OTTAWA (AFP) - About 100 students protested on the steps of the Canadian parliament Tuesday urging the government to repatriate a young Canadian held at the US Guantanamo Bay military prison since he was 15.

Backed by Amnesty International and a handful of opposition MPs, the students, aged 12 to 16 years, from towns in Ontario and Quebec provinces, shouted "Free Omar Khadr" and waved placards that read "Justice for Children."

Some of them were also dressed in orange prison garb and black hoods reflecting the television images of Guantanamo detainees.

"We're here to protest to have Omar Khadr brought back to Canada for a fair trial because the United States doesn't see him for what he is -- a child soldier," said student Shawna McCullough, circulating a petition.

"The rights of every Canadian citizen must be protected, and I'm appalled that our government isn't doing that," she told AFP.

Omar Khadr faces an upcoming US military tribunal on charges that he murdered a US army medic in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15 years old.

Khadr was arrested the same year and has since been held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The case has found resonance among Canadian students, said teacher Marcel Lacroix.

"For the grace of God, they could be in Omar's shoes," he said. "He's a Canadian born in Toronto. I can't understand why the Canadian government doesn't just bring him home."

According to his US military lawyer Lieutenant-Commander Bill Kuebler, Khadr "did not choose to go into combat as a 15-year-old child soldier in Afghanistan."

Rather, Khadr "views himself as a victim of decisions made for him by his family," he said.

Khadr's father was suspected Al-Qaeda financier Ahmed Said Khadr and his brother has admitted on Canadian television that the family knew Osama bin Laden, and that Al-Qaeda operatives trained him and some of his siblings in Afghanistan.

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