Amnesty International Remembers Maher Arar

Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen and father of two, was travelling home to Canada from visiting his wife’s family in Tunisia in 2002. While changing planes at New York City’s JFK airport, he was detained and held for 12 days by U.S. authorities. He was then transferred secretly, via Jordan, to Syria, where he was held for a year and tortured. He was released without charge and allowed to return home to Canada.	Nothing justifies it. Stop Governments torturing
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Following a judicial inquiry the Canadian government recognized the role Canadian officials played in his ordeal, and gave him compensation and a formal apology. They concluded that investigations by Canadian authorities had not in fact found “any information that could implicate Mr. Arar in terrorist activities”.

In contrast, the USA refused to cooperate with the Canadian inquiry and, although a small number of members of Congress apologized to Maher Arar via a video in 2007, Obama the U.S. President and full Congress have failed to apologize, offer him any form of remedy or remove him from the USA Watch list restricting his travel.

Maher Arar feels strongly, that having his name removed from this list would be an important part of restoring his reputation.