Our World

Talk About miscommunication

I recently discovered a very interesting, yet scandalous article. This article covered the journey, torture, and detainment of a Canadian citizen. Maher Arar is a citizen of Canada as well as a practicing Muslim, and he was put on the "watch list" for a potential threat. The Canadian authoritites then had him put on the "watch list" of the United States as well. The Canadian authorities really had no basis on this claim, other than the fact that he was a practicing Muslim and he had kept in touch with other Muslims in the Montreal area.

After the Canadian authorities had labeled Arar as a threat they began to follow him, and make sure that all of his actions were non-hostile and terroristic. They weren't doing a very good job of this and were quite incompetent with the task. So the United States exhibited very good coopereration and showed their support for their bordering neighbors, and detained Arar in New York, New York. The United States then decided to send Mr. Arar to Syria, without consulting with any judicial figure. Arar later then tried to file a lawsuit but was dismissed. I do not think that this is sending a strong message to the rest of the world, or even the rest of the country for that matter. I think that it really shows the rest of the world that there is injustice, and we briefly covered that in class.

Mr. Arar was not allowed to testify in his own defense. Most of the actual testimony was censored for possible security issues. I think that it is a good thing that countries are working together, but I think that it is really unfortunate that they had to put this poor man through extremely traumatic experiences. His actual torture and detainment occurred in Syria. I my personal opinion I think that they unified stance on the issue from a few countries is not a positive aspect, because this man was falsely accused and was tortured because of it.

posted by Anonymous @ 9/19/2006 09:19:00 PM