The Things Done In Your Name

Canadian Rendition Victim Testifies On Extraordinary Rendition
By Dan Robinson
Capitol Hill



A Canadian citizen detained by U.S. authorities in 2002 on suspicion of having links to al-Qaida, and sent to Syria where he was tortured, has testified for the first time before a congressional committee. VOA's Dan Robinson reports, Maher Arar addressed a panel examining extraordinary rendition, in which U.S. authorities have sent terrorist suspects to other countries for interrogation.

A Syrian-born Canadian citizen, Arar was detained in September 2002 at New York's Kennedy Airport, on suspicion of having links to al-Qaida, which was responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

The information came from a Canadian police report describing him as well as his wife as Islamic extremists with suspected terrorist links.

Against his protests and after interrogations by U.S. officials, he was deported to Syria via Jordan, where he says he suffered severe torture for 10 months at the hands of Syria's Military Intelligence, before his release in October 2003.

Arar was never formally accused of any crime in the United States or Canada. A 2.5-year Canadian investigation cleared him of any links with terrorist organizations or activities, and ordered that he be paid more than $10 million in compensation.

More after the click ...

My take? NEVER FORMALLY ACCUSED OF ANY CRIME? I'd like to see you defend yourself against charges when you don't know what the charges are, when you don't have access to an attorney, when you're locked in a room in a foreign country thousands of miles from home. It could happen to you ... explain to me how it can't.

In the United States of America you no longer have to be charged with a crime to be held indefinitely. In the United States of American it no longer requires that you be proven guilty of anything before you can be sentenced to life in prison.

We used to condemn other countries for that. We condemned Nazi Germany for that. We condemned the USSR for that. We've condemned Castro for that. We've condemned China for that.

We must be silent now. We have sacrificed our moral authority for a false sense of security. We have become what we once condemned.