Arar to miss award over fear of arrest JEFF SALLOT >From Saturday's Globe and Mail
OTTAWA Maher Arar will be honoured with a human-rights award at a ceremony next week in Washington, but will be unable to attend because he fears he might be arrested again by U.S. authorities. Mr. Arar, 36, a Canadian software engineer, was arrested and deported from New York to the Middle East as an alleged al-Qaeda terrorist. He was tortured while held in Syria for more than a year. His struggle to clear his name and draw attention to American abuses of human rights in dealing with terrorist suspects will be honoured by an award from the private Institute for Policy Studies. I'm really sorry I can't travel to Washington to accept this award, Mr. Arar said in an interview yesterday. Related to this article Articles Amnesty International calls for further rights inquiries RCMP weather report: under a perpetual cloud Reopen probe, Arar asks CSIS watchdog Latest Comments #15 what are you talking about.. It seems to me that only uneducated... What a pity. I was hoping he'd go so we wouldn't see or hear... Given what Mr. Arar has had to endure at the hands of Canadian... Is it some kind of achievement to be tortured by the Syrian regime... 18 reader comments | Join the conversation Follow this writer Add JEFF SALLOT to my e-mail alerts At the time of his deportation four years ago, U.S. authorities said he was not allowed to come back to the United States for five years. A Canadian commission of inquiry last month found there was never any evidence that Mr. Arar was connected to terrorists. Prime Minister Stephen Harper told U.S. President George W. Bush by telephone last week that Canada is lodging a formal complaint against Washington for deporting Mr. Arar to the Middle East. But there has been no indication from U.S. authorities they will purge Mr. Arar's name from security watch lists used to screen travellers at airports and border crossings. Ottawa announced it was removing Mr. Arar and his family from a watch list after the release of the commission report. Mr. Arar has recorded a video message to be used at Wednesday's ceremony. The award will be accepted on his behalf by the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which is trying to get compensation for Mr. Arar from the American government. Mr. Arar has flown domestically since his release from Syria. He has also flown to Brussels to testify before a European Union human-rights panel.
