This video of Canadian officials visiting Khadr in Guantanamo in 2003 make it undeniable that they have been aware of his mental and physical abuse (aka torture) at the hand of US interrogators for the past five years.
In an October 10th post, four days before the federal election, this blog noted that CBC had rated Department of Culture the #4 Facebook issue group in the 2008 Federal election. Initially, this was great and exciting news - until it became clear we had narrowly edged out Omar Khadr as an election issue.
This struck myself and many others at DoC as just plain wrong. Support for the human rights of a Canadian citizen being held and tortured in direct violation of the Geneva Convention is not something to be relegated to the status of “issue group”. The way the our government has handled Khadr’s case is embarrassing to anyone who professes to value International Law, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or just plain decency to fellow human beings. Omar Khadr was a fifteen-year-old boy when he was brought to Guantanamo.
Our post asked for DoC members to mount an unofficial campaign to move the Omar Khadr group to #4. The whole system of dividing up citizens advocating for their government to live up to its responsibilities as “interest groups” also struck me as symptomatic of a divide and conquer mentality that we were learning to avoid. Omar Khadr can be saved from torture at Guantanamo Bay AND culture can be funded in a way that benefits both artists and society. Why either or?
This week, the unofficial campaign achieved its goal.
The election is over, but as of today the Facebook group, “For the release of Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay” had 4901 members. While the DoC Facebook page has gained 307 new members over that period, growing from 4443 members to 4750 members, we are now just behind the Khadr group.
We’re #5! We’re #5!
And that’s just fine with me. We are all growing. The divide and conquer era is over. When Obama comes to power, Harper will be under enormous pressure to reverse his previous position that he should remain the only Western foreigner still being held at the U.S. military prison.
Join the group, get involved, you can help.
