OMAR KHADR AND CANADA’S HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

Dear Mr Toews,

I am writing with regard to Canadian citizen Omar Khadr’s repatriation to Canada. I am an independent researcher on global health / human rights (one of many) following Omar’s case and waiting for Canada to accept this young man back onto home territory.

I understand that only one document remains to be signed, in your possession. What I do not understand is the reason for this delay. Omar’s lawyers, the American government, the UN and thousands of concerned individuals are just as confused.

I am very disappointed with Canada in this respect and saddened that your country also has double standards on human rights. Here we have someone who was a young boy when he was picked up and has been recognized as a child soldier by international NGOs including UNICEF and is thus entitled to rehabilitation not retribution. Right now he sits in solitary confinement and campaigners for justice wait for his rights to be upheld.

Canada and the US expect others to uphold human rights yet are some of the worst offenders and also very adept at avoiding being held to account. I will quote you one example. Have you heard of the Krever Report? Perhaps I could fill in the gaps where Krever left off, where perhaps he was afraid to go at that time! Canadian officials largely escaped being tried for their alleged crimes. Well as an award winning researcher into contaminated blood I could add a lot more to Krever’s evidence now, having accessed documents that some claimed to have been destroyed!

What would the world think if it knew the true extent of this scandal that not only violated the rights of Canadian citizens but killed many also. Who should have been held to account for buying in blood taken from prisoners that had been injected with deadly viruses in unethical experimentation by doctors against the Nuremberg Code? These same prisoners that were beaten, tortured with electrical currents to the testicles, died and whose death certficates were at times falsified. Well that is what Canada found acceptable and knowingly bought this blood from plasma companies and brokers. In Auschwitz, to support such deadly experimentation was classed as “crimes against humanity.”

Omar was a child when he was captured… look at his punishment compared to those that escaped justice in the “bad blood “scandal… those that the Canadian State protected, not children but adults whose alleged crimes killed thousands of ordinary civilians!

Isn’t it about time Canada turned round its human rights record and did the right thing now by this young man. Or do you want one more dark stain on your record… and another round of litigation.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely

Carol Grayson (ESRC Michael Young Research Award 2009, Executive Producer of Oscar Nominated Documentary, Incident in New Baghdad.. .http://www.incidentinnewbaghdad.com/ )

EXPOSING STATE “COLLATERAL DAMAGE”