Harper apologizes, offers $12.5M to Maher Arar..

[northamericancitizen]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/01/26/harper-apology.html

Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered a formal apology Friday to Maher Arar and his family for their suffering after Arar was detained in the U.S. and deported to Syria, where he was jailed and tortured for nearly a year.

[NMDemDist2]

1. whois Harper and what does he have to apologize for? n/t

[hatrack]

3. Canadian Prime Minister

Can somebody else fill in the details?

[tblue]

7. Canada's PM. This case burns me up like no other. The US should be the ones apologizing,

and we should give Arar like $1 billion for pain and suffering, wrongful dentention, etc., etc. Somebody should go to jail for this. Thank you to Sen. Leahy for giving a damn.

[Spazito]

21. I, too, would like to thank Senator Leahy....

His outrage was so genuine whereas our own PM is not outraged by this and is only apologizing and settling because of Canadians' outrage and he will be in an election relative soon.

[tblue]

24. At least he's apologizing. * never apologizes for anything. I'll trade * for your PM any day.

[Spazito]

29. LOL, I have to admit our PM is only a bush "in training" as yet

and, with luck, he will be booted out before he comes close to finishing his training.

[tblue]

31. God help you, then.

[Lisa]

37. I agree entirely, Spazito

I can understand why Mr. Arar wanted a written apology from a Canadian Prime Minister -- to show his children in the future, so they would be able to face down the awful things that were (and in some quarters, still are) being said about him. But I think he should also show them that response by Senator Leahy ... I suspect that it will mean even more to the family.

My family received the formal apology document from the Canadian government, for the Japanese-Canadian internment. Like many others, we had it framed and display it in our homes.

[struggle4progress]

36. delete

posted wrong thread

[Spazito]

2. A little more from the article...

Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered a formal apology Friday to Maher Arar and his family for their suffering after Arar was detained in the U.S. and deported to Syria, where he was jailed and tortured for nearly a year.

He also offered compensation: $10.5 million for pain and suffering, as well as an estimated $2 million for Arar's legal bills.

Harper, who made the announcement in the foyer of the House of Commons in Ottawa, said the apology is an acknowledgement of the role that Canada may have played in the U.S. decision to deport Arar to Syria.

snip

Harper also said that Canada has sent letters to U.S. and Syrian governments to object to the treatment of Arar.

[maddezmom]

4. northamericancitizen please edit your subject line

to reflect entire title of the articl: Harper apologizes, offers $12.5M to Maher Arar

Thanks in advance. :)

[northamericancitizen]

6. Thanks maddezmom.

[maddezmom]

13. thank you

:hi:

[Tyo]

5. I hope Mr Arar is not expecting an apology from Mr Bush

Ain't gonna happen. This is the administration that admits to nothing.

[northamericancitizen]

8. Not only is he expecting apologies, I think he intend to sue the US.

[tblue]

I hope to hell he does.

[Spazito]

12. He has already filed a civil suit in the States....

and that is, no doubt in my mind, why the bush government won't take him off the no-fly list and wants our government to stop talking about it because it would be an admission of wrongdoing and would strengthen Arar's case.

[KDLarsen]

33. I think that suit was thrown out?

Once again, the judge pointed to national security instead of any legal reasons. Or am I mistaking the civil suit with the criminal lawsuit? It was thrown out in February last year.

[Spazito]

40. The civil suit was thrown out in Feb/06, Arar has appealed

the decision:

http://www.fidh.org/article.php3?id_article=3934

The link goes to amicus briefs filed on behalf of Arar re his appeal.

[saigon68]

9. And if the Chimp gets his hands on him again

The CIA will torture him some more

Remember the Man standing on the box with the green sandbag

On his head?

[tblue]

10. Who's that in your avatar?

[Tyo]

17. Just some guy i know

B-)

[tblue]

23. Naaaah. I bet it's you!

[irislake]

15. Not only will Bush not apologize but

your Ambassador Wilcox has told Canada to go fly a kite. Araar is still guilty of being terrorist as far as U.S. is concerned. Our Defence Minister saw the "evidence" and continues to state Araar is innocent. But he is on your "no fly" list. Your Ambassador is really doing your country a lot of damage. What an ignorant, arrogant ASSHOLE! No wonder the U.S. is hated all over the world. (I do not say "Americans" note.) Wouldn't it be advisable to have Ambassadors who are not totally offensive and get your next-door-neighbours riled? Like totally pissed off? He deserves every penny of the 12 million plus and then some. Sheesh!

[regnaD kciN]

18. U.S. hated but not Americans...?

No wonder the U.S. is hated all over the world. (I do not say "Americans" note.)

O RLY?

I can testify from personal experience that people overseas seldom make the distinction between "the U.S." as a government and "Americans" as individuals. "The U.S." was hated for its role in Vietnam when I was growing up in Switzerland, but it was I, as a ten-year-old boy, who had to endure almost daily beatings from practically all of my schoolmates, whose slogan was "Americans are pigs. Kill the pigs!"

Like it or not, people living elsewhere usually see individual Americans as representatives of the country and its government, and treat them accordingly.

[Tyo]

19. I know what you mean

Lately I've felt that carrying a US Passport was kind of a liability if not actually dangerous in some places. I think we as individual Americans lost a lot of creds in the world when we failed to fire Bush and his crew in 2004.

[The Stranger]

20. Well, by allowing a government to do the things this U.S. government has done, it is no wonder.

[slowry]

11. Hmm

On the one hand I'd like to see Harper on the no-fly list, for cavorting with someone who supposedly has any terrorist ties whatsoever, but ... nah, I'd rather you guys burn that sucker like I'm 'bout to burn your flag!

j/k bout the flag O8).

[peacetalksforall]

14. And while we're talking, fancy Leer jets are flying other to secret

prisons around the planet. Dispearin' them, doncha know. P.S. WIth the help of Ireland, Britain, one of the Scandinavian countries (or more) and many, many other European countries. Are there any protests in those countries against their government's praticipation and pay-off. Does payola from the U.S. go to education funds or climate control programs in those countries?

[0rganism]

16. Not enough, not nearly enough -- there are at least 3 levels of unaddressed wrongdoing

The most obvious wrong and the only one that is addressed in this settlement, is that Arar, an innocent, was personally deported and subjected to torture. The important remedies here are the clearing of Arar's name in Canada, at least, and some punitive settlement that will remind countries with a modicum of institutional respect for human rights that this can be a costly mistake.

Now for three Big Things that are still totally fucked.

1) People are being deported from the USA so they can be tortured. This is an unacceptable practice, and must be stopped. Period.

2) We the taxpayers are unwittingly paying for "services" in countries with whom we have spotty diplomatic relationships ostensibly because these "services" are inhumane. This is the highest order of hypocrisy.

3) Torture itself must be utterly deplored and forever discarded. As an intelligence gathering mechanism it is useless, its only practical purpose is to intimidate and coerce. Both ends are undemocratic, and ultimately uncivilized.

Our government's great shame is that even knowing that torture is far too immoral and ineffective to be officially condoned, we would still "offshore" the practice with a nod and a wink when practiced by others.

[Posteritatis]

22. Not too little, but waaaaaaaaaay too late (n/t)

[CHIMO]

25. Harper apologizes to Arar for torture in Syria(Canada)

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized Friday to Maher Arar for the torture he suffered in a Syrian prison and said the government would pay him and his family $10.5-million, plus legal fees, to compensate them for the "terrible ordeal."

"On behalf of the government of Canada, I wish to apologize to you ... and your family for any role that Canadian officials may have played in the terrible ordeal that all of you experienced in 2002-2003," Mr. Harper said in a letter to Mr. Arar.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins criticized Public Security Minister Stockwell Day earlier this week after Mr. Day urged Washington to remove Mr. Arar from the list, which bars him from entering the country or even flying over its territory.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070126.warar27/BNStory/National/home

[anarchistmanifesto]

26. Hmmm.....

Stephen Harper apologizes to Maher Arar?  Wow, I wonder if the
U.S. government would even consider apologizing to Maher Arar.
 There seems to be a little justice, but no amount of money
will ever compensate being sent to Syria, of all places.  The
U.S. government has no right to criticize Syria's prison
system and use of torture if they decide to send a man there.

[athena]

27. I bet lots of Canadians are now avoiding the U.S.

Canada has a huge population of people of Middle-Eastern descent, and I bet most of those people have been avoiding visiting the U.S. or flying through the U.S. ever since they heard of what happened to Maher Arar. I suppose the U.S. doesn't care about losing the tourism.

[CHIMO]

28. With The Law

The way it is(US Law), I would bet that a lot of nonUSAmericans are avoiding the USA.

[KDLarsen]

32. Canada has issued a travel warning to immigrants

Basically, Canadians who were born in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya & Sudan have been warned against travelling to the US for any reasons.

[CHIMO]

39. The Scope

Is larger than that.

With the Military Commissions Act of 2006 anyone not an American can disappear. Not only those from the countries that you mentioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Commissions_Act_of_2006

Some of the discussions occurring are given in the attached article.

U.S. security trumps freedom
Canadians still in need of better government protection, writes Thomas Walkom

Ottawa's decision to compensate Canadian Maher Arar for its role in his unlawful imprisonment and torture contains a warning and a lesson.

The warning is that Canada and the U.S. are on fundamentally different paths when it comes to matters of terrorism and human rights. The lesson is that until Ottawa gets more aggressive with our friends in the war on terror, a Canadian passport won't mean much.

First the warning. The U.S. has chosen to subordinate the principles of individual freedom to what it sees as its security needs. It jails people indefinitely without charge, utilizes interrogation methods that the United Nations describes as torture, wages illegal wars and commits the very crimes against humanity it once helped to prosecute.

For America's friends, this is heartbreaking to watch.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/175534#

[CHIMO]

30. FTR: MAZIGH AIH

Maher Arar finally has the apology he was looking for.

This afternoon in Ottawa, the Prime Minister delivered the official nostra culpa for Canada's role in the detention, extradition, and torture of the Kamloops computer engineer. Along with the nice words, the Prime Minister announced an out-of-court settlement of eleven-and-a-half million dollars.

It's hard for most of us to imagine that kind of money. Fortunately, it's also hard for us to imagine the kind of turn that Mr. Arar's life took on the 26th of September, 2002. He was flying home from a family vacation in Tunisia and had to change planes in New York. That's when he was first detained by U-S. authorities.

"As It Happens" first picked up the story on the 17th of October, when we contacted Mr. Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, in Tunis. She described how she learned of her husband's detention, for the record.

http://cbc.ca/asithappens/media/dailyshow/2007-01-26-aih1.ram
Starts at 1:32 in the Part
http://www.cbc.ca/aih/latestshow.html

It may not have happened if were not for his wife and some few politicians that continued to bring up the issue. Certainly no help was forthcoming from the "New Canadian Government" who had the response to his wife of "get a life".

[KDLarsen]

34. I wonder if Khalid El-Masri will ever see something like this

Not to mention all the other rest of the people who were held wrongfully before kicked out & left to their own. Khalid El-Masri's story seems like something out of a sci-fi movie, being taken in the middle of the night by masked men, flown to a detention center in the Afghani desert (The Salt Pit), force-fed after going on a hunger strike, tortured & interrogated by the CIA before being released after the second(!) order from Rice. And the release? He was dumped in the middle of the night on a road in the middle of nowhere, with no money, no food, nothing to help him get back to his family in Germany.

Is this the US that we're supposed to see as the beacon of the free world?

(Sorry if I'm a bit harsh, but stuff like this is unacceptable - and remember, only very few stories like these are coming to the public's eyes & ears. I wonder how many innocent people are still kept in tiny cells & being tortured by US operatives?)

[Harper_is_Bush]

35. Good for Arar, but it's nothing but a convenient political tool for Harper

He even took a swipe at the "previous government" in his speech. Pathetic.

[Vidar]

38. I'm glad someone apologize to him & offered compensation.

Our pet goat can't be bothered.

[Spazito]

41. Here's the latest excuse from the bush admin as to why

they won't remove Arar from the list:

"Arar's contacts, travel history said to be issues
On Friday, a State Department official told the Canadian Press that Arar remains on the U.S. watch list because of his personal associations and travel history.

The official did not want to be identified by name.

The official stressed that while Arar's associations and travel history do not warrant his presence on a Canadian security list, they do qualify him for the U.S. list.

Public Security Minister Stockwell Day said Friday that the government will continue to work to remove Arar from the American list.

"The issue won't be closed," Day told CBC News. "This conversation will come up again."

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/01/26/arar-us.html

(The above snip from the article is about two thirds of the way down the page)