Arar was ID’d by Khadr?

I won’t waste time rehashing the Omar Khadr story.  But suffice it to say that this development back in January was rather shocking.  Even more shocking is that nothing has really been mentioned about this issue since.

In January 2009, it was widely reported that Omar Khadr, the Canadian child detained at Guantanamo and now the only Western citizen to still be held there, had identified Maher Arar.  Arar is a Canadian who was detained when travelling via New York, arrested and deported to Syria for several years while he was tortured mercilessly.  He has now successfully obtained money from the Canadian government after a public inquiry cleared him of all charges.

The CP24 news story states that:

Maher Arar, the Ottawa computer engineer whose 2002 deportation and torture in Syria made him a symbol of the perils of post-9-11 hysteria, was identified by Omar Khadr as someone he'd seen at al-Qaida safehouses and possibly an Afghan training camp, an FBI special agent testified Monday.

It was pretty spurious as far as allegations go, because this information had not come up until this point and has not really come up again.

Most importantly, this testimony was widely condemned.  Khadr’s US Lawyer Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler said that Khadr often lied to investigators so they would stop torturing him.  Paul Cavalluzzo, who served as chief counsel for the Arar inquiry also stated that it was useless if it was a product of torture.

Australian Court's child pornography ruling opens a new set of liability

The BBC is reporting that an Australian Court has dramatically broadened existing child pornography law in a landmark case in Australia. The case in question is over an internet cartoon a man made that depicted characters from the television show "The Simpsons" engaging in sexual acts.

Just a cartoon, right? Wrong, according to Justice Adams. Despite the fact that all the individuals involved are fictional characters and don't even resemble real people (a fairly strong defence in my opinion, considering they are four-fingered, neon-yellow-skinned never-aging cartoons), the court ruled that wasn't enough. BBC News says:

Justice Michael Adams said the purpose of anti-child pornography legislation was to stop sexual exploitation and child abuse where images of "real" children were depicted.

But in a landmark ruling he decided that the mere fact that they were not realistic representations of human beings did not mean that they could not be considered people.

In his opinion, the purpose of the law was stop the victimization of children (a correct assertion), and that this cartoon managed to "fuel demand for material that does involve the abuse of children".

In my opinion, this is a bit of a stretch. Obviously, I haven't seen the cartoon in question, and it is entirely possible that it's so offensive it deserves some punishment. But regardless, there's some concern that reading such a broad meaning into this law will allow more and more "artistic" creations to come into question. Now, whether or not this is a good thing is a different question, because obviously the protection of children is paramount.

Now the judge showed some restraint and merely fined the accused instead of assigning jail time. Still, a conviction for child pornography is not something to be taken lightly.

[Source: BBC News]