Revolutionary Moderation

Free at last, free at last



Thank God Almighty, Maher Arar is free at last.



For those non-Canadians who aren't hearing much on this story, Arar is a Canadian citizen, traveling through the United States on business in September of 2002. His name set off some sort of red flag at an American customs gate, because INS officials questioned him for several days about his al Quada connections, before inexplicably shipping him to Syria, where he's been sitting in a prison ever since.



Let me say again. I've never blogged about this, because the initial event happened before I started blogging. A Canadian citizen, travelling with a Canadian passport, was sent by the American government to Syria! Since then, another question has started to emerge: did some Canadian in authority conspire to make this happen? Ikram Saaed asks the question on his blog, Path of the Paddle, and his overview of the evidence is well worth reading. Perhaps now that Arar is free, the question will be asked more openly.



Either way, the Americans should never have sent Arar to Syria. If Arar was Bin Laden's PR guy, you don't ship him to Syria. They could have arrested and prosecuted him, making sure that Canadian consular officials would be an involved part of the process that way, or they could have sent him to Canada to be arrested and tried here. I think one of those two things would have happened, if there was any evidence of an al Quada connection and intent.



One other thing deserves to be pointed out. Syria, a repressive country with a horrible justice system (if Amnesty International is to be believed) has released a Canadian in their custody. The United States is a theoretically free country with an open and fair justice system, and Canadians among others continue to rot in Guantanamo Bay.