Boy 15 Tortured By US And Held Illegally In Gitmo Argues For Release

  Posted by - November 14, 2009 at 6:04 am - Permalink - Source via Alexander Higgins Blog
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Two lower Canadian Courts have already ruled that Omar Khadr should be returned to Canada from Guantanamo Bay after illegally being held and tortured for the last almost 8 years with out trial or conviction of any criminal charges.

The Canadian Government has appealed both those lower court decisions requesting that their own citizen be allowed to be held illegally by the US government where he has been tortured since he was 15 years old.  The Canadian Government is appealing the decision based on the fact the the Courts should not be allowed make ruling on foreign policy or international law.

The AP reports Canada’s federal government is urging the country’s top court to overturn a judicial order that obligates the government to seek the repatriation of the youngest detainee held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has steadfastly refused to request the return of Omar Khadr, the last Western detainee held at the prison at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. Harper has said the U.S. legal process must be allowed to play itself out.

Canadian Supreme Court Argues Guantanamo Bay Detainee Extradition


Take the Left argues that Khadr is being held in a military prosecution to hide evidence that he has been tortured.

Omar Khadr was arrested in Afghanistan when he was 15 on charges of killing a US soldier and other acts of terrorism. Since then he has been detained and tortured by the US government in Guantanamo Bay.

Khadr’s lawyer argued that the US illegally voilated international prohibitions of torture and intenational prohibitions against illegal detention and pointed out the the US violations where committed against a 15 year child. He also argued that the Canada has a duty to invoke its right to protect and the US had breached several aspects of International Law and Charter.

International law requires that all states have a responsibility to stop any state that participates in torture of terrorism suspects. US torture of Gitmo detainess is a systematic voilation of breaches international law which is one of the most severe type of breach of international law that their is.

Omar Khadr He has been denied legal council as well as Habeas Corpus, which is the right to seek legal action for illegal detention.

In 2005 the US Supreme Court denied his request to protect him from being tortured. While he proved that he had been tortured since 2005, the US Supreme Court denied his request on the grounds that he did not prove that he would be tortured again in the future.

Many US citizens of the US are of the opinion that it is acceptable for the government to illegally detain and torture terrorists suspects.

The problem that arises with the status quo is what stops a government from illegally detaining and torturing anyone they want and bypassing the constitution by calling them a terrorist?

What stops a a government from making an innocent person serve life in prison by making the claim that prosecuting that person is a risk to national security? What stops the government from throwing away the key for any prisoner they want simply by stating that the evidence is too sensitive to national security to be released?

It can happen and it already has. That is why the US constitution protects every citizen with a Bill of Rights. Yet the US government has routinely disregarded the Constitutional Rights of Detainees, since 9/11.

Other detainees have already been declared innocent and released

What stops the Government from Accusing You or Me of Being a terrorists and throwing us away in a prison cell, losing the key and torturing us?

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