Public
inquiry needed for Arar: Is Canada subcontracting torture?
By: Riad
Saloojee
November 6, 2003 OMN
It was heart-wrenching, yes, but refreshing to hear Maher Arar finally speak in his own words and not through a series of garbled Canadian government leaks.
It has now been 13 months since Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria but traveling on his Canadian passport, was detained and arrested at New York's Kennedy Airport on September 26, 2002, and then deported, first to Jordan and then to Syria.
In what many have stated was a cloak-and-dagger smear campaign against Arar over the last few weeks, anonymous Canadian government officials leaked that Arar had traveled and trained in Afghanistan and that he was not tortured in Syria.
Yesterday, Arar stated unequivocally that he has never traveled to Afghanistan.
And, regarding the issue of torture, Arar spoke of being locked up in what was literally a "grave" for ten months in Syria - a room with no sunlight, three feet wide, six feet deep and seven feet high - frequented by rats and sprinkled by animal urine through ceiling vents. He was beaten repeatedly over his body with a shredded electrical cable; threatened with electrocution and with being stuffed into a tire and beaten on the soles of his feet; and frequently punched, kicked and slapped. And, in what he describes as perhaps the most painful punishment, he was deliberately locked for days in a waiting room, where he heard the screaming and wailing of other prisoners being tortured.
Physically and mentally devastated, Arar agreed to confess to whatever his captors wanted him to. They wanted him to say he had been to Afghanistan. He confessed and signed documents under the threat of physical harm.
As for the American role in his nightmare, Arar stated that the Americans repeatedly denied his request for a lawyer, interrogated him to exhaustion, vaccinated him against his will, and deported him to Syria over his repeated objections and concerns that the Syrians would torture him. It is a cruel irony that the Americans deported him to a place they themselves consider a rogue state.
But who would have thought that Canada's own security agencies played a central role in Arar's nightmare.
It is now appears to be beyond question that the RCMP passed on detailed information about Arar to American authorities. At one point, US authorities presented Arar with an apartment lease from 1997 and Arar was questioned in detail about people he knew or met in Canada.
Moreover, Arar's testimony reveals extremely disturbing information about the involvement of CSIS. It appears that there was an open communication channel between CSIS and the Syrians. CSIS agents made two visits to Syria during Arar's imprisonment. And, shockingly, the Syrians gave CSIS the interrogation transcripts and Arar's torture extracted confessions.
Here, then, is the "reliable source" for the government leaks: A confession extracted by torture and used with impunity as an incontrovertible fact. The follow-up questions are equally horrific. Is this how Canadian intelligence agencies typically gather evidence? Are there any quality controls to such foreign intelligence, much of which is politicized and unreliable - and most of which is likely obtained by torture? Is evidence like this used to implicate non-citizens currently held in Canada under security certificates?
All this begs another question: Are Canadian security agencies subcontracting torture against Canadian citizens? As Lorne Waldman, Arar's lawyer, put it: "This is the first time my government is implicated in inflicting torture on another person. It appears that our Canadian security services are prepared to use rogue states like Syria to do what they are legally barred to do in Canada - torture in order to extract information and confessions."
Waldman's thesis may be quite credible if one assumes that Canadian intelligence had foreknowledge of the US practice of "extraordinary rendition," where suspects are tuned over to foreign intelligence services and face likely torture. Admissions by US officials, recently quoted in the Washington Post, indicate that the Arar case fits the profile of covert CIA "extraordinary rendition."
The Post quoted a senior US intelligence official who noted that there have been "a lot of rendition activities" since 9/11 and that, "We are doing a number of them, and they have been very productive." "The temptation," noted other officials, "is to have these folks in other hands because they have different standards." "Someone might be able to get information we can't from detainees."
Arar also spoke about the case of another Canadian, Abdullah alMalki, who has reportedly been severely tortured in Syria, denied his basic rights, not charged, detained for a year and a half and denied consular access. What, one wonders, was the RCMP and CSIS involvement in his case and in the cases of other Canadians detained abroad?
If Canada wants to retain its stature as a country that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, it must come clean about the involvement of the RCMP and CSIS in the year-long suffering of Maher Arar.
Perhaps nothing can give Maher Arar his life back and perhaps nothing will be able to heal the wounds, physical and emotional, that he suffered over the last year. But Canada has a moral duty to Maher Arar to provide him with answers and a duty to all Canadians to ensure that this nightmare is not inflicted on anyone else.
The best hope, for Arar and for all Canadians, continues to be an independent public inquiry. Nothing short of such an inquiry should be acceptable. Arar described his cell of 10 months as a "grave." Lets hope that Canada does not seal his chance to live again by denying him the answers he so needs.
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Riad Saloojee is the Executive Director of CAIR-CAN, an Ottawa-based, nonprofit organization with a grassroots membership and which aims to educate Canadians and empower Canadian Muslims. CAIR-CAN has written several op-eds to date on issues of contemporary importance to Canadians and Canadian Muslims. Op-eds may be viewed at: http://www.caircan.ca/op_ed.php. He submitted this op-ed to OMN for publication)