CSIS defends right to interrogate Khadr

[CHIMO]

CSIS defends right to interrogate Khadr
Last Updated Wed, 10 Aug 2005 22:55:14 EDT
CBC News

Canada's spy agency is defending its right to interrogate a Canadian being held by the U.S. as a suspected terrorist at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

A federal court judge ruled Wednesday that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms extends to 17-year-old Omar Khadr and ordered the agency to stop questioning him.

"You can't have citizens who live in Canada, entitled to the full protection of the constitution, and you can't have a second class of citizen who's in Guantanamo Bay and is allowed to be violated by his own government."

The federal court decision agreed, ruling that U.S.officials might use information from Canadian interrogations to prosecute Khadr, and that may cause him "irreparable harm."

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/08/10/khadr.html

From selling seeds to Maher to this, there seems to be a common thread going on here. Our politicians are silent in all of this. One can assume that they are complicit in the actions taking place.

[wli]

1. Canada's being taken over by neocons too??

Probably good I wrote it off as an emigration destination, then.

[Maple]

2. No, we're not

Not even close

[Spazito]

3. Not at all, quite the opposite actually

Our neocon lites were defeated in the last election and will be again in the next.

[Canadian_moderate]

4. Do a little search on the Khadr's before making statements

These people are a legitimate threat. The father of the family (who died in Afghanistan) had direct links with Osama bin Laden and several of the family members have fought for either Al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

If they have dual citizenship, I would support their deportation.

[CHIMO]

5. The Article

Was not about guilt nor innocence. It is about two types of citizenship and whether we still have the right to a lawyer when accused of a crime.

[Canadian_moderate]

6. Why involve lawyers?

Just ship Omar Khadr back to Afghanistan. That's where he was captured, so that's where he should be released. If he's handed over to Canadian authorities, than we can get lawyers involved to sort out his fate.

[CHIMO]

7. If One

Is a Canadian citizen and is going to be questioned by a Canadian officer about a crime then one has the right to a lawyer. That is why. CSIS was questioning the chap.

Canada did not arrest the person so we don't have any active part in shipping cargo anywhere.

If he didn't want a lawyer then fine.(Although I don't think that is the case.) In fact if one reads further in the article CSIS states that they question people all the time without lawyers. Well lo and behold, we just recently herd officials in Ontario state that they weren't treating people of certain religions or heredity any different than everyone else. So do you think that you should be denied a lawyer, if they all of a sudden they consider you a danger to society? Which of course, obviously you are not. But we won't want to make the same judgment in this case because, well it seems obvious of course.(Perhaps we should just ship him off to Syria for awhile should he return)

[Canadian_moderate]

8. Unlike Maher Arar (sp?)...

Omar Khadr has proven himself to be a threat to Canadians. He could have killed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan when he and his father were fighting for the Taliban and Bin Laden.

I don't understand why any liberal-minded persons would tolerate such intolerant people as the Khadrs, much less support them through social programs.

GWB was wrong. I'm not on his side, nor am I on the side of terrorists.

-edited to correct subject title

[CHIMO]

9. Then

If he has been convicted, have him serve out the term that the judge has imposed. I don't recall see anything about the trial , unless it was one done behind closed doors. However, in my book proof is proved in front of a judge.

There are many cases that at the time, I thought "why don't they put him behind bars and throw away the key" only to find out years later that the person was not guilty. I agree with you if you are saying that it looks like the person is guilty. But at this point in my life I will not accuse him of being guilty. I will leave that to the courts. In addition if we are going to have two types of Canadians why not increase it to three, four, five or more.

[Canadian_moderate]

10. My suggestion was to release him in Afghanistan...

or to let the Afghanistani authorities deal with him. He can have his trail there instead of in Canada.

I don't agree with Gitmo, but this particular "Canadian" certainly put himself in a position that copmpromised his rights as a Canadian. My heart bleeds for him.

[CHIMO]

12. We

Do not have custody of him. So it is impossible to release him.

And I still don't know what the official charges are. Soldiers in a time of war aren't necessarily guilty of a crime. And I am not sure but I believe he was only around 16 years old at the time.

Further I am not sure that the end of the war in Afghanistan has occurred. Maybe it has and there is just an internal revolution going on at present.

[iverglas]

13. just a little more

... this particular "Canadian" certainly put himself in a position that copmpromised his rights as a Canadian

That may be your opinion as to how things should be, but it is not how things are.

I find the placing of the word Canadian in quotation marks when referring to people one doesn't like to be really quite offensive. If you do it in respect of Khadr, who else is going to do it in respect of whom else?

Is he a "Canadian" because he wasn't born here? Because he did something we Canadians disapprove of? Does he only go in quotation marks if both conditions are met?

One only "compromises" one's rights as a Canadian if one is proved to have something that -- according to constitutionally valid law -- justifies limiting the exercise of those rights. You know:

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Yes, the problem of people who assert the rights and freedoms guaranteed by a free and democratic society to justify non-interference in their efforts to undermine the very existence of those rights and freedoms, and of that society, is a very difficult one. But it isn't solved by saying things like you're saying.

My heart bleeds for him.

I certainly would not demand that you feel any sympathy for him.

The nice thing about constitutional rights is that we have them no matter how little sympathy other people may feel for us. Just ask women who want abortions, and gay men and lesbians who want to get married.

I do have to wonder whether you actually realize that we are talking about someone who was subjected to the most bizarre form of child-rearing you could ever imagine, placed in the position of being a child combattant at a very young age, and interned at the age of 14.

I actually can have a fair bit of sympathy for people like that.

Of course, I'd want him not to be denied his constitutional and human rights even if I didn't.

[iverglas]

14. and a wee bit more

We discussed this situation sort of in reverse, in relation to Zahra Kazemi, the "Canadian" (?) woman killed in Iran, a while ago.

I addressed some of the problems of dual citizenship in that thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=190&topic_id=345&mesg_id=369

If Canada does not have to accept responsibility in relation to Canadians with dual citizenship, how can we claim jurisdiction over them when it's in our interests to do so?

[iverglas]

11. ditto

Not much searching needed; from the article linked:

A federal court judge ruled Wednesday that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms extends to 17-year-old Omar Khadr and ordered the agency to stop questioning him.

... Khadr is alleged to have killed a U.S. soldier with a grenade in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002. He has never been formally charged with any crime, and he hasn't been allowed to see a lawyer.

He was 14 YEARS OLD when he was put in detention.

The detention itself not only violates all civilized concepts of the rights of persons accused of wrongdoing, but is also in flagrant violation of all civilized concepts of the rights of children.

Of course, since the US has never ratified the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, it's not violating any formal obligations in that respect:
http://www.unicef.org/crc/crc.htm

Built on varied legal systems and cultural traditions, the Convention on the Rights of the Child is a universally agreed set of non-negotiable standards and obligations.

The US and Somalia are the two countries that have signed but not ratified.

In addition to violating his more basic rights (like the right to an education), this detention violates his specific rights in relation to criminal justice:

Article 37

States Parties shall ensure that:

(a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age;

(b) No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time;

(c) Every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person and in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age. In particular, every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child's best interest not to do so and shall have the right to maintain contact with his or her family through correspondence and visits, save in exceptional circumstances;

(d) Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right to challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty before a court or other competent, independent and impartial authority and to a prompt decision on any such action.

The US *has* ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which contains rules against recruiting and using people under 18 in armed conflicts, and this is certainly a tacit recognition that child combattants are victims.
http://www.unicef.org/crc/crc.htm


If they have dual citizenship, I would support their deportation.

I certainly don't disagree that some of the clan seem to be (or to have been; several are dead) very unpleasant people.

I would hope that you do understand that in order for someone to be deported, s/he must be proved to have committed a serious violation of Canadian law. Where a person is a citizen of Canada, regardless of what other citizenship s/he has, s/he could not be deported without first losing citizenship, and citizenship is not lost for offences committed after it is gained.

You need to consider the implications of some of the things you're saying.

Let us say that you were born here to parents with Italian citizenship, and you acquired Italian citizenship as well as Canadian citizenship by birth (I'm making this up, since I have no idea whether Italy allows dual citizenship in such circumstances). You are reared here, and by the age of 25 know only a few words of Italian, and have never been to Italy. You then rob a bank.

Should Canada be entitled to deport you to Italy, simply because you are an Italian citizen as well as a Canadian citizen? I wonder what Italy might have to say about that ...

Citizenship is a hugely important concept in international law; it is the nexus between an individual and a state, which other states must both respect and be able to rely on. It is not something that can just be disregarded or taken away willy-nilly -- in the interests not just of the individuals in question, but of the other states affected by the decision.

The international community's interest, and each state's interest, in the legal security of individual-state relationships -- i.e. in being able to determine what individuals' status and rights are in relation to states -- is a big reason why Canada is a party to international agreements against statelessness. The US ... of course ... is not.

There would be absolutely no authority for returning Khadr unwillingly to Afghanistan, since he is not a citizen of that country, as I understand it. I don't expect the government of Afghanistan would want him, even if he chose to go there, and it would have no obligation to take him.

Canada is an enthusiastic advocate of adherence to the rule of law. Sometimes we get stuck with what we regard as perverse effects of adhering to it. Sometimes that's life.