Monia Mazigh, who led an international battle to free her husband from jail in Syria, and forced the Canadian government to launch an inquiry into its handling of the case will speak at TRU on Monday, February 27th in a free public presentation at 7:30 pm in the Alumni Theatre, located in TRU’s Clock Tower building.
Mazigh led an international battle to free her husband from jail in Syria and forced Paul Martin to launch an inquiry into the government’s handling of the case. Her husband, Maher Arar, a 34-year-old wireless technology consultant, was born in Syria and emigrated to Canada with his family when he was 17, becoming a Canadian citizen in 1991.
On September 26th, 2002, while in transit in New York’s JFK airport after a vacation in Tunisia with his wife and their two small children, Maher Mazigh was detained by US officials and interrogated about alleged links to al-Qaeda. Twelve days later, he was chained, shackled and flown to Jordan aboard a private plane and from there transferred to a Syrian prison. In Syria, he was held in a tiny “grave-like” cell for ten months and ten days before he was moved to a better cell in a different prison. He was beaten, tortured and forced to make a false confession.
During his imprisonment, Monia campaigned relentlessly on his behalf. After many representations from Canadian Human Rights organizations and a growing number of citizens, the Government of Canada, on Jan. 28, 2004, announced a Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar.
Monia Mazigh expressed concern about the government’s attempts to keep some information out of the public eye. “I hope very much for an open, transparent process that will shed some light on whatever involvement the Canadian government had in my husband’s arrest, deportation and imprisonment in Syria,” she said. “Hopefully this inquiry will ensure that something like this will never happen to another Canadian.”
Mazigh’s visit to the university is sponsored by the TRU Human Rights Committee.
For more information, please contact Derek Cook at 250-828-5244 or visit www.maherarar.ca
