Human Rights A Day

Maher Arar begins ten months of detention, beatings and torture in Syrian jail. Maher Arar was born in Syria in 1970 before his family moved to Canada in 1987. He obtained bachelors and masters degrees in computer engineering, became a Canadian citizen in 1991 and worked as a wireless technology consultant in Ottawa. On September 26, 2002, while changing planes in New York, Arar was detained by American officials. Believing he was linked to the terrorist group Al Qaeda, officials interrogated Arar for days, and his requests for a lawyer and a phone call were refused until October 5th, when he met with a lawyer for 30 minutes. Three days later he was deported to Syria and on October 9, 2002 arrived in Syria to an immediate interrogation. The next day he was taken to a cell he called the “grave”; it had no light and was three-by-six-by-seven feet. He would spend the next 10 months and 10 days there. During the first week, he was beaten with a shredded electrical cable and threatened with worse torture. Over tim