[OPIRG-EVENTS] Maher Arar - Procession for Justice

[Bill_Skidmore <BillSkidmore@pigeon.carleton.ca>]

Procession for Justice
Friday, September 26, 2003 - 12 noon
Major's Hill Park - Across from the US Embassy

Please join Maher Arar's mother, wife and daughter as they lead us to
the US Embassy, the Prime Minister's office and then the Syrian Embassy,
to deliver letters demanding justice for Maher Arar. Please consider 
bringing your passport and/or signs asking whether everyone's passport
has equal value.

BACKGROUND

Friday, September 26 will be the first anniversary of Maher Arar's arrest by
United States authorities as he was travelling through New York on his way
home to Ottawa from a family vacation. Waiting to change planes in JFK
Airport, Maher was arrested, interrogated, and told he was suspected of
being a member of Al Qaeda. Despite his Canadian passport, he was later
deported by US authorities to Jordan, and then to Syria, a country he had
left when he was seventeen years old. He has languished in prison there
since, reportedly in solitary confinement in the Sadnaya prison in Damascus,
without charge. He has been denied access to legal counsel, medical
attention and contact with his family. The Syrian Human Rights Committee
reports he has been severely tortured.

Syrian authorities say Maher will face trial in the Surpreme State Security
Court this week -- a court notorious for injustice. Syrian authorities have
so far denied Maher's lawyer any access to him, or to information about what
he is being charged with.

Maher Arar's case has become a test of what Canada is willing to do to
protect its citizens, especially Arab Canadians and Muslims, from
discrimination and ill-treatment by the United States and other countries.
For many Arab Canadians and Muslims, this case is a test of what their
citizenship is worth. 

For more information please contact the Maher Arar Support Committee at
info@freemaherarar.com. To join the email list, visit
http://www.jungle.ca/mailman/listinfo/maherarar
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