US Bars Entry to Canadian Wrongly Rendered to Syria for Torture

[BurtWorm]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/19/maher_arar_the_torture_continues.php


Maher 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....

[leftchick]

1. I read he didn't want to come here

He was scared of being arrested again. I can't say as I blame him.

[Kagemusha]

2. The cops are REQUIRED to seize him if he attempts to enter by plane.

I avoid use of the term "arrest" because such legal terms of art are rather quaint in light of recent legislation signed by the President.

[sybylla]

3. What, let him in so he can bash the maladministration on the liberal media

Not likely to happen. And totally not a surprise to me.

They didn't need to get rid of Habeus Corpus to put people on a no-fly list and restrict their freedom of movement around the country.

Rat Batards!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave"...yeah, right.

Terrified of a guy saying something at an awards ceremony that might embarass our mighty nation.

Thank God that Homeland Security is protecting Der Vaterland from such devastating injury.

[Double T]

5. The bushco flagrant abuse of power will start to end on 11/8/06

[Jack Rabbit]

6. I would advise Mr. Arar to stay out of the US at this time

Mr. Bush signed the Military Commissions Act into law two days ago. It gives him the right to decided who is an "enemy combatant" and order that person detained, without formal charges, to be tried by a kangaroo court in which the accused will not have the right to review all the evidence against him.

Mr. Bush is the one who decides who is an enemy combatant and what that is. A Canadian who can bear witness to the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Bush regime on the human race may just be, in Mr. Bush's view, an enemy combatant.

America is no longer a beacon of freedom. Not only are Americans citizens not safe from the President of the United States (or the presumptive president, as the case may be) wielding the kind of arbitrary power that characterized European monarchs of the late eighteenth century, but nobody in the world is.

The Bush regime is a pariah and I call on the people of the world, inside America and out, to take steps to bring about its downfall. Restoring America as a nation of laws and on whose traditions and values much of the modern ideas of human rights rest is the urgent business of humanity. This will require a willingness to sacrifice and suffer pain. It means that the trivial priorities of day-to-day living are to be cast aside. As one of my college professors said thirty-five years ago: Revolution means you miss your hair appointment.

The first thing that must be done is to vote in next month's election and put a Democratic majority in place in both houses of congress. Then we must persuade congressional leaders that the Bush crimes are so heinous, so abominable, that removing Bush and Cheney from power and repealing the USA PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act police state measures passed by the recent right wing Congresses is as much a part of the American agenda as passing national health insurance, election reform that doesn't disenfranchise voters and restoring the fairness doctrine in broadcasting.

If the election next month is stolen, either by unaccountable voting machines that have been rigged in favor of Bush regime toads or by regulation designed to cause mass confusion at the polls and the disenfranchisement of voters, then we should make no pretense that America is any longer the nation founded by Washington, Jefferson and Madison. It will be up to us to restore that nation by direct action.

The Bush regime's tyranny will not stand.

[Megahurtz]

7. Good Post. n/t