I can tell you that the latest draft of our script did not even address or mention the name of Omar Khadr. We were looking at Afghanistan and the Olympics this time around – just as we looked at Omar Khadr in our Fringe show. It’s the way – as I think I explained to you above – that the piece is structured. It leaves room for each iteration or production to consider pressing issues human rights issues of the time in the context of similar difficult questions in Canadian history.
That being said, this whole conversation could end up changing that. Or not. We’ll see. That’s the great thing about a workshop.
]]>It seems appropriate because this happened at right about the point that it seems everyone had lost their passion for debating you. Mainly because the SNL style voice you’ve given Omar Khadr although initially intriguing, seems in very poor taste and really only possible under the cloak of anonymity.
Anyways, thanks for your comments because they reinforced that there are people who don’t prioritize human rights for all Canadians. That believe that some people should have less protection from their government depending on whether they agree with them and their actions. This is the issue at the core of our production, and while I emphatically disagree both factually and ideologically with many of your points – it is valuable for the production to acknowledge that the reason Omar Khadr is in Guantanamo Bay is because there are many, many people, just like you out there.
]]>ps leave Naomi Klein out of this.
]]>“Omar Khadr ‘innocent’ in death of U.S. soldier”
http://www.thestar.com/specialsections/omarkhadr/article/717885
Turns out he was face down in a ditch with two bullets in his back bleeding out of one eye when he was supposed to have thrown that grenade.
But hey – that’s not the point is it? The point is that all Canadians, regardless of how much you repudiate their actions or views, SHOULD have the same rights. Every other Western country has asked to repatriate their citizens from Guantanamo but Canada – and that decision has severely weakened what it means TO BE Canadian I’m afraid. A government can’t pick which citizens it’s going to work to protect their civil and human rights and which ones they don’t give an F about.
I mean they can – that’s exactly what has happened, but it effectively means there are different classes of Canadian citizens now and a heavily partisan government that was elected by just 1/3 of the citizens will decide who falls into which category. Dark days.
]]>And frankly, if you had read my posts, you’d know that I’m EXCITED for my trial, I want my trial and so does everyone else because then all of this is over and we can MOVE ON.
At least we agree on that.
And don’t be intimidated by the debate just because you don’t like how quickly a tide can turn, that’s just the nature of debate.
Win some, lose some.
Kisses,
Omar
@ “Omar” – don’t worry, you actually were a child in the eyes of the UN at the time of your capture and arrest:
(http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc-conflict.htm)
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (2000):
from preamble: “Noting that article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child specifies that, for the purposes of that Convention, a child means every human being below the age of 18 years unless, under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier, ”
Article 4: “1. Armed groups that are distinct from the armed forces of a State should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities persons under the age of 18 years. ”
Kahdr has not had a trial, military or not. The Canadian Supreme Court isn’t letting him off of any alleged crimes, it is demanding our government do what Britain and Australia did with their nationals who were detained at Gitmo under similar charges: try them in their home country. Makes sense, because torture is a war crime, and there is very credible reason to believe that he has been tortured in Guantanamo. Such repatriation happens all the time. Except now.
It creeps me out that his actual guilt is being assumed here. This kid, who hated what America was doing to his family’s country of origin (spend any time in the so-called third world to fill your address book with members of that club), threw a grenade at a foreign soldier when that soldier arrived in his neighbourhood to kill his family. I don’t think he’s a saint, but quoting rules at me doesn’t convince me that he wasn’t in a fuck of a hard spot, and like any testosterone-heavy teenager, he made some real bad calls. His fault is that he made them in a country at war. And none of us can talk with any legitimacy about how brutal and out of control that kind of situation is.
But fuck – treat him like any other (alleged) criminal, or at least with the dignity we bestow upon repeat sex offenders: get him swiftly to trial and judgement.
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