Arar launches lawsuit against US government

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/22/ararsuit040122

NEW YORK - A Canadian citizen who says he was
tortured in a Syrian prison after being deported by the
U.S. launched a lawsuit against the American
government Thursday, seeking financial compensation
and a declaration that the U.S. acted illegally.

... Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security
Secretary Tom Ridge and FBI director Robert Mueller
were among the officials named in the lawsuit, as well
as 10 "John Does" who took part in Arar's detention
and interrogation in the United States in the autumn
of 2002.

Barbara Olshansky of the New York-based Center for
Constitutional Rights ... said the lawsuit alleges that
U.S. officials made the decision to deport Arar with
the full knowledge that Syria practises state-sponsored
torture, and that they intentionally deported him to
acquire more knowledge about terrorism because Syria
"can and does use methods that would not be legally or
morally acceptable in this country."

The suit is being filed under the Torture Victims
Protection Act, brought in by former U.S. president
George Bush Sr. to help victims around the world. ...

A link to Arar's story in his own words was posted here recently:

http://www.counterpunch.org/arar11062003.html

It's quite long. Here's a taste:

We went into the basement, and they opened a door, and I looked in. I could not believe what I saw. I asked how long I would be kept in this place. He did not answer, but put me in and closed the door. It was like a grave. It had no light.

It was three feet wide. It was six feet deep. It was seven feet high. It had a metal door, with a small opening in the door, which did not let in light because there was a piece of metal on the outside for sliding things into the cell.

There was a small opening in the ceiling, about one foot by two feet with iron bars. Over that was another ceiling, so only a little light came through this.

...

I spent 10 months, and 10 days inside that grave.

The next day I was taken upstairs again. The beating started that day and was very intense for a week, and then less intense for another week. That second and the third days were the worst.

I could hear other prisoners being tortured, and screaming and screaming. Interrogations are carried out in different rooms.

The CBC also has an indepth backgrounder: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/

There is no link to video of the press conference (it was audio only on CBC Newsworld, over video of Maher Arar listening to it), but there may be one later.

I mean, just in case the story isn't covered on CNN, eh?


The secondary story, of the RCMP raid of an Ottawa Citizen newspaper reporter's home in search of information about the case that was supposedly leaked to her, is also on-going.

The issue is when Canadian authorities knew about the US's plans to deport Arar to Syria, and what they knew.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/21/arar040121

The CBS News program 60 Minutes II reported on Wednesday night that Canadian authorities were told of Washington's plan to deport Maher Arar to Syria and that they approved.

The Canadian government announced earlier this month it would investigate leaks by unnamed government officials who alleged Arar trained at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan.

But Ottawa has rejected calls for a public inquiry into his deportation.

Arar is suing in the US -- we all know exactly what the US authorities did -- and seeking a public inquiry in Canada.

My comment: while I'm no Liberal, I also know that any Canadian government can be susceptible to coercive pressure by the US government, especially the kind of pressure that the US government is likely to bring to bear when it claims that its security interests are at stake. I think a public inquiry is a grand idea.

.

I'm going to write a letter to the Minister of Justice supporting this. And I'll be sure to mention that if they don't investigate the Arar case, they'll be breaking the promise they made to my parents, grandparents, and tens of thousands of other Japanese-Canadians that things like this WOULD NEVER, EVER HAPPEN AGAIN to any Canadian.

Does anyone know if there's a legal fund established for Mr. Arar?

Irwin Cotler, civil libertarian extraordinaire and par excellence, formerly one of Chrétien's Montreal backbenchers.

Arar's Canadian counsel, Lorne Waldman, is a great guy (and not much like Rocco Galati). I haven't heard about a legal fund. In the US, it's the Center for Constitutional Rights doing the suing, and I assume that they have permanent fundraising for cases they take on.

One might even think that some of our USAmerican colleagues might be wanting to donate to their efforts, hm?

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp - there's a "donations" link.

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=vRQgEt97ZX&Content=318

CCR, on behalf of Canadian citizen Maher Arar, sues Attorney General John Ashcroft and other U.S. officials for sending him to be tortured in Syria.

On January 22, 2003, CCR filed a constitutional and human rights case at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York challenging the decision by federal officials to send Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, to Syria for torture and interrogation.

... United States government officials made the decision to deport Mr. Arar to Syria with the full knowledge of the existence of state-sponsored torture in that country, and in direct contravention of the Convention Against Torture, a treaty signed and ratified by the United States in 1994. In fact, Syria is one of seven countries the Bush administration designated as sponsors of state terrorism. Federal officials deported Mr. Arar to Syria under the Government’s “extraordinary renditions” program precisely because that country can and does use methods of interrogation that would not be legal or morally acceptable in this country or any other democratic country.

Maher Arar is the first victim of an “extraordinary rendition” able to tell the story. This is his first news conference in the United States – via speakerphone – since being released from Syrian prison this past October, 2003.

It appears that Arar is the first victim able to tell his story because none of the others have returned from the hellholes the Bush administration delivered them to.

*That* is why this lawsuit is so important -- as an attempt to STOP these deportations before anyone else has to go through what Arar went through and those others are still going through.

We might hope that our USAmerican colleagues will take a little interest in this tale.

The Guardian has shown some interest: Google search results

As has commondreams: Google search results


Oh, before writing to Cotler, you might want to review his take on anti-terrorism legislation. This is one version of something he spread around in quite a few places:

http://www.cdp-hrc.uottawa.ca/globalization/cotler.html

Does the antiterror bill go too far?
NO: We need powerful new legal tools to fight the new global terror threat, says MP and law professor IRWIN COTLER
Globe & Mail, Tuesday, November 20, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A17

Wonder what he'll reply?

(typo fixed on edit)

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Here's just a FEW of the papers that are running this Front Page - and it's all over the Canuk Tube too

Martin better handle this right or he'll have one of the shortest Prime Mister's career in history

- we be watchin' . . .


Arar sues Ashcroft

Arar suing Washington over deportation to Syria

Arar sues U.S. government

Arar sues U.S. government, alleging it knew he would be tortured in Syria

From the Citizen:

"It was an intentional decision to send him to a place that we know in this country commits torture," she said.

The State Department has for many years regarded Syria as a violator of human rights, systematically using torture.

/snip/ - - and alot of the papers are drilling in that same theme

So we're gettin alot of Cranky Canuks up here when it comes to the USA ( ya yahhh, we know it's the American Administration - y'all GOTTA get them outta there!)

. . .

. . . (Yikes, he looks like he's staring right AT Georgie-Boy !)

. . Caption anyone ?

http://www.amnesty.ca/realsecurity/Syria.htm

(very nice photo of him, with his kid ...)

Has been exposed.
We have a PM that doesn't know about the Canadian Law that is equivalent to Patriot II.

Asked if he thought O'Neill was a criminal, Martin replied: "Clearly not, I just don't know enough about this case to comment further nor am I in a position to comment further."

It is my understanding that possessing secret files is grounds for a prison sentence up to 14 years.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1074772866288&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154


Watch for the meeting at the Ranch next. (Called burning your bridges!)

I fear that the WH will take this story and use it to demonize Syria. THey will ignore that fact that they ordered a man returned to a country that uses torture and just focus on the fact that they use torture to say show how evil they are. I wouldn't be shocked to see the war machine pointed directly at Syria in the very near future.

"They have terrorist training camps!"(recently bombed by Israel, although there are conflicting reports as to what they really were)

"They use torture!"( And we knowingly send people there who are nationals of other countries to get tortured)

"They have Saddam's WMDS!!" ( Which there is no evidence of whatsoever)

The axis of evil has it's replacement since Saddam fell, and will soon become the star player.

It would be difficult to use these cases (Arar being one of several) to support such war-mongering. The Bush administration couldn't really claim, for example, not to have known about what goes on in Syrian prisons. It already had Syria on a list as a "sponsor of state terrorism", and would really look just foolish claiming not to know.

It is a story best ignored rather than spun, and certainly that is what the corporate media will be doing.

Then the war-mongering can just go on.

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So far the cost is up 87 Billion dollars, and thats just the first installment!

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

you know the war that poppy never finished. Dubya picked up the game starting with Afghanistan, which conviently led to Iraq, next to fall is Syria and on and on and on. Here are some links for ya on the cost.

http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/financial2.cfm

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/107967_homeland10.shtml

http://news.com.com/2030-1070_3-1001642.html

http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/stories/2003/09/08/story2.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/executive/rumsfeld-memo.htm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1030/p2s2-usec.html

Well there are just a few and if you need more, try this one
http://www.google.com/search?q=war+on+terrorism+cost&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=0&sa=N

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That ought to punish those tortorous little bastards. Then we can go after Iraq, Saudia Arabia and what the heck we can just declare war on the whole African continent and the entire Nation of Islam. So when are you signing up, I bet you would look good in desert cami's with an 80 pound pack and an M16 slung across your back.

P.S. I forgot to welcome you to DU, I see you have racked up a huge number of posts.

,...but the PNAC war tab is like 150+ billion, I believe.

My guess is that, the PNAC cabal told Syria they found a "terrorist" from their nation and directed Syria to beat the "terrorism info" out of this guy (in order to prove their allegiance to the "war on terrorism").

Of course, heh heh,...that is merely my guess,...speculation without any evidence.

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Cost of the War in Iraq
$97,084,080,662
To see more details, click here.

Before the war congress approved $79b IIRC, and $87b after it began. Meaning a total of $166 billion has been approved, which includes $18 billion (paltry) to reassemble the rubble we dismantled. It looks like, out of that approved and funded budget, $97b has actually been spent.

Instead of $87b, the message should be $166b for this PNAC imperial war.

thanks for the input, now I have to go to work and produce some links for our other friend.

:toast:

I go off home to watch TV ... and yet another thread that isn't all about the US becomes all about the US.

I guess maybe there isn't much anybody can say about this story other than "wow, that's awful!".

But damn, it just seems that people do manage to say even that pretty often about a lot of other things that they consider worth knowing about.

This really is an important story, and one that is pretty certainly not going to get much attention in the US mainstream media. I'd hope that some here find it somewhat more interesting.

Arar's legal action will take years to wind its way through the courts. But in the meantime, it's possible that it might give the Bush administration a moment of pause before it does this to someone else. Possibly even before it violates an actual USAmerican's rights.

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