1/24/07: Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more outrageous,
it did.
On September 26, 2002, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was
passing through New York’s JFK airport on his
way home from a vacation when US
officials pulled him aside, interrogated him for hours without giving him a
phone call, and then detained him.
Twelve days later, he was chained, shackled, and flown to Syria, his
native country.
Arar was imprisoned in Syria for the next year, and faced
torture, beatings, and was forced to make a false confession. He was held in a tiny “grave-like” cell for
ten months. Arar was only released after
an arduous campaign by his wife, and finally returned to Canada in
October, 2003.
After public exposure and pressure from human rights groups,
the Canadian government held a Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian
Officials in Relation to Maher Arar.
Arar was cleared of any links to terrorism by the Commission on Sept.
18, 2006, with Justice Dennis O’Connor, stating he was “able to say
categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed
any offence or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada”.
Think the nightmare is over?
Think again.
Despite a request from the Canadian government, the US Justice
Department released a letter Monday declaring its refusal to take Arar off of
its terrorist watch list. The letter was
signed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Homeland Security Department
head Michael Chertoff. This means that
Arar could face the same treatment all over again if he decided to travel.
The US
government claims it has secret evidence that justifies keeping Arar on its
terrorist watch list. Two things stand
out here:
1) If
they did have evidence connecting Arar to terrorism, and if they were worried
about any danger posed by Arar, why on earth wouldn’t they share it with the
Canadian government, an ally in their “war on terrorism”?
2) Why
would anyone trust the very regime that has held thousands of people in
indefinite detention simply on their say-so, subjected them to torture, and
denied them any basic legal rights (especially after so many of those detainees
who have been released have been subsequently cleared of the claims the US
government has made against them)?
What was done and is continuing to be done to Maher Arar is
simply outrageous. Think about what it
means to suddenly be locked away, flown across the world, held in a tiny cell
and subjected to torture for a year, and then after finally being released and
cleared of any wrong doing, the US
government refuses to take you off their terrorist watch list? Think about the fact that US government
officials refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing in the case, and continue to do
the same thing towards other people. Now
think about what responsibility we have as people living in the United States
to stop this from continuing to go on.
For more about Maher Arar, visit http://www.maherarar.ca/.