Much Ado about a widow and a crippled kid

The usual suspects are up in arms about the family of a deceased senior al Qaeda member, who happen to be Canadian citizens. This family, consisting of the widow, her daughter, and her paralyzed son, returned to Toronto this week hoping for better medical treatment for the crippled boy.

The crazies on the newsgroups along with their spiritual leader Stockwell Day of election 2000 fame, all blame...you guessed it...Paul Martin, for the return of this family. Expect Peter Worthington to feature them in this Sunday's column.

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Citizen Khadr

Globe And Mail
Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - Page A14


The right to express personal opinions, no matter how obnoxious those opinions may be, belongs to all Canadians -- even the Khadr family of Toronto, some of whose members appear to have been more than socially acquainted with Osama bin Laden.

The Khadrs are hardly desirable as citizens or neighbours. The patriarch, killed last fall, was a senior al-Qaeda member. A teenage son is in prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suspected of fatally shooting a U.S. soldier. A younger son, 14, was wounded in the gun battle that killed his father. (He is now in a wheelchair.) And the mother and an adult daughter told CBC-TV that the children learned proper values from being brought up in an atmosphere of holy war.

Abhorrent? Certainly. But are the mother's and daughter's opinions cause for barring citizens from re-entering the country, as Canadian Alliance MP Stockwell Day suggests? Definitely not. A citizen is a citizen is a citizen, whether born here or granted citizenship after immigrating.

Free expression is not absolute. Joining a terrorist group, either here or abroad, is forbidden under the federal Anti-Terrorist Act, and subject to prosecution in Canada. Training in terrorist camps, or fundraising for terrorists, is illegal. So is incitement to murder or genocide. If there is evidence that the Khadrs, or any other Canadians, have engaged in this behaviour, they should be prosecuted. But expressing support -- in words -- for democracy's enemies is not a crime. Not in a democracy.