Guest Column: Human rights are for everyone

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on September 6, 2017.

Re: “Khadr is a traitor and shouldn’t have rights,” July 21

Human rights are universal, inalienable, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated. These are the principles upon which human rights are built; these are the principles which resonate throughout human rights documents.

I will try, in as briefly as I can, to explain why the response by Reg Merkley is wrong and dangerous. To do this, I will provide knowledge on human rights.

Human rights are laws which oblige the government to act or refrain from certain acts. Some of the most well-known human rights are the right to life, right to privacy, right to freedom of expression, and right to liberty, but there are hundreds of human rights that each and every one of us has a claim to. Protecting and preserving human rights is not limited by the identity, actions, or religion of an individual. It does not matter who someone is or what someone has done, they are protected by human rights. Let me repeat that in another way. Everyone has human rights. Period.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms uses phrases like ‘everyone hasÉ fundamental freedomsÉ,’ ‘Every citizen of CanadaÉ,’ ‘Any personÉ’ and ‘EveryoneÉ.’ It states ‘every individual is equal before and under the lawÉ.’ Reg Merkley has no basis to suggest that Khadr is the opposite of a Canadian or has no claim to rights.

You have human rights. Your children have human rights. Your employer, your neighbour, your friends have human rights. So too do criminals, terrorists, and genocidaires. Human rights are not something earned or something to be taken away. Human rights are for everyone, just for being human.

Suggesting that someone should not have human rights, that they no longer deserve human rights, is to dehumanize that person. Dehumanization is the first step in a slippery slope towards violence — a trail that has been followed in genocides around the world including the Holocaust, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, used to perpetuate violence against women, and the use of torture. Dehumanization is what has led to this Khadr situation-interrogators dehumanized Omar Khadr, and by viewing him as sub-human, perpetuated violence in the form of torture at Guantanamo Bay. Dehumanization is the foundation upon which Guantanamo Bay is built. Are we not better than this-do we not believe in the fundamental humanity of all people?

In Canada, we are exceptionally protected under human rights law, both domestic and international. Domestically, we have provincial human rights codes, the Canadian Human Rights Act, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Internationally, Canada is obliged to follow such treaties as Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Convention on the Rights of the Child, and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In the human rights community, Canada is held to a high standard in our respect for human rights. We owe it to ourselves, and the international community, to maintain this standard. I am proud of be Canadian, because of our universal application of human rights.

Omar Khadr, in seeking compensation for the violation of his human rights, was following Article 24 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states ‘Anyone whose rights or freedoms, as guaranteed by this Charter, have been infringed or denied may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances.’ (emphasis added) This has nothing to do with what he might have done or who he might have aligned himself with, and everything to do with his rights as a human being.

For seven years, Omar Khadr has been seeking a remedy for the wrongdoing of the Canadian government. For seven years, the Canadian government refused to acknowledge their wrongdoing-costing the taxpayers millions of dollars in an attempt to avoid justice for Khadr.

By settling, Trudeau has ended seven years of shameful government avoidance of its human rights obligations. Trudeau and Khadr are not the enemy here. Khadr is a Canadian citizen claimed his human rights and Trudeau is a leader taking on the responsibility of the wrongdoing of the previous administration.

When you need it most, you will be glad that human rights are universal.

Elizabeth Strange is university student from Medicine Hat, finishing her postgraduate education in international law and human rights.