Maher Arar, a 36-year-old Canadian citizen, was arrested by US agents in 2002 during a stopover in New York on his way home to Canada. Working on false information from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Arar was suspected of being a terrorist by US agents, imprisoned in Syria, and tortured before his release in 2003. After a lengthy investigation, a Canadian judge concluded that Arar be cleared due to faulty information on the part of Canadian agencies. However, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff disagree, and refuse to remove Arar from the US security watch list.

In a letter, Gonzales and Chertoff said that the unspecified information possessed by US law enforcement agencies, used as justification for imprisonment and torture, was independent of what Canada had provided to the United States. The letter did not state what that independent information was, or why Arar was treated like an animal by US agents. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said, “I am disappointed that the letter does not address the larger issues surrounding this case. The reason the Arar case is such a sore point and such an offense to American values is that he was sent to Syria, on the Bush administration’s orders, where he was tortured.”

Arar is currently suing the US and Canada over his treatment. The Canadian Prime Minister has since said it was “extremely unfair” that he still remains on the US watch list. We reported in October that Arar was honored with an international human rights award, but the US government would not let him travel to Washington to accept it. Arar is an activist currently dedicated to eradicating torture throughout the world.

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