevant.
"He's a child soldier that was abused and he's a child soldier that needs to be brought back into a formal process we signed up for."
Khadr, the son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US Special Forces soldier during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan in which he was badly wounded.
He was captured when he was 15 and could face life in prison if convicted
Amnesty International has described him as the first person to face trial anywhere in the world for war crimes allegedly committed when he was a juvenile.
The seven hours of grainy footage, recorded over four days of questioning by Canadian intelligence agents in 2003, shows Khadr breaking down in tears.
He is seen pleading for medical help for chest and back wounds that he said had not healed six months after his capture. He also described the torture and abuse he suffered at the hand of US officials.
Khadr denied killing Army Sergteant 1st Class Christopher Speer, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, during the 2002 battle in Afghanistan.
The footage was the first to publicly show interrogations inside the US military prison complex.
(c) 2008 The Guardian
The Canadian government was today under fire for refusing to seek the repatriation of a teenage national held at Guantanamo Bay, who was shown desperately pleading for his country's help in recently released footage.
Liberal politicians and human rights groups criticised Canada's conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, for the lack of action saying it undermined attempts to eradicate the use of child soldiers.
Watch the video.
Toronto-born Omar Khadr's US military lawyer called on Harper to "stand up and act like a prime minister of Canada" and demand the teenager's return.
Footage of Khadr's Guantanamo interrogation was released this week by his lawyers, in the hope it would spur the government into bringing him into the Canadian justice system.
However, a spokesman for Harper said scenes of Khadr sobbing for his mother as he was interrogated by Canadian officials in 2003, would not sway the government's position.
"These videos were in possession of the previous government when they decided to pursue the judicial process for Mr Khadr to have his day in court in Guantanamo," Harper's chief spokesman, Kory Teneycke, said.
"The information is not new. We can't ignore the serious charges Mr Khadr is facing. The proper forum for determining his guilt or innocence is a judicial process not a political process. We're not affected by what's on the cover of newspapers."
Khadr's military lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler, along with his criticism of Harper, said yesterday that the military tribunals at Guantanamo "aren't designed to be fair" and designed "to produce convictions".
He said anyone who watched Khadr whimpering for his mother and still believed he had vowed to die fighting with a bunch of hardened al-Qaida terrorists is "crazy".
"The tape shows Omar Khadr not as a hardened terrorist but as a frightened boy."
"It just shows how unreliable anything that they extracted from this kid is would be at trial."
Khadr, who was shown in the video aged 16 and questioned after severe sleep deprivation, will have to remain at Guantanamo until he is prosecuted for war crimes in front of a special US military tribunal, later this year.
The liberal Canadian senator and ex-general Romeo Dallaire told Canada Television's (CTV) Newsnet programme that Khadr is a child solider and should be treated and given the same rehabilitation that Canada devotes to other child soldiers around the world.
"We're getting stabbed in the back," Dallaire told the cable channel. "We have worked for years to assist other nations in eradicating the use of children in conflict. But our own country doesn't even want to recognise that our own citizen (is a child soldier). No matter what his politics are, it's totally irrelevant.
"He's a child soldier that was abused and he's a child soldier that needs to be brought back into a formal process we signed up for."
Khadr, the son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US Special Forces soldier during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan in which he was badly wounded.
He was captured when he was 15 and could face life in prison if convicted
Amnesty International has described him as the first person to face trial anywhere in the world for war crimes allegedly committed when he was a juvenile.
The seven hours of grainy footage, recorded over four days of questioning by Canadian intelligence agents in 2003, shows Khadr breaking down in tears.
He is seen pleading for medical help for chest and back wounds that he said had not healed six months after his capture. He also described the torture and abuse he suffered at the hand of US officials.
Khadr denied killing Army Sergteant 1st Class Christopher Speer, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, during the 2002 battle in Afghanistan.
The footage was the first to publicly show interrogations inside the US military prison complex.
(c) 2008 The Guardian
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy