A New Wrinkle in The War On Terror

[patricia]

Did you know that "suspected terrorists" are being apprehended, with no charges being laid and some [hundreds] are being sent to Syria, imprisoned and tortured??
A shocking case of just such treatment ended yesterday for Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, who has been in Canada since he was seventeen years old. Arar, though born in Syria, has NO association with Syria, terrorists, Al-Quieda, or any other sinister connections. He is a telecommunications worker and has been for years. After OVER A YEAR his wife was finally able to have him released, because she kept rattling cages here.

Apparantly, he was grabbed up in New York, after a holiday in Tunisia, by the American authorities and jailed, with the co-operation of CSIS [Canadian CIA] and re-directed to a country for interrogation, which both our and your country KNOWS uses torture. Arar was held, in the PITCH DARK and tortured for over a year. He would still be there, were it not for the relentless pressure put on our government by his wife.

What are your thoughts on our governments' passing on un-charged "persons of interest" to other countries to be tortured, in order that they don't dirty their own hands??

I'm shocked and so too should you be.

[claude]

This was definitely a scary situation. From what I know about it, CSIS and the RCMP were the main culprits and were the main driving force behind this travesty. The Americans detained him on information from the RCMP (who were acting on info from CSIS) and, when asked by the Americans, said that he should be deported to Syria. That's what I recall from the news stories when he was first returned. Doesn't sound like it was the Americans who were the hotheads in this case, not that they haven't been in other cases.

Heads should roll over this one.

[patricia]

Originally posted by claude
This was definitely a scary situation. From what I know about it, CSIS and the RCMP were the main culprits and were the main driving force behind this travesty. The Americans detained him on information from the RCMP (who were acting on info from CSIS) and, when asked by the Americans, said that he should be deported to Syria. That's what I recall from the news stories when he was first returned. Doesn't sound like it was the Americans who were the hotheads in this case, not that they haven't been in other cases.

Heads should roll over this one.

The American side was the side which sent Mr Arar to SYRIA on the basis of we don't know what kind of credible information, whether from CSIS or some other source.

Claude, NOBODY'S hands are clean on this and a year of this innocent man's life has been stolen in a most horrible and degrading way. The scary thing to me is that HE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE.
The people being quoted in both the American and the Canadian papers are not willing to assign blame and nothing will happen to anyone beyond the inquiry now being instituted on this side. BOTH sides are to blame here. It seems to me that the Americans should have sent Mr Arar to Canada, considering he has travelled on business from Canada to the US and has not been to Syria since he emegrated over twenty years ago and has held a Canadian passport since then. He should NEVER HAVE BEEN SENT to a country that the U.S. knows full well uses torture as part of the interrogation process.
The even scarier thing is that HE IS NOT THE ONLY ONE. His case only comes to light because of the extraordinary efforts of his terrified wife. How many other innocent people has the American government sent to various Gulags, in the interest of their security?? The Americans should not have carte blanche to incarcerate anyone, or send someone somewhere else to be tortured, that catches their fancy on flimsy or no information, just because they can.

That's all I'm saying.

[claude]

Absolutely no disagreement from me.

I was just passing on what I remembered from an extensive story on CBC radio on the day that he got back. The information from that story was that the Americans sent him to Syria because the Canadian authorities said that they didn't want him back in this country. I haven't followed this story closely since then, so new information may have come to light. Besides which my memory is faulty at the best of times, so I may be mistaken.

I sincerely hope that this is not buried by the political people. I also hope that the US administration is held to account for their treatment of many innocent people over the past several years.

[patricia]

Claude, as I typed my comments, the debate in the House of Commons was in progress. Who knows how this will roll out, but there is mega-fault on BOTH sides and the result was that at least one innocent man lost a year of his life. He was unable to find out why he was being detained from the Syrian jailers and torturers and also said that he SAW other people there, who had also been sent, by the Americans to be interrogated by the Syrians, whom they KNOW tortures.

I am OUTRAGED!!! OOPS doesn't make the situation any better. The inquiries here are being instituted and heads indeed will roll, if the RCMP and CSIS were responsible. If there was complicity between Canada and the U.S. then many heads should roll. The Americans were the ones who sent him to Syria.

I'm not saying that the RCMP and CSIS didn't know about this. The Canadian government knew, when Arar was still in New York. How the Americans sent him to Syria instead of back to Canada seems to hinge on the boneheads who are sharing information with the U.S. and equally, what the Americans then do with this information, with no apparant verification of the anonymous sources from which much of this so-called "intelligence" comes.

The fact remains that the Americans seem to be contracting out their torture. I guess that means that it's true that they don't torture, but are really the land of the free and the home of the brave??? Torture is something "evil doers" do.
I'm disgusted at the whole situation.

[patricia]

I find it interesting that people [particularly Americans] don't seem too concerned that the American government agencies, reluctant to use '"agressive means" [read torture"] themselves, for fear of sullying their carefully tended reputation, as a civilized nation, are sending people abroad to be tortured.
I guess that as long as it's NOT happening to you, you believe it could NEVER happen to you.

I'm reminded of the now famous essay, written by Martin Neimoller in 1945:

"In Germany, the Nazis first came for the Communists
And I didn't speak up, because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak up, because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the Trade Unionists
And I did not speak up
Because I was not a Trade Unionist
Then they came for the Catholics
And I was a Protestant
So I didn't speak up
Then they came for ME
By that time
There was no one to speak for me.


Just how much power are we willing to give our governments [both the American government and the Canadian government] over our very lives???? Surely this is getting out of hand!!!!
Does no one care, because the people who are being tortured were originally from "over there", whether they have any connection to terrorism or, as is clearly true in this, and probably hundreds of others, ........ not.
Contracting out torture. Ain't it great???? Then it really wasn't us. Is this what we've become???? To what end??? Shameful.

[Ron Thorne]

Originally posted by patricia
Just how much power are we willing to give the government over our very lives????

Patricia, I'm certain that you're not directing your comments at me (specific American), though I'm very glad that you continue to point your finger when and where necessary.

I'm applauding your efforts as I click.

[john williams]

I am also concerned for those folks at camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

These prisoners have...

No legal representation
No inspections from Human Right's groups
No accountability for the captors
No checks on abuse
Not charged with crimes
Not allowed counsel
Identities not disclosed to anyone
No status as POWs given
Rules of Geneva Convention for treatment of prisoners not honored.
Trials, including death penalty decisions, will be secret

Is essence, they don't exist as human beings or legal, human entities.http://thekcpages.com/camp-x-ray/

I am really surprised X-Ray hasn't been discussed here as far as I know. Does the US news services cover this story at all? There are at least two Aussies at the camp and our govt seems to have washed its hands of them. However, one of our green politicians interjected at the Bush visit to the Australian Parliament with regards to this a few weeks ago and George promised to speed up the process. We have heard nothing since however.
related stories:
http://www.ananova.com/news/?keyword...y,Human+rights

[Ron Thorne]

I'm also greatly concerned with much of what we don't know about what's going on at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

I'll leave it at that for the moment.

[Uli]

To me, both what's happening in Guantanomo Bay and if the facts are what Patricia described are criminal acts.

[claude]

There's more....


Man pleads with Ottawa to aid brother

By SUE BAILEY



OTTAWA (CP) - The brother of an Ottawa man said to be suffering torture in a Syrian prison begged government officials on Wednesday to demand his release.

Youssef Almalki, backed by Amnesty International and the Canadian Arab Federation, said low-profile efforts haven't freed his brother, Abdullah Almalki. "The quiet diplomacy that we've been trying to do with Foreign Affairs, it seems that it's so quiet nobody hears it," Youssef said in an interview.

The 25-year-old medical school student beseeched officials to push harder. His family has been devastated by reports that his brother has been beaten and abused in jail, he said.

"I just want him back."

Abdullah Almalki has not been charged with anything, has not had access to a lawyer and has not had consular access, his brother stressed.

"The rule of law has not applied to him."

The Syrian-born Canadian, an electrical engineer, has been held since May 2002.

His family has spent months in fruitless talks with diplomats, never sure exactly where he was detained.

They were stunned when another Syrian-Canadian, Maher Arar, revealed Tuesday chilling details of Almalki's fate as he publicly described his own hellish months in the same prison.

Arar, who described Almalki as a casual acquaintance in Ottawa, said he barely recognized his fellow Canadian citizen when he first saw him in Syria's notorious Sednaya Prison.

Almalki was thin, weak and shaved bald when he saw him last September, Arar said. Almalki, 32, described being beaten and suspended upside down - torture even worse than his own abuse, Arar added.

"What I can say for sure is that no human being deserves to be treated the way he was, and I hope that Canada does all they can to help him," Arar told Tuesday's news conference.

Arar was held in Syria for a year before he was suddenly released last month.

Arar said he believed it was his connection to Almalki that lead to his deportation and torture.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said Wednesday that Syrian officials maintain Almalki is "a Syrian citizen in jail in Syria."

Still, Ottawa will press for consular access, Graham said.

"We want to be able to assure ourselves as to his well-being."


Almalki, a married father of five, was arrested at a Damascus airport in the Syrian capital, said Raja Khouri, national president of the Canadian Arab Federation which has taken on the case.

He had attracted the RCMP's attention the previous January, Khouri said.

The RCMP claimed that Abdullah had exported electrical equipment to companies overseas and the material eventually fell into the hands of terrorists, he explained.

No charges were laid, Khouri said.

Arar, suspected of being an al-Qaida operative, said the only evidence presented to him by U.S. immigration officials was a 1997 rental agreement signed by witness Abdullah Almalki.

Arar had been friends with Almalki's brother in Ottawa. Abdullah signed the rental agreement because his brother wasn't free to do so, Khouri explained.

"It was one of the very innocent things."

Almalki is part of a disturbing list of Arab-Canadian held as political prisoners around the world, Khouri said.

Ottawa must do more to protect them, he said.

"It's not acceptable that Canadian citizens end up being deported to countries where they are tortured."

[jesus marion joseph]

There is a lot of disturbing news about these incidents. I have a feeling that government officials (both US and Canadian) are fearful of being seen as not doing enough, and in the process are doing perhaps too much.

I have a friend (a real character with whom I frequently go hiking in the White Mountians) whose National Guard unit was recently sent to Gitmo for a one-year deployment.

[patricia]

My anger is directed at both the Canadian AND at the American government in the cases that we now know about and even more at the cases we don't yet know about. It's certainly not directed at my many American friends, who, I'm quite sure are just as outraged as I am.
The lack of due process and the hair-trigger reaction, on flimsy, or unproven accusations by anonymous sources SHOULD be worrisome to all of us.

The chances that this could happen to any of us is, of course, remote. But, does that mean that we should just turn our backs on people to whom this has happened and is still happening?? How long will it be before mere dissentors are looked at with the same gimlet eye?? Impossible, you may say. Really???

In our zeal to rid our countries of terrorists, we seem to have lost sight of the possibility that perhaps our governments are scooping up regular people, just like ourselves and subjecting them to incarceration with none of the usual guidelines.

Guantanamo Bay falls into this catagory as well. As far as I know, there has been little or no effort to discover how many of them are terrorists, and how many are merely citizens of the countries from which they came, tarred with the terrorism brush. Because, as has already been mentioned, they have no due process, WE DON"T KNOW.

It occurred to me, that in the unlikely case that I, or any of us were put in the same position, how would we fare??? Who would speak for us?? Even in the event that we managed to prove that we were innocent, HOW LONG WOULD THAT TAKE in the climate that now exists???
While the wheels of justice ground slower than the second coming, we would be being tortured and treated like animals, perhaps for years. Civilization seems to be moving in reverse.

Right now, William Sampson, who spent THIRTY ONE MONTHS in a Saudi Arabian prison, on no evidence is speaking at the House Of Commons. Mr Sampson is not a swarthy Middle Eastern emegrant. He is a "regular person", light brown hair, obviously not the stereotypical terrorist type.
The Canadian Government, using quiet diplomacy, was in constant contact with the Saudi Arabians and apparantly believed that Mr Sampson was guilty, because the Saudi Arabians said he had confessed. He had confessed, under torture and had been sentenced to be BEHEADED and believed he would be.
Mr Sampson is very angry that little was done on his behalf. The charges were false and yet, our government did little. Two Canadian back-benchers, along with the British [representing some of their citizens who were in the same boat] government was finally the body which was more instrumental in obtaining his eventual release. Mr Sampson had been working in Saudi Arabia for years and had no criminal history at all.

Nobody's hands are clean in any of these examples and I am no longer certain that anyone can travel outside their country and be assured that their country will protect them from erroneous charges being brought and their being subjected to this sort of injustice.

Unlikely?? Yes. Impossible??? Not any more.

[claude]

These cases seem to be coming out of the woodwork..

This one is a little different in that it doen't appear to involve any American officials. Note, however, that GW isn't the only one to play with people's lives in return for middle east oil.

The Cdn gov't is certainly coming out of these cases looking pretty incompetent.

Sampson seeks inquiry

By LOUISE ELLIOTT



OTTAWA (CP) - William Sampson told the government Thursday that it was complicit in his torture in a Saudi jail by presuming he was guilty and not acting forcefully to get him out.

Sampson, who has described brutal torture during his 31-month incarceration, said the Foreign Affairs Department has a track record of mismanagement given his case and those of Maher Arar and Zahra Kazemi, Canadians tortured in Syria and Iran respectively - and in Kazemi's case, killed.

He demanded public inquiries into all three cases.

"Throughout my incarceration, I considered that the activities of the embassy officials . . . fell well short of anything that could be considered supportive," he said in his first Canadian appearance since his release in August.

"Their behaviour and treatment of my family, my father in particular when he visited Saudi Arabia, was thoroughly inadequate."

Sampson's appearance before the Commons foreign affairs committee is expected to increase pressure on the Liberal government to call an inquiry, after Arar went public earlier this week with his tale of torture.

Arar cited new evidence Thursday to indicate Canadian officials played a role in the American decision to deport him to Syria from New York last year.

Allegations of diplomatic naivete and economic self-interest emerged from Sampson's testimony.

While some Canadian consular and government officials may not have noticed signs and signals that he had been tortured, others deliberately ignored them, Sampson said.

They downplayed his case publicly and hid behind the argument that they were using soft diplomacy to protect Canada's oil interests in the region, he said.

"For the Canadian government to have pushed harder would not have put me at any more risk than I already was," he said. "By that stage I was in prison for a year and by that time I was already sentenced to death."

"Had we been kept in a country with less economic power and less economic clout than Saudi Arabia has, it might well have been that a lot harder pressure would have been brought to bear. Oil, in the case of Saudi Arabia (caused hesitation)."

Consular officials in Riyadh and Foreign Affairs staff assumed he was guilty, Sampson said.

"One of your operatives in the embassy put forward a statement to my father indicating my guilt," he said with his father, James, at his side.

Sampson said that during a prison visit, another embassy official told Sampson that he was guilty of the Saudi charges - illegal bootlegging and planting the car bomb that killed British citizen Christopher Rodway.

The failure of diplomats and government staff to act decisively in the early stages sealed his fate, even if they later stepped up their efforts, he said.

Aileen Carroll, parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham, told Sampson he was always presumed to be innocent of the Saudi charges.

"I am dismayed to hear your very negative judgment," she said, noting that Sampson's life had been spared after months of living under a death sentence by beheading.

"My sense is . . . that every conceivable effort in every possible diplomatic venue was employed to try to obtain that release."

After promising to pay all his medical costs related to his ordeal, Foreign Affairs cut off his medical coverage without explanation on Oct. 28, Sampson said.

Since his release, he's undergone cardiac operations, several dental procedures, and trauma counselling directly related to beatings and abuse.

Two backbenchers were instrumental in keeping up pressure and securing his release - Liberal MP Dan McTeague and Bloc MP Stephane Bergeron, he said.

McTeague obtained a letter of pardon from Justin Rodway, son of Christopher Rodway, which is believed to have influenced the Saudi government.

Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International, said consular officials aren't properly educated to recognize the signs of torture.

"All throughout Mr. Sampson's and Mr. Arar's detention we heard what I would say were very naive statements from the government."

[patricia]

Thank you Claude. I watched Sampson's presentation this morning and was heartened by his aggressive responses to those in the government who claimed, replying to Sampson's accusations, that everything had been done, while he was incarcerated that could be done.

Of course he's relieved that he wasn't beheaded after all, but imagine spending two years thinking that he would be?? Being reminded of his certain fate by his torturers on a daily basis , between bouts of torture is something that none of us would want to happen to any of us. Combine that with being confined in a dark solitary confinement cell, the whole THIRTY-ONE MONTHS.

I think that this and the Arar case are just the tip of the iceberg. After all, how much do either ordinary Canadians OR ordinary Amercans care about some stranger being treated in this shameful, not to mention illegal manner??

Winning the "War on Terrorism" will not depend on people like you and me being presumed guilty of terrorism until proved innocent. This is crazy!!!

[Uli]

Supreme Court Takes First Case on Guantánamo Detainees
By DAVID STOUT

Published: November 10, 2003

ASHINGTON, Nov. 10 — The Supreme Court entered a fundamental debate between individual liberty and national security today by agreeing to consider whether prisoners held by the United States since the war in Afghanistan can challenge their imprisonment in American courts.

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The justices agreed to hear appeals filed on behalf of two groups of detainees at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The cases have been brought on behalf of 12 Kuwaitis, 2 British citizens and 2 Australians.

The prisoners are among more than 600 being held as suspected Taliban or Al-Qaeda members. They were swept up by American forces in Afghanistan or Pakistan in the campaign to topple the Taliban government in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States.

Lower courts have held that the prisoners cannot use American courts to challenge their incarceration because the United States has no legal jurisdiction over the Navy base, which it has leased from Cuba for more than a century.

In so ruling, the courts have in effect deferred to the Bush administration on actions it has taken in the name of national security since the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, more than died at Pearl Harbor.

"Cuba — not the United States — has sovereignty over Guantánamo Bay," the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled last March, upholding a district court ruling. For that reason, the appeals court concluded, American courts are not open to the detainees. Lawyers for the detainees have asserted that the United States does have sovereignty over Guantánamo, since it controls the 45-square-mile base.

The Supreme Court will decide, probably next year, whether the District of Columbia Circuit was right. But the comments of lawyers on both sides suggest that the justices will be asked to decide something of more transcendent importance.

"In times of war, the president must be able to protect our nation from enemies who seek to harm innocent Americans," Attorney General John Ashcroft said last March in praising the circuit court conclusion.

Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson had urged the Supreme Court not to hear the Guantánamo detainees' appeal. His brief argued that the circuit court had properly interpreted a 53-year-old Supreme Court precedent to hold that "aliens detained by the military abroad" have only those rights that are "determined by the executive and the military, and not the courts." (Mr. Olson's wife, Barbara, was killed in the hijacked airliner that struck the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.)

The Center for Constitutional Rights, in New York, took a contrary position. "For over a year and a half, hundreds of people have been imprisoned in Guantánamo without charges, access to lawyers or to their families," the center's president, Michael Ratner, argued. "This lawless situation must not continue. Every imprisoned person should have the right to test the legality of their detention. It is this basic principle that has been denied to our clients and it is this denial that we want the Supreme Court to review."

The center's assistant legal director, Barbara Olshansky, said: "Never has America taken the public position that it is not bound at all by the rule of law. Such a dangerous and immoral principle should not be established now."

The cases are Rasul v. Bush, 03-334 and Al Odah v. United States, 03-343.

Lawyers on behalf of the detainees whose cases will be reviewed argued that they "are not, and have never been, members of Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group" and never plotted against the United States.

The justices also declined to take another case today, an appeal from an Islamic charity, the Illinois based Global Relief Foundation, whose assets were impounded three months after the 2001 terror attacks. The United States and other governments have frozen the assets of several groups they say assist groups like Al Qaeda.

The outcome of the Guantánamo case may not be known for many months. And it may be years before it becomes clear whether some of the measures imposed after the Sept. 11 attacks were necessary to protect the security of the United States — or if they will be regretted by later generations of Americans, as the World War II detainment of Japanese-Americans has been.

"We hope that the Supreme Court will bring an end to the legal black hole into which the Guantánamo detainees have been thrown and ensure justice for them and their families," Amnesty International said in a statement today.




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