Way to go Canada!

Nice title in yesterday’s International Herald Tribune in the editorial section: “Canada restores rights”.

It talks about the Canadian government’s use of detaining foreign-born terrorists and how the Supreme Court has struck down that law. In particular, the article also talks about the government formally apologizing to Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen of Syrian extraction who was a victim of Bush’s decision to approve open-ended detentions, summary deportations and even torture after September 11. Arar was detained in the U.S. and deported to Syria, where he was held for nearly a year and tortured. Arar will also receive financial compensation from the Canadian government for his ordeal (some 9 million bucks or so according to a recent Economist article).

While this may not be all that great news (it is compared to what Bush has done with detaining terrorists in places such as Guantanamo), it comes at an interesting time: we have in Italy our own version of Arar when the imam Abu Omar was kidnapped by 26 Cia agents in Milan (the boss of that commando, a woman, was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Rome). He was thrown in a van, whisked off to the Aviano airbase near Udine, flown on a secret flight to Ramstein in Germany and then to Egypt where he was tortured. He’s finally been released and wants to now sue the Berlusconi government (he was the Prime Minister at the time of his abduction). He has said that he would like to return to Italy but the Egyptians have vetoed that decision (presumably under pressure from the Bush administration).

Just today the Italian papers have said that the Americans have said “nyet” to the 26 Cia agents appearing in Italy for kidnapping charges. Fat chance too that Omar will see any money. All this isn’t too surprising as Italy always gets shafted in one way or the other by the Americans. Unlike the Canucks and the nice editorial that an (American) paper wrote yesterday on how things should be (properly) done when it comes to detaining terrorists indefinitely (as the IHT itself concludes: “Lawmakers have only to look to the Canadian court for easy-to-follow directions back to the high ground on basic human rights and civil liberties”), the Italians have to always “bend over” to the whims of the Americans.

And naturally today’s Italian papers make NO mention whatsoever of the IHT article on Canada’s initiative…