Today is the day Torontonians speak their voices and show their solitude in the rally to repatriate Scarborough born Omar Khadr to Canada. Here is an abbreviated tag line to the event sponsored by the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, the Canadian Arab Federation, and the Muslim Unity Group.

Tell Stephen Harper:                                                                         
Bring Omar Khadr back to Canada!

Rally & march
Saturday, July 26, 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
U.S. Consulate
360 University Avenue
(north of Queen West, east side of University)
TTC: Osgoode or St. Patrick

Canadian citizen Omar Khadr is the only Western national  left in – Guantanamo Bay, and the first child-soldier to be prosecuted in –more than a hundred years. Khadr was only 15 years-old when -he was captured by US forces in Afghanistan and later transported–to the infamous US prison where he has now spent more than a –quarter of his life. Khadr faces trial by US military tribunal in– October 2008.

Recently released video footage reveals the kind of mistreatment that Khadr has experienced in Guantanamo Bay, where the US has been accused of practicing torture on detainees. Other reports show that Khadr was subjected to extreme forms of sleep deprivation, a form of torture, including a practice called the “frequent flyer program” in which he was woken every three hours and moved to a different cell for 24 hours a day over a three-week period.

Worse still, court documents reveal that the Canadian government was aware of the abuse suffered by Khadr at the hands of US authorities yet continued to assure the Canadian public that he was being well treated…

An In Depth Legal Perspective of the Situation

Yes we do realize that from an advertising perspective it would have been more prudent to give advanced notice to potential attendees. However, showing support for this cause is our main concern and surely this will not be the only important step in the repatriation of one of Canada’s own.

With that said, we contemplated formulating some in depth legal analysis of the situation showing the legal (and moral) inconsistencies from the standpoint of the Canadian government, including their controversial interrogatory interjection and the actions brought against them and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In fear of muddling up, what takes years of legal scholarship to accurately formulate, we decided to leave this arduous and painstakingly technical task to the experts. Therefore, we would like to direct your attention to one of Canada’s finest, University of Toronto law professor Audrey Macklin.

She has been a public advocate at the same time a legal scholar in this area.  She has meticulously compiled an Omar Khadr resource page, in a manner unique to the academic elite.  It contains PDF files to all the legal documents and cases and decisions in the US and Canadian jurisdictions.  It also sites relevant cases from the UK and Australia - two nations who ardently demanded the return of their nationals.  This extremely informative page also holds links to advocacy and media publications.

Additionally, her publications page lists much of her recent academic work, unfortunately however, only a few of her works are downloadable and easily accessed online.  If you’re going to seek out a couple of hard copies, we recommend taking a look at this one: ”Exile on Main Street: Popular Discourse and Legal Manoeuvres Around Citizenship”, in Law Commission of Canada, ed., Law and Citizenship (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 22-54.

We’ll keep up with some timely postings on this situation and provide some of our own insights in future posts.  Until then…