In short: in 2002, Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen living in Ottawa, was stopped in the US while returning home from abroad. US officials (with help from false information from the RCMP) had him sent to Syria, where he was tortured for a year before he returned home. A Canadian inquiry cleared his name and implicated the RCMP (the Commissioner resigned over it, which is a huge deal). The US still has him on the no-fly list, and there has recently been a diplomatic skirmish that has resulted in our Public Safety minister Doris Day being chastised by the US Ambassador for pressuring them to remove Arar from the no-fly list.
Arar has been unable to work since then, partly because of the PTSD and associated horror that must result from being tortured in Syria for a year, and partly because his reputation has been trashed by the whole thing.
First question: What about that settlement amount? He first asked for $400 million, then dropped it to $37 million and an apology. Is it enough? Too much? How do you put a price on that? Would you be happy with that if you were Arar?
Second question (from the above link):
Is it presumputous for Day to do that? (I think not, it’s just all diplomatic bluster, and Day trying to relieve a little pressure on the RCMP.) I do not think the U.S. has any good reason to keep him on the list, and I think it would be the diplomatically generous thing to do to remove him. I think it would go far to soothe Canadian distrust over U.S. involvement in this.
My understanding is that it’s pretty much impossible for anyone outside of specific parts of the US government to determine why a person may be kept on the watch list, but I can certainly think of a couple reasons that have nothing to do with some supposed connection to terrorism: 1) he’s being kept on the list because for the US to admit that a mistake had been made might open it to liability in US courts, and b) [sarcasm]they may feel that Mr. Arar’s unfortunate ordeal may have instilled in him a certain prejudice against the US government[/sarcasm].
As for whether the amount of the award was just or not, I’d say no. In a case of egregious abuse of this nature, damages in a lawsuit are not awarded only to compensate for pain and suffering but for punitive effect. Ten mill ain’t chump change, but one presumes that the Canadian government can afford it, and more, so maybe the award should have been of a size that causes a bit more institutional pain.
Based on what I read of Mr. Arar’s case, the US government should have been a defendant in a US court proceeding, should have been found liable, and should be forced to pay an award at least as large. I’m aware that Mr. Arar has at least attempted to obtain redress in a US court, but I don’t know if the case has gotten anywhere. Nevertheless, I hope he does eventually get some justice from our justice system.
I saw an interview with him on Democracy Now. He has serious problems as a result of his torture. He may never recover. Sometimes I am so proud of my government .
The Commissioner resigned after [del]lying[/del] having too little sleep the night before testifying and therefore making inaccurate statements to Parliament.
On the news (no cite, sorry … it was on the radio, and my google-fu is just not strong enough) they were talking about an American man who had been mistakenly accused of being a terrorist and imprisoned in an American jail for two months, and he recieved US$2 million in compensation.
I mean, as long as we’re developing an international metric for “compensation for being falsely imprisoned as a terrorist.”
I also wonder what implications this will have for other Canadians who have been falsely imprisoned for non-terrorism-related things (of whom there are a rather embarassingly large number …)
No, the award is not too large. Although ten million is more than the average person could reasonably spend in a lifetime, that’s not the point. It’s enough to get the attention of the rich and powerful who are used to dealing with such sums. I’d like to see him be awarded fifty million by the US, the primary culprit in this abomination of freedom an justice. And, excuse the term, fairness.
Of course it’s not presumptuous of Minister Day, no more than it is for Ambassador Wilkins to tell Day what is and is not presumptuous.
The Canadians have the moral high ground and Wilkins (and most of the rest of our government) can’t stand it. So they sit there and smirk, ala attorney general Gonzales/President Bush.
I’m wishing for some way to show Mr. Arar, directly, how many of us are on his side.
Really? 'Cause here I thought it was “a little presumptuous” for the United States to take Canadian citizens and ship them halfway around the world to countries where they have every expectation of being tortured, without bothering to inform their families or consulates that they were even taken for weeks afterward.
But I guess the United States would be the experts on presumption at this point.
Mr. Arar has sued the U.S. government in Federal District Court - I think in either Washington or New York, but I’m not sure. The District Court dismissed his claim. It’s now under appeal to the applicable Circuit Court.
Perhaps one of our US Doper lawyers could dig up more detailed info?
The guy deserves every cent of the compensation. What happened to him was horrific and the least they can do is ensure that he will be financially secure for the rest of his life.
He was quoted on the news tonight as saying he’s not left Canada since he got back from Syria, and has no intention of leaving as long as he’s on the US watch list. Sounds like he thinks Canada is the only place he’s safe.
:mad: Well, he deserves compensation! I mean, couldn’t he have been tortured just as well in Canada?! By honest, hard-working Canadian sadists? How far is this outsourcing thing gonna go?!
His lawyer was interviewed on the CBC saying that due to his being on the US list, he would not be safe travelling to many countries (I can’t remember the number – seventy to eighty if I recall correctly), thus preventing him from making a pilgrimage to Mecca.
I didn’t read the article so I’d like a clarification on this point. Given that the US was given incorrect information from the Mounties, was it reasonable for the US to believe that he was NOT a Canadian citizen?
Secondly, a couple people claimed that the US sent him to Syria “to be tortured”. Which Syrian diplomat told the US that Arar would be tortured when deported? Or maybe those people think that we should expect Syria to torture anyone sent there from the US. I don’t know, but that sounds racist to me.
:dubious:
What race is Syria?
No, the stayement is political. the gonernment of Syria has denmonstrated a willingness to torture, and the US govt. (and just about everyone else) is well aware of that. Mr. Arar was tortured. He was kidnapped, spirited off to Syria, and not told anything about what was going on.
It’s kinda hard, with you coming into the middle of this thing, to relate the entire story. Read up on it, then ask questions.
No, it was not reasonable for the US to believe he was not a Canadian citizen. He was travelling under a Canadian passport, and the erroneous information provided by the Mounties didn’t question the legitimacy of his citizenship.
It is not a secret that Syria tortures people. This has nothing to do with racism. Syria has had a horrible reputation in this regard for a long, long time. It is beyond ridiculous to believe that the US authorities involved wouldn’t have expected him to be tortured.
There are no excuses for the behaviour of the American officials involved. Even if the information given to the Mounties had been entirely correct, Arar should still have been turned over to Canadian officials.