{"id":88813,"date":"2017-08-30T16:33:53","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T16:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/how-trudeau-responds-to-khadrs-bail-request-will-be-a-major-test-of-his-commitment-to-counter-radicalization.html"},"modified":"2017-08-30T16:33:53","modified_gmt":"2017-08-30T16:33:53","slug":"how-trudeau-responds-to-khadrs-bail-request-will-be-a-major-test-of-his-commitment-to-counter-radicalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/how-trudeau-responds-to-khadrs-bail-request-will-be-a-major-test-of-his-commitment-to-counter-radicalization.html","title":{"rendered":"How Trudeau responds to Khadr&#8217;s bail request will be a major test of his commitment to counter-radicalization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>A German counter-radicalization program called &#8220;EXIT&#8221; <\/span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">has been studied by the RCMP<\/a> as an initiative to model in Canada. Its key insight is that it is better for counter-terrorism officers to work through a radicalized individual&#8217;s family than for the police deal with him directly. But what happens when it is the family that is the source of radicalization?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>Omar Khadr&#8217;s <\/span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">request<\/a> to have a court lift one of his few remaining bail conditions raises that question, and it puts the Trudeau government&#8217;s <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">recently unveiled<\/a> commitment to counter-radicalization to the test.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>In 2015, when an Alberta court approved Khadr&#8217;s request for bail pending his appeal of his U.S. war-crimes conviction, the judge imposed significant restrictions on his release. At the then-Conservative government&#8217;s insistence, the court ordered that Khadr was to wear an electronic ankle monitor, abide by a strict curfew and only have telephone contact with his family in English and under supervision. <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Omar Khadr seeks bail changes, including unfettered access to sister<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Government formally apologizes to Omar Khadr<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>In May of last year, the court agreed to Khadr&#8217;s request for <\/span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">unsupervised visits<\/a> with his mother, Maha Elsamnah, whose husband \u2014 Khadr&#8217;s father \u2014 was an Osama bin Laden associate and the highest-ranking Canadian in al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n<p>The Trudeau government consented to Khadr&#8217;s request. They raised no concerns about the possible influence of a woman who once justified raising her children in terrorist training camps by <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">asking<\/a> &#8220;would you like me to raise my child in Canada and by the time he&#8217;s 12 or 13 he&#8217;ll be on drugs or having some homosexual relation or this and that?&#8221; and answering her own question: &#8220;Is it better? For me, no.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>At the time, the court left in place a condition prohibiting Khadr\u00a0from visiting with his older sister, Zaynab, who was then being detained in Turkey. Zaynab, whom Khadr has <\/span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">described<\/a> as his &#8220;second mother,&#8221; is the most outspoken member of the Khadr family.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>She has called the death of U.S. Sgt. Christopher Speer \u2014 for which Khadr was convicted in the U.S. \u2014 &#8220;no big deal,&#8221; <\/span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">praised<\/a> the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">told a PBS interviewer<\/a> that &#8220;I&#8217;d love my daughter to die [as a martyr]&#8221; and that she herself would &#8220;love to die like that.&#8221; (In the same interview, Khadr&#8217;s mother was asked if she would like to see her children die &#8220;fighting for Allah,&#8221; and she answered &#8220;yes.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.2348326.1383460976!\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_620\/khadr-zaynab.jpg\" alt=\"khadr_zaynab\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">Khadr will ask a judge to allow him to have unfettered access to his sister Zaynab.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>Khadr has described his bond with Zaynab as &#8220;very, very close.&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;There is nothing I can say poorly about my sister,&#8221; he told a psychiatrist who <\/span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">interviewed<\/a> him in Guantanamo Bay. &#8220;She does what she believes, and she says what she believes. She&#8217;s very confident in what she believes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>This week, Khadr will ask a judge to allow him to have unfettered access to Zaynab. So far, the government has not said whether it will agree to let him re-establish a relationship with this second\u00a0woman who is both a strong influence in his life and an advocate of terrorism. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>In the 2016 budget, the Liberal government <\/span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">allocated<\/a> $35 million to fight radicalization. Earlier this summer, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale announced the launch of the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, vowing that Canada would &#8220;do as much as humanly possible to prevent radicalization to violence before tragedy strikes.&#8221; This week, we will learn how that pledge applies to Khadr&#8217;s request for unsupervised contact with his defiantly radical sister and mother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\"><strong class=\"spaced\">Ralph Goodale says Canada will &#8216;up our game&#8217; with counter-radicalization office set up by fall<\/strong>0:51<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>When Trudeau was asked on the campaign trail whether he supported easing conditions on Khadr&#8217;s release, he declined to take a firm position, saying only:\u00a0&#8220;I have confidence in our justice system.&#8221; That evasion might suffice on the hustings, but now that he exercises the full power of the executive, he has to take a side. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>Our justice system is an adversarial one, and judges make the best decisions when presented with all relevant evidence. Khadr&#8217;s lawyer is not going to raise concerns about the possibility of his client&#8217;s re-radicalization under the influence of his closest family members, so it will be up to the government to make that case, if it has such concerns.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>Trudeau has a choice to make. We know that families play a pivotal role in the radicalization process. And we know from experience that Khadr&#8217;s family was the source of his radicalization to violence. There is no evidence that they have changed their views since then. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>How Trudeau responds to Khadr&#8217;s request to re-establish ties with the family that got him into trouble in the first place will, therefore, send a strong message about how seriously his government takes its stated commitment to counter-radicalization. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>This column is part of\u00a0CBC&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Opinion section.<\/a>\u00a0For more information about this section, please read this\u00a0<a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">editor&#8217;s\u00a0blog<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">our\u00a0FAQ<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/p>\n<p>Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/opinion\/omar-khadr-bail-1.4267114?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A German counter-radicalization program called &#8220;EXIT&#8221; has been studied by the RCMP as an initiative to model in Canada. Its key insight is that it is better for counter-terrorism officers to work through a radicalized individual&#8217;s family than for the police deal with him directly. But what happens when it is the family that is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-88813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}