Argument & Observation - Security And Accountability:
Justice must replace injustice for Maher Arar The veil of
secrecy must be broken with a public inquiry
Op Ed by Alex Neve
The Ottawa Citizen Thursday January 22, 2004
The RCMP raid yesterday on the Ottawa Citizen and the home of a
senior Citizen journalist extends the veil of secrecy that has
surrounded the Maher Arar tragedy since the beginning. The raid
comes in the wake of a number of leaks about the case late last
year to several journalists from unnamed Canadian sources, likely
from within law enforcement agencies. And today, journalists across
Canada, many of whom have played an important role in trying to
expose the truth about Canada's involvement in Maher's deportation
and torture, will be asking themselves: Am I next? If I write
another story, will I be charged by the RCMP? These developments
make it absolutely clear that the only way to get to the bottom of
the role played by the RCMP, CSIS and other Canadian officials in
Maher's tragedy is by conducting a full public inquiry. Since his
release last October from one year of harrowing imprisonment in
Syria, Maher has been very clear: after the injustice, now there
must be justice. That means justice on many fronts. � It
means justice from the United States, from where he was summarily
deported to face the virtual certainty of torture in Syria.
� It means justice from Jordan, where he was beaten and
mistreated while en route.
� It means justice from Syria, where he was tortured, held
in abysmal conditions, and where, throughout twelve long months of
imprisonment, he was never charged with any offence. By no means
has the call for justice only been about what happened abroad. It
is also very much about what role may have been played by Canadian
law enforcement or security agencies in the chain of events that
led to this human rights fiasco. It is for that reason that Maher,
concerned organizations like Amnesty International, numerous
politicians, and thousands upon thousands of Canadians have
demanded that the federal government immediately convene a public
inquiry to examine Canada�s role in this case. The cruel
irony for Maher Arar is that return to Canada has not meant a
return to justice. In many respects, in fact, it has been quite the
contrary. The government has to date refused to convene an inquiry
and has instead relied upon complaints processes at the RCMP and
CSIS, neither of which are public and neither of which have the
important powers of an inquiry to compel testimony and order the
disclosure of documents. At the same time as those processes unfold
behind closed doors, Maher has been subjected to a number of
outrageous and very public leaks to journalists from unnamed
Canadian sources, who have made unsubstantiated allegations such as
the assertion that he spent time at an al-Qaeda training camp in
Afghanistan. That of course is something that Maher adamantly
denies and has told Canadians he falsely confessed to during
interrogations in Syria, as a way of bringing his agonizing torture
to an end. Those leaks have raised fundamental questions about due
process and the rule of law for Maher Arar: unnamed sources,
repeating allegations obtained under torture, while providing Maher
with no opportunity to see the evidence, know his accusers and
respond. Amnesty International called for investigations into the
leaks and urged that there be prosecutions if any criminal offences
had been committed. Now we learn that the RCMP is carrying out
investigations of some description and has taken the dramatic step
of raiding journalists� offices and demanding that they
disclose the source of the leaks. Does this provide comfort? Is
justice any closer? Hardly. It is disturbing that the search
warrants being used here appear to have been issued under the
Security of Information Act, an outcome of the Anti-Terrorism Act
adopted in Canada in 2001. That means it will be virtually
impossible for Maher Arar and the Canadian public to know what
basis the RCMP asserted to explain the need for the search
warrants. As such, a shroud of secrecy continues to envelope
Maher�s case. No answers, just more silence. Should the RCMP
even be the body carrying out this investigation? In at least one
case, the Ottawa Citizen article of November 8, it is almost
crystal clear that the source of the leak was within the RCMP.
Should they be investigating themselves? Does that instill
confidence that the investigation will be thorough-going and
independent? At the very least we need to see clear signs that the
investigation is being carried out in a way that scrupulously
ensures impartiality. Are the police even looking to themselves to
determine who leaked the information, or are they only pursuing the
recipient of the leak? Taking the bold and confrontational step of
trying to force a reporter to reveal sources raises fundamental
questions about the right of journalists to protect those sources
and will almost certainly end up in the courts for quite some time
to come. Why are the RCMP not able or not willing to get these
answers from within their ranks? The pattern of no accountability
from within has been pervasive in the Arar case. On several
occasions Canadian officials have said that they are unable to
determine what role Canadian agencies may have played in the case
and have therefore had to turn to the U.S. government to tell them
what Canadians have been doing. Now we seem to have the RCMP saying
that it is unable to determine what its own officers have been
doing, and that the RCMP instead has to try to force journalists to
answer that for them. And tied up in that, there is the absurd
paradox that a journalist is potentially being criminally pursued
for possessing information that was likely provided by a law
enforcement agency in the first place. Enough with the smoke and
mirrors. It is time for some real answers and some real
accounting.
It is time to respond as a nation to Maher Arar�s plea for
justice.
It is time for a public inquiry.
TAKE ACTION!
Alex Neve is secretary general of Amnesty International Canada,
English branch.
