I stand with Omar Khadr
The Conservatives just launched an all-out campaign to attack Omar Khadr and the Liberals’ compensation package for violating his Charter rights and letting him languish in an offshore prison camp where he was tortured for over a decade.
Let’s be clear: this Conservative attack is a misinformation campaign designed for crass political gain. They’re fundraising off it, appearing all over the media (including Fox News), and spreading misinformation to fire up their base.
We need to push back and remind the world that the majority of people in Canada stand up for human rights — and we’re standing with Omar Khadr.
A massive open letter showing popular support for Omar Khadr and the government’s decision to compensate him for violating his Charter rights is bound to attract media, and can bury the nonsense, the naysayers, and the CPC’s ugly tactics. If we hit 20,000 signatures, we’ll even deliver it to Omar Khadr to let him know that there’s a groundswell of support behind him.
Sign the letter now, then share it with everyone you know.
Here are the facts:
1. Omar Khadr was a child soldier when he was brought to Guantanamo Bay for allegedly killing an American soldier, an accusation that has never been proven in court.
2. He was tortured, denied basic human rights, like access to a fair trial, and left to languish in Guantanamo for over a decade with the full consent of the Canadian government. The government could have avoided this — as well as the payout — had they brought him back to Canada.
3. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government failed to uphold Khadr’s Charter rights — something the government does not have a choice about — and legal experts agree they were right to settle now rather than waste time and resources fighting a court battle they were almost certain to lose.
You have probably spent the last two weeks watching the Khadr “debate” unfold and are shocked and outraged by the the vitriol and straight-up lies that we're seeing in the media and on social media.
We thought the worst of it was starting to peter off, and people were moving on — but the Conservatives lit the match again to promote confusion and stir up fear for their own political gain. It’s crass. It’s dangerous. It’s time to push back.
Together we can create a groundswell of support for Khadr and his compensation by signing this open letter — then share it with everyone you know to make it huge.
Dear Omar,
We stand with you.
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