Serious-fucking-ly?

Arar still considered a threat to U.S.: Wilkins

Canadian Press

Ottawa — The U.S. ambassador to Canada says Maher Arar is still considered a threat to the United States and will remain on a security watchlist, despite the findings of a Canadian inquiry.

"The decision to remove Mr. Arar from the United States in 2002 was made by U.S. officials based on our own independent assessment of the threat to the United States," David Wilkins said in a statement Friday.


American officials had other sources of information about Mr. Arar, beyond that provided by the RCMP, and continue to regard Mr. Arar as a potential threat, Mr. Wilkins said.

The ambassador noted that Justice Dennis O'Connor, head of a recent inquiry that determined the RCMP gave the Americans false information about Mr. Arar, acknowledged he did not know about everything in Mr. Arar's American file.

Mr. O'Connor's inquiry found no evidence linking Mr. Arar to terrorism, but the Americans continue to deny him clearance to enter the country or even fly over U.S. airspace.

It was the first formal acknowledgment from Washington that the U.S. government remains suspicious of Mr. Arar, based on what it says are their own independent sources.

"Mr. Arar's original removal from the United States in 2002 was based on information from a variety of sources, as is his current watchlist status," Mr. Wilkins said in his statement.

NDP Leader Jack Layton urged the prime minister to intervene to have Arar's name stripped from the Americans' border watch list.

"This is simply not right," Mr. Layton told a news conference. "There is no evidence that Mr. Arar's name should be on such a list. We held a whole inquiry here in Canada on this question.

"The prime minister must do everything he possibly can to correct this situation because otherwise it sends out the message that the Canadian government does not stand behind its own citizens."

The full story is available here.

Okay, I know that perhaps Harper and Day want to talk about what the Liberals could have done when they were in power, but, seriously you are the government now this needs to be dealt with and it needs to be dealt with now.

"From the moment I was held in the United States, I was treated as though I were a convicted terrorist. I endured hours of interrogation. I was chained and shackled. My US captors prevented me from seeing my lawyer for over a week and gave the Canadian consult the run-around. In the early hours of October 8th, without a word from my family or lawyer, in chains and shackles I was secretly removed from the United States on a private jet. First to Jordan and then to an even greater hell - Syria. For ten months and ten days I was confined to a tiny underground grave. I was rarely allowed out of that dark damp hole. The screams of my fellow inmates filled my waking hours and remain with me to this day. I spent nearly a year of my life terrified in Syrian jails always in fear of being further tortured at the hand of Syrian officials. Officials the United States knows full well practices torture. Even President Bush himself recently condemned Syria’s practice of torturing prisoners. My tortures beat me and interrogated me for hours on end. I was constantly threatened with further torture. They interrogated me about many of the same issues my interrogators in the United States had. They asked me about my connection to the same people and they asked me about my work in the United States. I have never knowingly associated with terrorists. I abhor violence of any kind. I am a family man, a husband, a father, and an engineer. I am not a terrorist. Thanks to my wife and supporters back in Canada, the Canadian authorities were eventually brought me home. But, still I do not know why I lost a year of my life in Syria. My life was destroyed by what happened to me. Yet, I am still left trying to figure out why this happened." - Maher Arar