Khadr deserves the same opportunities as any other Canadian citizen
By Megan Mulder
In “Khadr not ready for post secondary”, printed in the Oct. 15 edition of The Peak, Saba Kaidani argues that if Omar Khadr is released on parole, he should be barred from post-secondary opportunities, which he may apply for in the summer of 2013. Kaidani’s article repeatedly misses the mark as it discusses the pros and cons of admitting Omar Khadr to King’s University College.
It is true that King’s University College has stated that Khadr’s application “would be considered in the same fashion as any other applicant” — and well it should be. To do anything else would be discriminatory. Refusing to admit Khadr on the basis of the fear that he may be the target of violence is akin to the oppositions of black students’ first entrances to white universities in the United States, purportedly made for fear of lynchings against them by white students. Their false concern was just as nonsensical then as Kaidani’s argument is now.
Kaidani also argues that Khadr is not ready for civilian life, saying that his psychiatric state is “likely fragile,” and continuing that he might be “the one aiming the gun.” Much evidence points to the contrary: Khadr’s defence lawyers call him “a model prisoner,” and Professor Arlette Zinck, who spent two years engaging in distance education with Khadr, says he was “attentive and interested in other people.” In addition, Dr. Steven Xenakis is a U.S. Army psychiatrist who assessed Khadr for the defence, and after spending more than 200 hours with him, Dr Xenakis’s opinion is that Khadr is “a very minimal risk if a risk at all” for endangering Canadian society.
She also says he may not be the “picture of innocence” he seems, and points to his close familial connections with Osama Bin Laden as proof. To which I say: this isn’t 18th-century China. There is no collective responsibility under Canadian law.
In fact, both Canadian and international laws see Khadr as a child soldier, and both the United States and Canada have ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which expressly requires rehabilitation of child soldiers.
Kaidani fails to see the real issue: the rights of Omar Khadr have been repeatedly violated. The Canadian government failed Omar Khadr when it stood by and let a 15-year-old boy be strapped to a stretcher and interrogated for 12 hours after being shot twice in the chest. It failed Khadr when he was being tortured — hooded, threatened with rape and barking dogs, and, as Human Rights Watch reports, “used as a ‘human mop’ after he urinated on the floor during one interrogation session.” And we will fail him too if we consider him “not worth the risk” of giving him the chances any other Canadian would receive.
We must not let fear rule us instead of reason. Let us uphold the rights we have affirmed. We can start by seeing Omar Khadr for what he is: a child soldier, deprived of his rights, abandoned by his government, and now, if Saba Kaidani will get her way, one also deprived of the opportunity even to be considered for post-secondary education. Canada has been shameful enough in its conduct towards Omar Khadr. Let us not take it any further. Omar Khadr must be allowed to apply for post-secondary education when he is able and if he so wishes.
