UN Demands Public Inquiries into the cases of Canadians Imprisoned Abroad

While the wait continues for the release of Justice Dennis O’Connor inquiry into the Maher Arar case, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has demanded that the Canadian government establish similar public inquiries to investigate its alleged role in the other cases of Canadian Citizens being imprisoned and tortured abroad.

Last week the UN Human Rights Committee released a report on Canada’s Human Rights record. The Committee raised concern over allegations that Canada may have cooperated with agencies abroad known to resort to torture with the aim of extracting information from individuals suspected of having terrorism links.

“The State party should ensure that a public and independent inquiry review all cases of Canadians citizens who are suspected terrorists or suspected to be in possession of information in relation to terrorism, and who have been detained in countries where it is feared that they have undergone or may undergo torture and ill-treatment,” said the Committee.

The Committee noted that a public inquiry is underway regarding the role of Canadian officials in the Maher Arar case. Arar, a Syrian-Canadian software engineer, was detained by U.S. immigration officials at the JFK airport in 2002 when he made a stopover in New York on his way back to Canada from a family vacation. The U.S. officials, suspecting Arar of having links to al-Qaeda, deported him to Syria where he was imprisoned and tortured.

The public inquiry headed by Justice O’Connor is to report on the actions of the Canadian government and to determine whether Canadian officials had any role in Arar’s deportation from the U.S. to Syria. The inquiry is to be released in March.

The UN Committee is requesting similar inquiries into the cases of other Canadian citizens imprisoned and tortured abroad, such as the Toronto truck driver Ahmad El Maati, Ottawa engineer Abdullah Almalki, and the Iraqi-born Muayyed Nureddin, a former principal of an Islamic school in Toronto. The men were detained in Syrian prisons and allegedly tortured.

Stephen Toope, a fact-finder appointed by the Arar inquiry, looked into the cases of these men and concluded that they were mistreated while imprisoned in Syria.

Last week, however, Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan told reporters that her answer is very clear about this, “We are not intending to hold a public inquiry.”

The Deputy Prime Ministers says that there are other mechanisms to handle these cases and that if either of those gentlemen has a concern about how they were treated by either CSIS or the RCMP, they should lay a complaint with the Public Complaints Commission in case of the RCMP, and lay a complaint with the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) in the case of CSIS.

But the Amnesty International spokesperson Jack Tackaberry says the mechanisms recommended by McLellan are “partial and incomplete.”

“We think that the best way to do it is to have an overarching investigation that you cover the roles of RCMP and CSIS and government officials in each individual case.”

Also last week the last of the five Canadian citizens imprisoned in Syria was released from detention. Arwad Al-Boushi was arrested upon his arrival in Damascus in 2002 for having been a member of an outlawed opposition group more than 24 years ago. So far, Canadian officials have not indicated whether Al-Boushi faced torture while he was detained in Syria.

“The office of the Parliamentary Secretary, including the Parliamentary Secretary, have been working on Mr. Al-Boushi’s case for almost a good 2 years at our point, and now our main concern is Mr. Al-Boushi’s health and that he has the ability to leave Syria,” says Glenn BradBury, an executive assistant to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in charge of affairs concerning Canadians Abroad.