Thursday, February 9th, 2012

Canadian MPs Call for Compensation for Torture Victims

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Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 10:41 am

Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but Canadians seem so much more willing to apologize for their mistakes than Americans do.

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a committee in Parliament is planning to recommend that the Canadian government compensate and apologize to three Arab-Canadian men who were imprisoned and tortured in Syria, due partly to information provided by Canadian authorities.

The three men — Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin — were accused of having ties to al-Qaeda, which they all deny. A report by former Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci last year concluded that the three men were tortured, and that Canadian officials’ actions contributed to their treatment.

The cases of these three men, all of whom are now suing the Canadian government, has an obvious parallel with that of Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen captured by U.S. authorities while changing planes at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and sent to Syria to be interrogated under torture in 2002. The Canadian government, after conducting a thorough investigation that found Arar had done nothing wrong, apologized for its role in providing information to U.S. authorities and paid Arar $10 million to compensate for his ordeal.

The United States, on the other hand, has refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing on its part, and still won’t allow Arar even to enter the country. In December, the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York heard spirited arguments in his lawsuit against the U.S. government.

Arar was not allowed to attend.

Categories & Tags: Civil Rights| Immigration| National Security| Obama| Politics| Torture| U.S.| | | | | | | | | |

Comments

6 Comments

Canada big enough to acknowledge a mistake « Later On
Pingback posted June 18, 2009 @ 12:17 pm

[...] in Bush Administration, Daily life, Government, Law, Torture at 9:17 am by LeisureGuy Daphne Eviatar in the Washington Independent: Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but Canadians seem so much more willing to apologize for their [...]

Tik Tok
Comment posted June 19, 2009 @ 12:46 am

Maher will stay on the no-fly list because to take him off would place U.S. peeps who signed him over to Syria would be up for litigation for their crimes. No other reason.

Harper will comply with a Federal Court order to allow the return of Abousfian Abdelrazik, who has been stranded in Sudan for six years after being labelled an al-Qaeda suspect. The Harper gov ran out of options and Judge Zinn has ordered Abousfian to be in front of him in July. No doubt he will be lawyered up as soon as he returns as well. Canada deserves their folly for allowing themselves to be told what to do by the U.S.
This previously unreleased document describes a demarche by the US Government on the orders of the White House to the Government of Canada, concerning the wish to have Abousfian Abdelrazik, a man wrongly accused of terrorism, prosecuted in the USA.
The U.S. pressured Canada to keep him out of the country.
The document was obtained by Professor Amir Attaran of the University of Ottawa.
Document can be found at wikileaks – http://wikileaks.org/wiki/US_SECRET_communicati…

Daniboy
Comment posted June 26, 2009 @ 6:36 pm

Oh, are we Canadians going to pay dearly for the Arar precedent.

I can just imagine the lineup of lawyers ready to represent the last 3 INNONCENT :-) VICTIMS!!!!!

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