Ottawa promises inquiry will get to the bottom of Arar case

[iverglas]

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/28/arar_inquiry040128

OTTAWA - A full public inquiry has been called into why a Canadian citizen was deported by U.S. officials to Syria, where he was imprisoned for a year.

... McLellan said O'Connor would have all the powers allowed under the Public Inquiries Act, including the ability to call witnesses and compel testimony.

... Prime Minister Paul Martin has offered to have opposition party leaders who have seats in Parliament sworn into the Privy Council, so they can see even the classified sections of the inquiry, McLellan said.

Arar, a Canadian citizen represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights in the US, sued the US government last week for deporting him to Syria knowing that he would be imprisoned and tortured there. What he had demanded in Canada was a public inquiry -- as had Amnesty International:

http://www.amnesty.ca/realsecurity/Syria.htm

Amnesty International is calling for a public inquiry into what role, if any, Canadian law enforcement and security agencies played in his deportation to Syria. Without the answers, there is no guarantee it won't happen again.

(Commissions of inquiry are a traditional and expected response in Canada to public demands for explanations of government action; the judge appointed to conduct this one previously conducted the inquiry into the tainted water scandal in Walkerton; public inquiries were held into problems in the blood supply after revelations of AIDS and Hep C transmission through blood transfusions, and into the conduct of the Canadian military in the case of the Somali teenager tortured and murdered by Cdn soldiers. Commissions of inquiry are supposed to be independent and unfettered, but the commission in that last case was terminated prematurely.)

Arar was arrested in September 2002 while switching planes in New York when he was returning to Canada from a vacation in Tunisia. After holding him for nearly two weeks, U.S. officials deported him to Syria where he was born, despite the fact he was travelling on a Canadian passport.

U.S. authorities said they had reason to suspect Arar was linked to al-Qaeda. There have been allegations that they were acting, in part, on information that came from Canada.

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien refused to call a public inquiry, but the Security Intelligence Review Committee announced in December it would investigate the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's role in the case.

There has never been a shred of evidence presented to the public that Arar had any such ties.

http://www.freemaherarar.com/article20021016d.html

Wednesday, October 16, 2002 Globe and Mail

Maher Arar is, by all accounts, a Canadian success story. Born in Syria, he came to this country 15 years ago, finished a master's degree and is considered an expert in the field of communication engineering. He has two young children, and his wife, also a Muslim, has a PhD in mathematics from McGill.

Maher Arar's website: http://www.maherarar.ca/

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[sybylla]

1. Good news!

Hopefully it shine a light into the darker workings of our misadministration and fix our system of targeting brown skinned people.