On the first day of class I referred to the Arar case. Recall that Arar is a Canadian citizen who was detained by US officials at JFK airport and then flown to Syria where he was tortured for months. He has since been released without charges and Canada has cleared him of any ties to terrorist groups. The Toronto Star reported that :
The chair of a key Senate committee says he will ask the investigative arm of Congress to probe why Maher Arar remains on a U.S. terror watch list. Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont said he would direct the Government Accountability Office, the independent watchdog of Congress, to expand its ongoing probe of why names erroneously appear on watch lists to look into the case of Arar.... Leahy and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, met reporters yesterday after a promised briefing by U.S. justice officials. Both said they left the meeting with more questions than answers, but refused to respond when asked if they believed Arar constituted a threat to the U.S. and should remain on the list.To take action on these issues check these websites:
Amnesty International USA
Human Rights First
For more see this Jurist summary.
1 comment:
I cannot understand why Leahy could not say whether he thought Arar should remain on the no-fly list. That is not classified information. Canadian minister in charge of security Stockwell Day saw the same information and still thought that Arar should not remain on the list.
I hope there is a US inquiry but so far there does not seem to be anything happening as far as I have heard. There is more on the Arar case at my site:
http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/
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