Arar for dummies

[struggle4progress]

<snip>
The Maher Arar controversy has raised many troubling questions, and on Monday a federal public inquiry led by Ontario's associate chief justice will begin to root out answers. Mr. Arar, whose tale of torture and injustice has given him a household name, concludes that he is a victim of racial profiling, and insists his case is not isolated.

Less than a year ago, he, Abdullah Almalki, another Ottawa computer specialist, and Toronto truck driver Ahmad Abou El-Maati were behind bars, accused of having links with al-Qaeda. All had been investigated in Canada before landing in Syrian and then, in Mr. El-Maati's case, in Egyptian cells. All protested their innocence and complained that they had been tortured. And all have since been released.

Now out to clear his name, Mr. Arar -- whose wife, Monia Mazigh, is running for the New Democratic Party in the federal election -- has launched multimillion-dollar lawsuits against Syria, Jordan, the United States and Canada. The experience, he says, has left him deeply skeptical.
<snip>

Because the case is so complicated, the accompanying timeline showing what happened to Mr. Arar and his two "associates" may prove indispensable as the murky tale comes to light.
<snip>

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040619/ARAR19/TPComment/TopStories

Extensive timeline provided

[reprehensor]

1. What a clusterf*ck.

How to NOT wage the 'War on Terror'. If you insist on stripping away someone's civil rights, at least pick a terrorist.

Sending innocent people to rot in Syrian jail cells is a sure way to make people despise these heavy-handed measures.

Clusterf*ck.

[Lisa]

2. I met a Canadian right-winger this weekend ...

... who claimed that he had "inside information" that Arar and his wife are both terrorist moles, and that he could hardly wait for the information to be released so both the NDP and Liberals would look foolish. The guy was hopping up and down with glee as he said this.

Given that he also claimed that Joe Clark "was never elected Prime Minister by Canadians", I don't put much credence in his claims.

When I pointed out that the feds have been wrong about suspected terrorists before -- as in the case of my family, who were interned in WWII -- he muttered, "yeah, but they COULD have done something". (A bunch of 12-year-old kids? Yeah, right.) He'd earlier said that Arar "wasn't a real Canadian" because he wasn't born here. I told him that my parents WERE born here and they were still put in that camp ... and unless he was aboriginal (he muttered, "half-aboriginal"), he'd better hope that Canada never went to war with any of his ancestral countries, or he'd be just as vulnerable to being regarded as an enemy alien.

[struggle4progress]

3. Nothing keeps the Canadians from prosecuting Arar ...

if they have info he committed a crime.