Khadr’s lawyer: Driver case should alarm Canadians

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Canadians should be alarmed that a 23-year-old man was locked up for eight days in a Winnipeg jail without being criminally charged, says the lawyer for Omar Khadr.

Dennis Edney was at the Ukrainian Labour Temple in the North End Thursday talking about the rule of law in an age of terror.

“It’s an accepted fact in the world today that we’re facing grave challenges to the rule of law,” he told the conference on civil liberty and national security organized by the Canadian Society for Ukrainian Labour Research and a Brandon University professor.

“We’re fighting for more than the safety of our own citizens – we have to demand our right to freedom of thought and expression,” said Edney, who received a standing ovation.

‘He could sue’

In an interview afterward, Edney said from what he’s read about the case involving Aaron Driver, the young man who adopted a Muslim name and took to social media to voice his support for the Islamic State, Driver might be able to take the federal government to court for violating his rights.

“He could sue them,” said Edney, who isn’t surprised by human rights violations in Canada after what happened to his client, Khadr. The Canadian citizen was accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan in 2002, shackled and put on a plane to the U.S. military prison in Cuba. Khadr was only 15 at the time.

“We left a child in a hell hole called Guantánamo Bay for over 10 years,” said Edney who’s opened his Edmonton home to Khadr. Khadr was released on bail recently after having been transferred to a Canadian prison.

When Edney first met Khadr, the former child soldier recruited by his extremist father had been shot twice in the back, was blinded in one eye, partially paralyzed and shivering because his windowless cell was so cold.

“That first image of Omar Khadr haunted me for years,” said Edney. He said he learned Khadr was placed in stress positions, hooded, chained to a fence in the crucifix position and stripped naked.

The Canadian government and then-public safety minister Vic Toews said they believed Khadr was being treated humanely, didn’t want him brought back to Canada, and declared him a national security risk. They ignored the documents from Guantanamo that said Khadr was a “good kid” and left him there, said Edney.

“He was abandoned by our government while every other nation returned them.” That he was in Guantánamo Bay for so long shows the apathy of Canadian citizens and its civil institutions.

“Nobody advocated on behalf of Omar Khadr,” said Edney.

‘We have alienated Muslims’

Edny, who has appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada and has represented Khadr pro bono for years, said it’s important to know from where the extremism is coming.

“We have alienated Muslims everywhere,” Edney told his Thursday audience. Fourteen countries from Pakistan to Libya have been bombed or invaded by the U.S.

“After 9/11, Muslims in the U.S. were rounded up and made to pay the price for 19 fanatics” who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001. “To Muslims, we’re the terrorists,” said Edney.

Since 9/11, new laws curtailing rights and limiting freedoms have been put in place and justified on the basis that they’re fighting “Islamicism,” said Edney. “Governments of western democracies continue to exploit a climate of insecurity and fear for their own personal gain.”

He accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of using fear to advance his political agenda. The government is trying to get the courts to quash Khadr’s release on bail.

Edney said the rule of law and civil liberties are at risk in Canada but Khadr is doing OK.

“He’s happy. He wakes up in the morning and makes his own breakfast.”

Khadr, who is “avaricious of education,” is going to summer school and riding his bicycle a lot, his lawyer said.

“There’s no better symbol of freedom than just being able to take off on your bike.”

Edney is speaking Friday at 7 p.m. on the rule of law and the politics of fear at the Broadway Disciples United Church at 396 Broadway.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca