Reviews
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.
— Jury statement, 2009 Ottawa Book Award for Non-Fiction
Dark Days is a tremendously important book that explores the disturbing manner in which Canada failed to resolutely put human rights at the heart of its national security strategies post-September 11th. As the book so compellingly illustrates, these are not just technical questions about rules, policies and procedure. The resulting arbitrary arrests, unlawful imprisonment and brutalizing torture carried a horrendous human cost for four Canadian citizens. Their stories are, of course, among those of many other victims worldwide of counter-terrorism laws and practices that have turned their back on human rights. Canadians are not always accustomed to looking to the homefront when it comes to concerns about human rights violations. Dark Days reminds us of Canada’s failings and insists that we address what has happened to these four men as a means of ensuring that such injustices will not be repeated.
— Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada
Dark Days is a cautionary tale and tells an important story. It is a reminder of just how terrible torture is. It underlines all the reasons why we have a UN convention against torture and why, for its signatories, the obligation never to be complicit with torture in foreign jurisdictions is paramount. It is a reminder that torture is not an intelligence technique designed to gain valuable information, it’s just torture, a stupid, brutal instrument.
Finally, and this has to speak to problems in the conduct of Canadian intelligence as it reaches out into the global threat environment, it reminds us that there are dangerous feedback loops in the circulation of intelligence between regimes that respect human rights and the rule of law and those that practice torture. Once you create an intelligence-sharing network with such regimes, as Canadian officials attempted to do with the Syrians, you are indeed in the dirty arena and had better know you are there and be very careful about how you operate. Too often in the pages of Dark Days, senior Canadians officials come off as willfully blind to, or willfully ignorant of, the realities.
— Globe and Mail
In her compelling new book, Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror, Ottawa author Kerry Pither contends the agencies’ disruption campaign is at the heart of a national security scandal that goes well beyond Maher Arar. Dark Days argues that what happened to Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmed El-Maati and Muayyed Nureddin cannot be dismissed as coincidence or explained by the isolated errors of security agents. Rather, Pither contends, their Syrian ordeals were in keeping with the little known disruption policy introduced after 9/11.
Dark Days is a gripping exposé in the finest journalistic tradition: it is a crisp and disturbing book.
— Ottawa Citizen (full review)
Writing in a compelling, fast-paced dramatic style, Pither exposes the ineptitude, if not the outright malevolence, of other Canadian officials who not only turned a blind eye to the plight of the four Canadians as they rotted in jail, but actually relayed interrogation questions to their Syrian torturers. The Syrians apparently felt they were doing Canada’s bidding and the Canadian consular officials who were in a position to disabuse them of that notion, and return the four men to their Canadian homes, utterly neglected to help. Pither names names, and her portrayal of Franco Pillarella, former Canadian ambassador to Syria, and his subordinate Leo Martel, is less than flattering. The reader cannot help but be angered by the obtuse ignorance of these men and their complete failure to discharge their primary duty, which was to safeguard the interests of Canadian citizens abroad.
— Georgia Straight (full review at straight.com)
Kerry Pither’s new book, Dark Days, is a must read for all Canadians to understand how the so-called “war on terror” is destroying innocent lives and reputations. The book is a stark reminder that we must never swerve from our commitment to human rights and the rule of law.
— Faisal Kutty, General Counsel, Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association
