November 11, 2009
The New York Times is blasting the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for ruling against Maher Arar’s right to sue U.S. officials for sending him to Syria to be tortured. The editorial in today’s paper calls on the court to reverse its ruling, saying:
The ruling distorts precedent and the Constitutional separation of powers to deny justice to Mr. Arar and give officials a pass for egregious misconduct. The overt disregard for the central role of judges in policing executive branch excesses has frightening implications for safeguarding civil liberties, as four judges suggested in dissenting opinions.
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November 2, 2009
Maher Arar has again been denied the right to sue the United States for sending him to Syria to be tortured. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against overturning a decision of the U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York, which had dismissed his suit against the officials responsible for his plight, including former attorney-general John Ashcroft and former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge.
The majority, in a 7-4 decision, ruled that Arar did not possess a legal remedy for the violations of his human rights because granting such a remedy would encroach on the powers of the executive branch (in terms of issues dealing with national security issues) and the legislative branch (in terms of the provision of remedies in certain circumstances.
In a statement released through his lawyers, Arar said:
“Unfortunately, this recent decision and decisions taken on other similar cases, prove that the court system in the United States has become more or less a tool that the executive branch can easily manipulate through unfounded allegations and fear mongering….If anything, this decision is a loss to all Americans and to the rule of law.”
The full text of Arar’s statement is available here. The full text of the decision is available in pdf format here. Here are some interesting snippets from the dissenting judges:
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Tagged: Accountability, Arar Inquiry, Maher Arar, torture | No Comments »
October 30, 2009
CSIS head Richard B. Fadden seems to think that everyone except CSIS – the media, human rights and civil liberties advocates, lawyers and judges – is to blame for public mistrust of intelligence agencies. Such was the thrust of his first public speech since taking up the post of CSIS director, yesterday to the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS) Annual International Conference in Ottawa. Curious, given all we’ve learned about CSIS over the last few years, such as the agency’s role in the overseas detention and torture of Canadians. I think he sounded bitter, condescending, and insensitive (especially when he likened being a terror suspect to being a folk hero), and doubt that his lashing out in this way has helped instill more public faith in CSIS. So NOT the kind of leadership CSIS needs now.
The full text of his speech is below.
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October 26, 2009
It’s been almost three years since the Arar inquiry released its report calling for a new watchdog for the agencies involved in national security investigations, and the government is still saying it needs more time, and wants to wait for the outcome of yet another inquiry — Justice John Major’s Air India Inquiry. The excuse came again in the government’s response to the Commons Public Safety Committee report, which called for implementation of all of the Arar Inquiry’s recommendations without delay.
The government’s response was tabled last week on the one-year anniversary of the release of former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci’s report, which determined that Canadian agencies had contributed to the torture of Ahmad El Maati Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin by sharing unsubstantiated allegations about them with Syrian, Egyptian, U.S. and other agencies. The government says it can’t act now to correct the record because of ongoing litigation — another excuse that has no credibility. Read more in my op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen today.
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Tagged: Almalki, Arar, CSIS RCMP, Elmaati, Iacobucci Public Safety, Nureddin, oversight, review | No Comments »
October 21, 2009
Last night I was incredibly honoured to receive the 2009 City of Ottawa Book Award for English non-fiction. Here’s what the jurists — authors Deborah Gorham, David Mitchell and Lawrence Scanlan — had to say about Dark Days:
“Dark Days is a compelling and powerful book about an important subject — racism in Canada and the clandestine activities of the RCMP and CSIS. The book tells the story of four Muslim Canadians — Maher Arar, Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin — all “terror suspects” tortured in Middle Eastern prisons before being released without charge. Writing with passion and empathy yet admirable restraint, Kerry Pither leaves the reader with a vivid, detailed and disturbing picture of what we do in the name of security.”
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September 25, 2009
Join me this Monday evening, September 28, for an important discussion organized by Canada’s Information Commissioner. The National Town Hall on Citizens’ Engagement and State Accountability kicks off Right to Know week in Ottawa, and starts at 7:00 p.m. at La Nouvelle Scene Theatre, 333 King Edward Avenue (between Rideau and York). CBC Radio’s Lucy van Oldenbarneveld will facilitate a discussion about the role of media as catalysts, the right of citizens to hold Parliament accountable, security concerns or international relations considerations vs. fundamental democratic rights in times of conflicts; and access to information in the digital age. I’ll be on the panel along with David Akin, National Affairs correspondent for Canwest News Service, blogger On The Hill, new media expert; Ben Leapman, Sunday Telegraph (UK) journalist who contributed to exposing the UK Parliamentary expenses scandal; David McKie, CBC investigative journalist, author and instructor of computer-assisted reporting techniques at Carleton University; and Jeff Sallot, Carleton University journalism instructor and former Globe and Mail journalist. See the Right to Know web page for information on events being held across the country.
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September 10, 2009
Dark Days has been named as one of five finalists in the non-fiction category for the 2009 Ottawa Book Awards. I’m thrilled to be included as a finalist alongside so much talent: Tim Cook for Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917-1918 (Penguin Group Canada); D. Peter MacLeod, Northern Armageddon: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham (Douglas & McIntyre); A. B. McKillop, Pierre Berton: A Biography (McClelland & Stewart); and Michael Petrou, Renegades: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War (UBC Press). Congratulations also to Monia Mazigh, who has been shortlisted for the Prix du livre d’Ottawa for Les Larmes emprisonnées (Les Éditions du Boréal) (which is, in English titled Hope and Despair), and to the fabulous David O’Meara, a finalist in the fiction category for Noble Gas, Penny Black (Brick Books).
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September 3, 2009
Please join me for a discussion about the issues raised in my book on Wednesday, September 16th in Ottawa. The event, called “A community talks: ACT 18: Dark Days,” is being organized by ActCity Ottawa. It starts at 7:00 p.m. at the Hintonburg Community Centre, 1064 Wellington Street. Admission is free but donations are welcome to help support future ACTs. For more information contact ActCity Ottawa by email at: actcityottawa@gmail.com
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July 15, 2009
“The time may have come for CSIS to undertake a fundamental reassessment of how it carries out its work, and to shift its operational culture to keep pace with recent political and legal developments.”
– Gary Filmon, Chair of SIRC
The Security and Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) has released its report into how CSIS handled the Omar Khadr case, finding, not surprisingly, that CSIS ignored human rights concerns when it decided to fly to Guantanamo Bay to interrogate the then teen-aged Khadr, despite ample publicity about prisoner abuse at the facility at that time. SIRC concludes that CSIS needs guidance from the minister on how to “implement measures to embed the values stemming from recent political, judicial and legal developments in its day-to-day work in order to maintain its own credibility, and to meet growing and evolving expectations of how an intelligence agency should operate and perform in a contemporary democratic society.” This is especially important because, the report says, “in light of ongoing discussions to expand CSIS’s mandate to include foreign intelligence collection, it is also important for the Service to demonstrate that it has the professionalism, experience and know-how required to make the difficult decisions that arise when conducting operations abroad.”
No kidding. Problem is, despite all the recent revelations about CSIS complicity in the overseas detention and torture of Canadian citizens, and misleading the courts in security certificate cases, the government has yet to find the courage to say or do anything about what’s been revealed, or what it’s going to do about it.
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July 15, 2009
That’s what Federal Court Justice Simon Noel has to say about why Canadians have a right to know what CSIS did and didn’t know about Maher Arar while he was being tortured in Syria. His sentiments became public last week with the long-delayed release of a ruling dating back to 2007 – a ruling that sided with the Arar Commission in a fight over the release of a lot of information – something the government argued would compromise national security. Turns out the government was more worried about compromising the reputations of government officials and agencies…
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