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"...Harper is obliged, more than ever, to adhere to the contract he signed on being installed as our national leader, to do all possible "to protect the lives, rights, interests, and property of Canadian citizens ... when these are endangered or ignored in the territory of a foreign state." Mr. Harper has a remarkable opportunity to take action to defend Omar Khadr’s rights and give him the opportunity of rehabilitation in Canada, especially in light of significant changes in U.S. policy with respect to Guantanamo Bay."

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Omar Khadr - child soldier - has been dehumanized enough. Canada must bring him home and give him the "fair process" he and every Canadian citizen deserves.

Canada, a country historically known for upholding fairness at home and abroad, a country whose liberal Youth Criminal Justice act has become a model for reform in many jurisdictions, has been the only western nation to give the U.S. unconditional authority over one of its nationals held at Guantanamo Bay. Other countries -- including Britain, Australia, Sweden and Germany -- fought to bring home their citizens (all of whom are adults) from the infamous detention centre.

Yet, Canada let its one of its own, a young man whose childhood was stolen by circumstances he could not oppose, waste away in the darkness of unjust imprisonment and alleged torture. It seems strange that this lonely 21-year-old (he is now 22) would not be brought home to face a fair judicial process that would acknowledge his age, background and the long ordeal of time already served.

It is impossible to square our federal government’s passive and acquiescent policy regarding Omar Khadr with the values of our cherished Charter of Rights and Freedoms which is supposed to embrace every one of our citizens. But these rights apparently do not extend to Khadr, persecuted for years by the United States for alleged "war crimes" dating back to age of 15, and supposedly committed under circumstances of chaos and conflict in Afghanistan.

It is impossible to square the concept of a civilized world that condemns the recruitment of child soldiers as immoral, but at the same time ignores the immorality of Khadr’s ongoing persecution by American authorities. What kind of absurdity allows a child soldier to be abused and demonized as an adult war criminal?

Pity a poor youth who, whatever his actual "crimes," has been punished far beyond the evidence presented! Omar Khadr has been branded "guilty until proven innocent." Other western countries did not fumble, dissemble or prevaricate in moving to repatriate their nationals from U.S. detention; Canada, however, has never initiated serious negotiations to bring Omar Khadr home. Instead, Canadians and the world are being told that he is to be held fully responsible for any criminal actions he committed, as if he were an adult when captured by American troops in Afghanistan.

It is now widely known that Omar Khadr is the only person in modern history to be charged with war crimes allegedly committed while a minor. Who is prepared to answer how he could have been responsible -- then or now - for someone else’s ideological and political agendas?

I am not arguing here whether any allegations against him are true or false; let those more qualified deal with the "facts," such as they are. I am writing as a Canadian citizen who has witnessed this kind of double standard before and it is not pretty.

Why must Canada intervene in this case without a moment’s further delay? The primary reason (among many) is that Khadr ... was only 15 at the time of his alleged crime. In terms of Canadian, American and International law, that makes him a child and a minor at the time of his capture.

This sad case of justice denied, even ignored, is a tremendous embarrassment for Canada, especially given that other western nations have successfully lobbied the U.S to bring their adult nationals home from Guantanamo. That makes Canada’s inaction as puzzling as it is troubling. Perhaps our Prime Minister and federal government are afraid of upsetting the U.S. and appearing "soft" on the war against terror. Perhaps this is why the question of repatriating Omar Khadr was left unasked during the October election campaign and leaders’ debates.

By caving in to such self-serving fears, Canada risks a much worse fate than "upsetting" a powerful and influential neighbour: it runs the very real risk of showing itself to the world as a nation willing to ignore the rule of law and the rights of its children.

It is high time that Prime Minister Harper made good on the "Canadian values" he promoted so zealously during the last two election campaigns, and step up to the plate to ensure that these same values of justice and fair play truly apply to all our citizens-- including, most urgently, Omar Khadr.

Our government can no longer afford to hide behind such dangerously bland phrases as "let the process work." The status quo that Mr. Harper so dearly loves is most definitely not working for Omar Khadr. It is even more disturbing that the current government has refused to act while America’s version of "legal proceedings" is underway; our federal authorities instead stress a desire to see that "justice is done" in Khadr’s case. What justice? Even U.S. critics have voiced doubt that their own country’s military commissions do not meet international legal standards of justice and humanitarian consideration.

Canada, once upheld as a champion in advocating for human rights in situations of international conflict, officially upholds that no child combatant should ever face a military tribunal. It has played a key role in the rehabilitation of child soldiers, such as those abused and exploited in Sierra Leone, Colombia, Sri Lanka and many other countries. This kind of principle cannot waver now, when the life of a Canadian child is in question -- especially after the welcome news that newly inaugurated U.S. President Barack Obama plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

PM Harper is obliged, more than ever, to adhere to the contract he signed on being installed as our national leader, to do all possible "to protect the lives, rights, interests, and property of Canadian citizens ... when these are endangered or ignored in the territory of a foreign state." Mr. Harper has a remarkable opportunity to take action to defend Omar Khadr’s rights and give him the opportunity of rehabilitation in Canada, especially in light of significant changes in U.S. policy with respect to Guantanamo Bay.

How many times -- it must be hundreds by now -- must our Prime Minister and federal government be reminded that Omar Khadr is a Canada’s citizen too?

As our head of government at home and worldwide, Mr. Harper is legally responsible for coming to Omar Khadr's aid without further delays or excuses. All necessary steps should be taken with the U.S. government to ensure Khadr's repatriation so that his case can be dealt with in Canada by competent, independent and impartial authorities.

If Mr. Harper does not follow through on the values he fought for during the last election, Canada risks further erosion of its good reputation as a nation that can still act with integrity. Ignoring this obligation would be a disastrous choice in these troubling times.

Mr. Harper: Being silent now is no longer a legitimate and rational option!

(Retrieved from: http://usa.mediamonitors.net/Headlines/Omar-Khadr- deserves-a-chance-just-as-any-other-Canadian This article was previously edited for the Canadian Islamic Congress Friday Magazine and is reprinted here in its entirety.)

Harper’s stacking of the Rights and Democracy board got noticed. Not so with most of the other levers he shifts.

The excitement is winding down at Rights and Democracy. Last week I wrote here about the conflict between newer and longer-standing board members of the Montreal-based, federally funded rights organization. A majority on the board had been complaining about the new board chairman, Aurel Braun, since last spring. The government kept sending Braun reinforcements, in the form of newly appointed board members, throughout 2009. By the New Year, Braun and his supporters had a majority on the board. Two of the old-guard board members quit in frustration at the new direction. The president of Rights and Democracy, Rémy Beauregard, was dead of a heart attack. The organization’s full-time staff circulated a letter, signed by nearly all of the employees, calling for the departure of Braun and two of his closest associates from the board.

That’s where we left things last week. A few days later the Rights and Democracy board met in Toronto. Now securely controlled by recent appointees, they selected a new interim president. The guy they chose was Jacques Gauthier - one of the three top board members whose resignation the staff had demanded. This was a crisis moment. The staff had asked for Gauthier, Braun and a third board member, Elliot Tepper, to resign or be fired. Instead one of the three, Gauthier, was the staff’s new boss. The new board appointees obviously weren’t going to back down. Would the staff?

You bet. There were no immediate resignations in protest at Gauthier’s appointment. And ringleaders of the staff rebellion, who had stupidly gone public with a "unanimous" letter calling for the three board members’ ouster before gathering signatures on paper, suddenly had trouble proving they had every employee on their side. The rebellion essentially collapsed. The Ottawa press gallery, whose interest in this complex story was never more than fleeting, moved on.

Each side in the showdown offered a public explanation for its behaviour that had little to do with the real stakes. Braun, in careful statements to only a few selected journalists, insisted he was sticking up for "transparency" and "accountability," even though he had fought for half a year to keep an evaluation of Beauregard’s work secret from Beauregard himself. The staff insisted there was nothing ideological about the conflict when everything about it was ideological. It was all about whether Rights and Democracy was within its mandate to give money to groups that advocated for the rights of Palestinian Arabs during the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The old guard, obviously, thought this was fine, because they did hand out the money. The new board appointees see all this talk of Palestinian Arabs’ rights as a coded attack on Israel’s right to exist. Braun told a reporter one of the groups that received a donation, B’Tselem, is Israeli "in name only." So I looked them up. Actually almost everyone there is Israeli in citizenship, place of residency, home of the heart, what have you. You know: Israeli. They also worry that it’s possible to treat Arabs too harshly.

The new interim president, Gauthier, spent 20 years working on a doctoral thesis in which he argues that Jerusalem belongs to the Jews by international law. A lot of people don’t share that analysis. But they’re not running Rights and Democracy.

I’m actually not here today to argue most of this one way or the other, merely to note that it all happened. It happened while Parliament was prorogued, while Stephen Harper continued to hold a minority in the Commons and to command roughly a third of decided voter allegiance in most polls. Four years after Harper was elected, Liberals still like to console themselves that he hasn’t won a majority. But he now controls a majority on the Rights and Democracy board, and the Liberals couldn’t even slow him down.

Harper’s government cut funding to Kairos, an interfaith human-rights organization. Two Harper ministers, Jason Kenney and Bev Oda, couldn’t agree on why Kairos’s funding was cut - Kenney told an Israeli audience it had something to do with anti-Semitism, then insisted he had said nothing of the sort. An op-ed in the Jerusalem Post last week chose to believe his first explanation and ignore the second. Whatever. The Conservatives still have a minority in Parliament - and 100 per cent of Kairos Doesn’t Get The Money.

Onward. The Canadian Council on Learning, whose superb Composite Learning Index measured the way people in a community study, play and take part in cultural activities, gave us the information for two Maclean’s cover packages on Canada’s Smartest Cities. The Harper government didn’t renew its funding. The Millennium Scholarship Foundation ran a flawed student-aid program and, with a little money on the side, did the best research in Canada on who gets into university and how much it costs them. The feds have shut that research program down, too.

Multiply these few decisions by all the appointments and funding choices a government makes. Understand that almost none of them are reviewed by Parliament and almost none will be noticed by most voters or even most journalists. A government stands or falls on bigger, simpler questions. But having stood and not fallen, it gets to shift these hundreds of levers: not to reward cronies, but to change a society. This is why Harper likes his job, and why simply hanging on to it is at the heart of his game.

(Retrieved from: http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/01/29/changing-a-society-one- small-step-at-a-time/ This article was edited and slightly abridged for the Canadian Islamic Congress Friday Magazine.)

"We are no longer living in the old days of the British Empire, where massacres could be suppressed, and if it leaked, one could use ‘diplomacy’ and bribery to quieten it; then with the passage of time it would vanish from people’s memory. Today, the age of information ensures that such things will remain fresh in the minds of the future generation."

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"No one had attacked anyone. There wasn’t any new W.M.D. We could have taken the time and got it right" -- Claire Short

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Here is the litmus test. Imagine this scenario. Tony Blair’s son is in critical condition, and fighting for his life. He is in a luxurious private hospital, funded by his wealthy war-profiteering father, the pictures are broadcast, and many of the Iraqi parents who lost their children or are struggling to keep them alive, can see their ‘benevolent’ liberator in action. Anyway, ten leading physicians from various countries advise Blair of a certain medical operation to save his son’s life. Shortly after, Dr. Goldsmith dissents; he is a prominent doctor from an American-Israeli Hospital, and after some deliberation suggests an alternative course of action.

Which way is Tony Blair likely to go? The answer is obvious; any human being would opt for the former and play safe by siding with the overwhelming majority of experts -- because he would be seen to act ‘sincerely’ in the interests of his son. Any genuine father would take the decision based on his conviction of the facts, whereas a crooked one would pick any opinion to support his ulterior agenda.

Using that litmus test on the legality of war -- was Tony Blair really convinced of the wavering opinion delivered by Goldsmith at the last minute, which was at odds with the vast majority of the legal experts? It is beyond doubt that he was not looking to be persuaded, because he was already committed to the American plan. All he needed was a fig leaf to cover his private parts, so that he could do the usual war dance around the ‘Bush’, praying for a slice of profit from the gods of war. Goldsmith provided that fig-leaf, which is revoltingly transparent to most people.

Claire Short claims she was conned. No, she conned herself in the first place. The world could see that Iraq was a broken country that did not even have a conventional force, let alone weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Yet Claire Short, sitting in the heart of the Cabinet, could not see through all the signs that she is now citing in the Chilcot Inquiry that clearly point to one thing: Blair had already made up his mind about the invasion regardless of what the rest of Cabinet and the country thought. It is an example of Blair upholding principles of democracy for skeptical Arabs and Muslims!

Furthermore, Claire Short tried to sugarcoat her decision to remain in the Cabinet by suggesting that the neo-con Blair would fight to get a state for the oil-less Palestinians and the UN would take over the Iraq operation. Even in the early days, one can see Blair as more suited to be a member of the Israeli Knesset than a Middle East envoy. To be candid, Claire Short succumbed to her human weakness.

Blair as an individual has profited from the Iraq war, and is making good money through the recession. For sure, you will not find any unusual items on his expense claim form. Maybe he will even donate some of that money to Iraqi children born with deformities or to the many orphaned as their dead parents became ‘collateral damage.’ Then the media would market those images, and might finally ‘convince’ all the skeptics that the war waged in Iraq by profiteering capitalist nations was in fact driven by altruism.

Apart from the financial costs, the lives lost on all sides, the economic recession, what has this invasion achieved for the UK? Has it made the country safer? Was it in some danger in the first place? (And 7/7 does not count, as it was a consequence of the war and not a cause.)

Alternatively, has Tony Blair placed the UK on the radar of a present and future Jihadist movement? The children of Iraq will grow up knowing the cruelty shown by westerners, particularly an angry post 9/11 America, driven to spill some blood in the old tradition of the Wild West to quench its thirst for vengeance.

But how might future Iraqi generations see the British role? That country was not attacked by 9/11 or by Iraq; if anything, it’s historically been the opposite. The British invasion during the First World War killed thousands of Iraqis, and Winston Churchill used chemical weapons on the Kurds long before Saddam Hussein. Yet once again, they participated in this crime of aggression with great zeal. The Blair episode reminds you of that mercenary kid in class who would team up with the biggest bully and quietly incite the bully to extort money from other children. Later in life, the money-making kid would become a banker or a lawyer, the kind who always shows sympathy for Israel!

We are no longer living in the old days of the British Empire, where massacres could be suppressed, and if it leaked, one could use ‘diplomacy’ and bribery to quieten it; then with the passage of time it would vanish from people’s memory.

Today, the age of information ensures that such things will remain fresh in the minds of future generation. We cannot alter the past, but by addressing the present, and in particular, by addressing the crimes of Tony Blair, it may work to the interests of our nation. It is still possible that future generations of Iraqis may see that the British collectively have a heart; they are not just anonymous millions who marched against the war, but rather a vast and thinking majority who disagree with heartless arrogance in high places and have at least tried to do some justice.

(Retrieved from: http://canada.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/71194 This article was edited and slightly abridged for the Canadian Islamic Congress Friday Magazine.)

(continued from last week...)

Lost childhoods

Part of the problem is the lack of release and entertainment for children. There are few gardens or parks, no cinemas or theatres, many sports facilities have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombing, and one of Gaza's great natural advantages - a 25-mile stretch of sandy beach facing the Mediterranean - is hiding a fresh danger.

In the summer months, families flock to the beach on Fridays and Saturdays. The sight of children splashing in the waves is cheering until one remembers that every day 20 million gallons of raw sewage are pumped into that same water. Since Gaza's sewage processing plant was bombed after the kidnap of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in July 2006, there has been no alternative means of disposal. Now, according to Save the Children, children are developing skin diseases as well as bacterial infections from swimming in the heavily polluted water.

"There are not enough safe places for children to play," says Mona al-Shawa, head of the women's unit at the PCHR. To counter this, the UN organized a hugely popular "Summer Games" during the long school break, despite objections from Hamas about boys and girls mixing together. "There were those on the political side saying kids should be going to summer camps, not doing sport and recreation, but preparing for a future life of militancy," says Ging.

Ging says schooling has also suffered. Thirty-two of the UN's 221 schools were damaged in the Israeli assault, plus scores more government ones. None have been repaired because Israel does not allow construction materials into Gaza, saying they could be used to make weapons.

"So the schools, where the windows were blown out or other damage was done, have been cleaned up, made safe, and continue in operation today without the physical repairs because we haven't been allowed to bring in one pane of glass or one bag of cement since last January," says Ging.

Israel did permit a consignment of wood into Gaza to make school desks for 8,000 children, but then blocked delivery of the steel necessary to complete them. "Now you see three kids squashed on to a desk," says Ging. "How are teachers supposed to give each child the attention they need?"

There is also a shortage of school books and pens, and what does arrive mostly has to be smuggled through underground tunnels from Egypt.

The result is children attending overcrowded schools on a double or even triple shift system that has contributed to a continuing decline in education levels. One in five of the 200,000 pupils at the UN's 221 schools in Gaza failed basic Arabic and maths exams this year.

"It's shocking for them but it's also alarming for us in terms of the future," says Ging. "The objective of the [Israeli] policy is to counter extremism. Education is probably the most effective tool through which you will counter extremism, by developing a positive and well-educated mindset. And yet we are being prevented from educating these children." It is "facilitating the destruction of a civilized society and, worse than that, the development of an extreme society."

One of the starkest examples of school destruction is the American International school, Gaza's elite fee-paying institution in Beit Lahiya, which was bombed in the early hours of the morning of January 3, 2009. The Israeli military claimed it was being used as a rocket-launching site. Now, where once stood science laboratories, computer rooms, a music centre and sports fields, there is a mountain of crushed masonry, twisted metal girders, broken glass and droppings from the sheep that roam the deserted site. To the side of what was once the main building lies a row of burned-out school buses. The odd fragment of a textbook can be seen amid the rubble.

Then there is the difficulty of trying to concentrate in class when children are clawed by hunger. Three-quarters of Gazans rely on food handouts, according to the UN. Save the Children says it is seeing newborn babies suffering from malnutrition. Anaemia, especially among girls, is common.

The UN has started feeding children in its schools because, says Ging, "they're coming to school without breakfast and therefore their attention span is very short and the academic results will then reflect that".

Food, at least, is something that is relatively easy to fix. There are many less tangible issues that concern child experts, such as a lack of healthy role models. "During the war, children could see that their parents could not fulfill their needs," says Zeyada. "They see their fathers as weak, powerless. They see parents can't give them feelings of security, can't protect them. So they look towards other figures. That might be God as an absolute power - so children might go towards religion, become more fanatic. Some identify with fighters from Hamas and other groups.

"Without hope, we are moving fast towards more aggressive children, more fanatics. If the siege ended you would see positive changes among children. They [Israel] are creating their enemies. They are pushing a new generation of children to believe in violence as a way of solving their difficulties. They are creating their own enemies of the future."

In September 2007 Israel declared Gaza a "hostile entity". "I said at that time, and I continue to say it, that's a self-fulfilling prophecy," says Ging. "You designate it as a hostile entity, you treat it as a hostile entity and in fact what happens is you generate hostility. And that's precisely what we have been witnessing here at the grassroots level for the last two-and-a-half years under this illegal siege . . . We have more extremism in Gaza every single day."

Yet through it all, it is striking how many Palestinians cling to belief in a better future. For all her traumas, Ghiada hasn't given up. She attends a thrice-weekly English lesson after school to improve her chances of fulfilling her dreams.

The teacher hands Ghiada a question to answer to the class in English: If you were a colour, what colour would you choose? The girl doesn't hesitate. "Red," she tells the class.

The teacher asks the students what the colour red means to them. Blood, suggests one; danger, says another, both witnesses to last year's carnage. Ghiada considers for a moment, then replies: "It makes me happy. It's the colour of love."

And what will Ghiada do with her English? She wants to be an airline pilot, she says. Ironically that's one career choice that will certainly require emigration: Gaza has no airplanes and the runway of its only airport was bulldozed to rubble by the Israeli army years ago.

* * * * * *

The 23-day war in numbers

Statistics from the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme

* 1,420 Palestinians killed, 446 of them children

* 5,320 injured, 1,855 of them children

* 4,000 houses destroyed

* 16,000 houses damaged

* 94.6% of children aged six-17 heard the sound of supersonic jetfighters

* 91.7% of them heard shelling by artillery

* 92% saw mutilated bodies on TV

* 80% were deprived of water or electricity

* 50.7% left home for a safer place

* 25.9% report one symptom of PTSD

* 39.3% report more than one symptom

* 9.8% report full criteria of PTSD

Statistics from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

* 1,414 Palestinians killed during the conflict, including 313 children, of which:

- 31% girls, 69% boys

- 15% under 5 years; 23.3% 5-10 years; 62% 11-17 years

- 73% died from bombs; 19.8% from artillery shells; 5.4% shot; 1.5% from white phosphorous

* 5,300 Palestinians injured, including 1,606 children * 36 UN schools damaged

* Approximately 20,000 homes completely or partially destroyed

(Retrieved from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/17/gaza-israel-invasion- children-traumatised This article was edited and slightly abridged for the Canadian Islamic Congress Friday Magazine.)

This week CIC presents the following link to our readership:

Watch and listen as a Guantanamo Bay child-soldier -- Omar Khadr -- undergoes a CSIS interrogation:

http://www.getalyric.com/listen/aQHFFbD_-Pg/guantanamo_bay_child_soldier _csis_interrogation_omar_khadr

********************************************************************* IMPORTANT NOTE from the Editor-in Chief of the CIC Friday Magazine, Imam Dr. Zijad Delic - National Executive Director of the Canadian Islamic Congress: If you, dear readers and supporters, have suggestions, comments, or questions, please feel free to address them to me. I welcome your responses at: imamdrdelic@canadianislamiccongress.com