Toronto Star August 10, 2005
"NEW YORK--Canadian Maher Arar made history in a Brooklyn courtroom yesterday when his lawyers forced the Bush administration to defend its treatment of him when he was detained in the United States, then whisked off to face torture in Syria."
Arar was detained at JFK in Sept. 2002 while on his way home to Canada. He was held and sent to Syria, his birthplace, where he was imprisoned for more than a year and tortured.
The Bush administration should be forced to explain why it detained Mr. Arar and defend its practice of rendition. If our goal is to spread democracy and freedom throughout the world, what does it say when we ship detainees off to other locations whose imprisonment and interrogation practices fall outside the boundaries of our own laws?
