The LGC invited Canadian former Guantánamo child prisoner Omar Khadr's lawyer Dennis Edney QC to the UK for a speaking tour to raise awareness about his client who remains in prison in Canada on 12-20 March 2014. One of the organisers, Val Brown, attended all the tour engagements in London.
by Val Brown, London Guantánamo Campaign
Saturday 8 March 2014
Although
the speaking tour started on 12 March, Dennis Edney arrived in London on the
previous Saturday. I met him for a coffee and although he was tired from his
long trip, we had an interesting conversation about Omar Khadr and discussed
the itinerary for his speaking tour.
Wednesday 12 March 2014
Dennis’
first speaking engagement as part of the tour was at Garden Court Chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He
gave a talk, Omar Khadr and the Betrayal of International Law, at a
public meeting, chaired by Professor Bill Bowring, jointly organised by us, the
Campaign against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC), and the Haldane
Society of Socialist Lawyers. He spoke to an audience of lawyers and others
in the legal profession. His first talk was a very powerful and heartfelt
speech on the destruction of law, justice and civil liberties under the “War on
Terror” and set the tone for the rest of the tour.
Dennis proved himself to be
a real trooper as he was already beginning to feel unwell and suffering from a
sore throat.
Thursday 13 March 2014
Dennis
spent the day in York where he gave a talk entitled Defending Guantánamo's
youngest prisoner: The struggle to Free Omar Khadr at the University of
York organised by the Centre for Applied Human Rights. I did not attend this
event and the LGC does not have any footage of this event.
Friday 14 March 2014
There
were two meetings on Friday:
1.00-2.00pm
At lunchtime, the University College London Faculty of Laws held An audience with Dennis Edney QC. Dr
Douglas Guilfoyle from the law school was
unable to attend and one of my colleagues chaired the meeting instead.
The talk was aimed at university students. It
was well received with a very interesting Q & A at the end. Unfortunately
the video recording does not include the end of the meeting.
5.00-7.00pm
In
the evening, the Westminster Law
Review at the University of Westminster Law School organised a seminar Where
is the Law in War?
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Again, aimed at (law) students, this talk was
well received by all who attended.
Monday 17 March
We gave Dennis the weekend off and were ready
to go again on Monday afternoon. There were two events on this day as well:
2.00-4.00pm
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| Dennis Edney QC with the tour organisers |
|
In
the afternoon, a coalition of student societies at Birkbeck College, University
of London, organised a talk Omar Khadr: Guantánamo's Child: A Travesty of
Justice
Dennis was unfortunately rather unwell by
this time and taking medication for chest and throat infections; however, this
did not stop him from giving it his all
at this talk.
7.00-8.30pm
 |
| Photo credit: Richard Keith Wolff |
In
the evening, Dennis Edney talked about Omar Khadr at a meeting organised by Veterans for Peace UK to a capacity
audience at Housmans Bookshop, near King's Cross. Dennis Edney spoke along with Ben Griffin, an ex-SAS
soldier who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. They discussed the torture and
abuse of Omar and other prisoners and how torture has become “the norm” within
all ranks of the coalition forces (UK,US & others).
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| Dennis Edney, Glenn Fitzpatrick and Ben Griffin. Photo credit: Richard Keith Wolff |
|
A very
good Q & A discussion followed with great input from the audience, after they
had recovered from the shock everyone felt as they listened to Dennis and
Ben talk not just about the abuse and
torture inflicted on Omar (and others), but the ease with which normally decent
people can be enticed and encouraged to carry out such atrocities.
Tuesday 18 March
The tour continued and there were a number of
engagements on this day.
11.00am – 1.00pm
Dennis
was supposed to speak at a meeting at the London School of Economics organised by the student
union.
Unfortunately, he was not well enough to
attend and so I gave an informal talk about Omar before a showing of the film
of Omar Khadr's interrogation by the Canadian intelligence services (CSIS) at
Guantánamo in February 2003 You don't Like the Truth 4
days Inside Guantánamo.
This was followed by a Q & A. Some of the
students who attended were visibly shaken by the film as they could empathise
with Omar and the pain he went through.
4.30-5.30pm
In
the afternoon the Queen Mary’s University Amnesty society held a meeting about Omar
Khadr. Dennis was able to attend this event and spoke to an audience of mainly
young students who listened in disbelief to the horrors inflicted on Omar and
asked many questions of how it could happen and what they could do to stop it happening
to others.
7.00-9.00pm
In
the evening, Amnesty International UK organised an event, Defending
Guantánamo's Youngest Prisoner, where Dennis was joined by Aaf Post from the
Free Omar Khadr Now campaign and
Andy Worthington, journalist and author of The Guantánamo Files.
Aaf showed a presentation of how she
first learnt about Omar when the film You Don't Like the Truth was shown
on television in the Netherlands where she is from, of her need to do something
and the creation of the global Free Omar Khadr Now campaign, how it has now become
the official campaign website for Omar, and the work being done to help Dennis
win Omar's freedom.
Dennis spoke of his legal journey to free Omar
and Andy spoke about his investigative journalism to bring the world’s
attention to Guantánamo and the War OF Terror.
It was a very intense evening which had the
audience of 60+ spellbound in disbelief that the world has lost its way regarding
justice and human rights.
As the event was organised by Amnesty, no filming
took place.
Afterwards, Dennis, Andy, Aaf and me went for a
quiet meal where we had an interesting discussion about Omar and the rule of
law.
Thursday 20 March 7.30-9.00pm
The final meeting to end the tour was a Q & A with Dennis Edney organised by the local Amnesty group in St. John's Wood,
north London. The tour ended on a high and I can do no better than share my
colleague Noel Hamel's account of the final event of what was a very enlightening
and successful tour:
Noel Hamel: “At St John's Wood we had barely started with
about 15 people when others appeared at the doors - then, they just kept
coming!
It seems that a couple of local secondary
school teachers had told their classes about the event and EVERYONE decided to
come.
Extra chairs and doors opened into a second
room but still it was standing room only. I was exhausted though Dennis did all
the talking of course.
As an armchair socialist I could read and
regurgitate but from Dennis it is the real thing. They may not realise it but those school kids
were amongst the luckiest on the planet. Dennis was of course terrific and the style of
his delivery gave the story enormous impact. Even though I have heard him tell
the stories several times I still find it emotionally draining to realise the
gratuitous and deliberate cruelty of Guantánamo and its processes.”
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| Dennis Edney QC with tour organisers Aisha Maniar, Aaf Post and Val Brown. Photo credit: Richard Keith Wolff | |
