A CANADIAN’S AMERICAN LEGAL ODYSSEY

This mediascout articles is indicative of why Omar Khadr is frying in HELL

Rather than focus on the total unfairness of holding a 15 year old boy in custody for 5 years in solitary confinement (!!!) and PERSONALIZING the story, it turns on the legal ramifications.

Yes, these are HIGHLY troubling legal ramifications; no one would dispute this. BUT in the entire five years, the press has steadfastly put a face on Omar Khadr. No source reporting ever questions this practice. So his very age of arrest goes unnoticed.

When for an instant it appeared he just MIGHT get out of Guantanamo, the press didn't raise a peep to help him. This just appears to me to be a self serving "get up and put up and shut up" routine that allows systemic and systematic racism to FLORISH in Canada. They are citizens, too, these reporters, these are fellow human beings, but they've left Omar Khadr to FRY. And then ensured that no one is going to identify with HIM - he's DIFFERENT. In this brief posting, he's guilty of having the "wrong" family.

No Omar Khadr is a martyr; an unintentional martyr.

He's been left to be the scapegoat of those who cannot morally look at their lack of compassion for a fellow human being who at fifteen was made a stooge for public policy "considerations".

No fifteen year old should be sitting in a military prison HELLHOLE, nowhere in the world. And none less so than a CANADIAN, if the twisted reality that Canada is a human rights supporter.

Omar Khadr should go free - not because it is bad legal precedent (it is that, too) but because it is just plain WRONG that he is even in US hands, that he is young, that he has never been justice and never will be.

I read yesterday about a case where another young man has been framed in the UK legal system by having downloaded some muslim propaganda into his computer. He was ANGRY but guilty of nothing. But his curiosity was criminalized and now he stands convicted.

While people floak to the site teardown.org in absolute rage that Guantanomo is still standing and crying at its existence - the press still acts as if somehow there were justifications for torture ... and completely unacceptable practice of detaining people in its bowels of HORROR.

From Amnesty International's brief on Omar Khadr:

"The Canadian government has yet to publicly express concern about the shortcomings of the military commissions. By contrast, the British government took a strong stand against the trial of their nationals by the military commissions. All U.K. nationals were subsequently released from Guantánamo Bay."

You can read all the details in the case on Amnesty site here.

He should get out NOW! It is easy to see why Omar Khadr is still in jail. I hope you'll go to the Amnesty site and start writing to have him freed. The information is right on the link!!

From Today's Mediascout:

The Star and The Citizen (not available online) go inside with the latest from Canadian and Guantanamo Bay captive Omar Khadr’s legal odyssey. Earlier this week the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review overturned a lower tribunal’s decision to throw out the charges against Khadr, who has been held for five years, mostly in solitary confinement.

This sets the stage for his prosecution under the controversial military court process set up by the Bush administration. Khadr is only the second “unlawful enemy combatant”—as the Bush administration has famously designated those captured fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan—to face trial under the process.

The Star reports that as of yet, Ottawa has no intention of intervening on Khadr’s behalf, as his family’s ties to top al-Qaeda leaders have made him widely unpopular in Canada. The Citizen reports that Khadr’s lawyers hope to block the proceedings. Human rights groups are critical of Ottawa’s decision not to intervene, as they have been of the entire Guantanamo Bay process. Author Erna Paris in a Globe comment piece (not available online), argues against allowing Khadr’s trial to proceed under a military court.

To do so would risk establishing a precedent that undermines fundamental legal standards such as due process. The trial would also help to establish the “unlawful enemy combatant” designation and might have implications for the future legal standards applied to child soldiers (Khadr was first arrested when he was 15).

Paris notes that when an Australian faced this same legal process, the public uproar and diplomatic pressure was so great from that country that the US backed down. MediaScout hopes that despite Khadr’s unpopularity, the Big Seven will give the important legal principles involved in this case the airing they deserve.