12.25.2004
Who Is Maher Arar?
For one he is Time Canada's Newsmaker Of The Year. A man detained by U.S. Officials, branded as a terrorist, tortured and imprisoned. Even his home country's Royal Canadian Mounted Police screwed up their end of the case, translating the horrific 'security regime that U.S. seems to have imposed on it's neighbours. Maher Arar is more than pissed off:
Arar has launched two gutsy lawsuits in 2004 targeting some of the most powerful people on the continent, including U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, fbi Director Robert Mueller, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and r.c.m.p. Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli.
After the Syrians declared him completely innocent, Arar described his 10 months of detainment:
He was held there without charge for 10 months and 10 days. During his first two weeks, he claims, he was interrogated about people he had known in Canada, sometimes for 18 hours at a time, and tortured. One punishment, he says, was repeated lashings with a 5-cm black metal cable on his palms, wrists, lower back and hips. The mental ordeal was also brutal, he said in November 2003 at one of the most dramatic press conferences ever televised in Canada. “The second and third days were the worst,” he told the world that day. “I could hear other prisoners being tortured, and screaming.” During his first week in prison, he says, he falsely confessed that he had received military training in Afghanistan. ¶ 9:46:00 PM
For one he is Time Canada's Newsmaker Of The Year. A man detained by U.S. Officials, branded as a terrorist, tortured and imprisoned. Even his home country's Royal Canadian Mounted Police screwed up their end of the case, translating the horrific 'security regime that U.S. seems to have imposed on it's neighbours. Maher Arar is more than pissed off:
Arar has launched two gutsy lawsuits in 2004 targeting some of the most powerful people on the continent, including U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, fbi Director Robert Mueller, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and r.c.m.p. Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli.
After the Syrians declared him completely innocent, Arar described his 10 months of detainment:
He was held there without charge for 10 months and 10 days. During his first two weeks, he claims, he was interrogated about people he had known in Canada, sometimes for 18 hours at a time, and tortured. One punishment, he says, was repeated lashings with a 5-cm black metal cable on his palms, wrists, lower back and hips. The mental ordeal was also brutal, he said in November 2003 at one of the most dramatic press conferences ever televised in Canada. “The second and third days were the worst,” he told the world that day. “I could hear other prisoners being tortured, and screaming.” During his first week in prison, he says, he falsely confessed that he had received military training in Afghanistan. ¶ 9:46:00 PM
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I'm a pacifist. I'd like to be able to trust that my neighbours are pacifists, but I'm not sure where their connection with violence begins and ends: in the first act of differentiation? in the politics they maintain in however small a way? to what extent are each of us responsible for the violence in the world?
As if we haven't enough troubles already... living in, on, and with this sometimes violent natural world.
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As if we haven't enough troubles already... living in, on, and with this sometimes violent natural world.
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