GayandRight

My name is Fred and I am a gay conservative living in Ottawa. This blog supports limited government, the right of the State of Israel to live in peace and security, and tries to expose the threat to us all from cultural relativism, post-modernism, and radical Islam. I am also the founder of the Free Thinking Film Society in Ottawa (www.freethinkingfilms.com)

Monday, May 23, 2005

How low can Amnesty go?

We've done several blogs on Amnesty - about their anti-Israel, anti-male reports. Now, they want to make an American deserter a 'prisoner of conscience.'
Prominent human-rights group Amnesty International has declared that it will adopt a young American war dodger as a "prisoner of conscience" if Canada deports him to the United States and he ends up in jail.

Amnesty says it considers Jeremy Hinzman a legitimate conscientious objector to the war in Iraq, even though Canadian immigration authorities have decided otherwise.

Hinzman, 26, fled to Canada in search of asylum just days before his Airborne Division unit was deployed to Iraq.

Hinzman, who considers the war illegal under international law, and feared he would be forced to commit atrocities, has said he didn't want to become a "killing machine."

Dozens of American soldiers are thought to have left for Canada.

His refugee claim was rejected in March by the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Hinzman, who has filed a Federal Court challenge to the ruling in hopes of staving off deportation, faces a court-martial and up to five years in jail if he is returned to the U.S.

In a decision taken at Amnesty's international office in London, the organization said it considered Hinzman "to have a genuine conscientious objection" to serving as a combatant in Iraq.

"Accordingly, should he be imprisoned upon his return to the United States, Amnesty International would consider him to be a prisoner of conscience," the group said in a statement.
Let's grant Amnesty their wish, and send him back to the US as soon as possible.