Democracy Now!:
Four years ago this month, a Canadian citizen named Maher Arar was on his way back to Canada from a family vacation in Tunisia. The Syrian-born man had a stopover at JFK airport in New York. The date was September 26, 2002. He wouldn't see his family for another 374 days.
After being questioned at the airport, U.S. officials took him to an immigration facility in New York. Two weeks later he was secretly flown to Jordan aboard a Gulfstream Jet. Maher Arar ended up in Syria where he was held in a cell, the size of a grave. He was repeatedly tortured. For weeks his family didn't even know where he was.
On Monday, the Canadian government admitted for the first time that Arar was a completely innocent man. Justice Dennis O'Connor released the findings of a two-year major investigation into the disappearance of Arar. The judge wrote, "I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offence or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada."
The official inquiry said that there is no evidence that Canadian officials played a direct role in his detention or deportation. However Justice O'Connor found that the U.S. government's decision to send Arar to Syria was likely based on inaccurate and misleading information provided by Canadian authorities. The judge also criticized the Bush administration's actions. The judge wrote, "They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of his statements that he would be tortured if sent there."
Arar describes not only the treatment he received at the hands of the Syrians, but why torture is a stupid way to get info.
MAHER ARAR: Really, I mean, when I arrived there, I just couldn't believe it. I thought first it was a dream. I was crying all the time. I was disoriented. I wished I had something in my hand to kill myself, because I knew I was going to be tortured, and this was my preoccupation. That's all I was thinking about when I was on the plane. And I arrived there. I was crying all the time. So, one of them started questioning me, and the others were taking notes. And the first day it was mainly routine questions, between 8 to 12.
And the second day, that's when the beatings started, because, you know, on the first day they did not find anything strange about what I told them. And they started beating me with a cable, electrical threaded cable, and they would beat me for three, four times. They would stop again, and they would ask questions again, and they always kept telling me, “You are a liar,” and things like that. So, the beating continued for the first two weeks. The most -- the most intensive -- the intensive beating was really the first week, and then after that it was mostly slapping, punching on the face and kicking.
So, on the third day when they didn't find anything, third or fourth day, they -- in my view, they just wanted to please the Americans, and they had to find something on me. So, because I was accused of being an al-Qaeda member, which is nowadays synonymous with Afghanistan, they told me, “You've been to a training camp in Afghanistan.” And I said, “No.” And they started beating me. And I said -- well, I had no choice. I just wanted the beating to stop. I said, “Of course, I've been to Afghanistan.” I was ready to confess to anything just to stop the torture.
It's absolutely sickening that we have people seriously arguing in favor of torture. What kind of monsters have we allowed to get a toehold in this country? What kind of idiots need to have it explained to them why torure is wrong?
Tags: news politics terrorism Canada US Syria international crime Bush human rights
