http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/19/maher_arar_the_torture_continues.phpMaher Arar: The Torture Continues
A Canadian citizen who has not been charged with a crime—who a Canadian judge has said does not even have a credible allegation against him—is still being barred from entering the United States. And yet we are still not outraged at the usurpation of power and disregard for basic human rights that the Bush administration brandishes in the name of homeland security?
Maher Arar is the Canadian citizen who, based on what a Canadian judge found to be unsubstantiated accusations that he was a terrorist, was detained in New York City by the U.S. government and then renditioned to Syria in 2002, where he says he was tortured for 10 months. He was finally released and was allowed to return to Canada, where a commission that examined the conditions under which he was detained concluded that “there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada.”
Even so, the U.S. government kept Arar from appearing Wednesday at the 30th annual Letelier-Moffitt Awards ceremony, sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, where he and the organization that fought for his freedom, the Center for Constitutional Rights, were given the IPS International Award.
John Cavanagh, the director of the Institute for Policy Studies, said at the ceremony at the National Press Club that he wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, asking him to intervene to allow Arar into the country, and got no response.
I did not fare much better when I called a Justice Department press spokesman Thursday, who referred the question to the Department of Homeland Security. “They handle the borders,” said spokesman Charles Miller....