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121-689: Maher Arar ( Arabic : ماهر عرار ) (born 1970) is a telecommunications engineer with dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship who has resided in Canada since 1987. Arar was detained during a layover at John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunis . He was held without charges in solitary confinement in the United States for nearly two weeks, questioned, and denied meaningful access to

242-647: A black-and-white photograph of Arar obtained from the FBI office in Massachusetts , and demanded to know if he recognised him. Khadr initially stated that he did not recognise Arar. Upon cross-examination, Fuller clarified his testimony saying that at first Khadr could not identify Arar. Then after giving him a couple minutes Khadr "stated he felt he had seen" Maher Arar at a Kabul safehouse run by Abu Musab al-Suri or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi . The validity of Omar Khadr's possible sighting has been seriously questioned due to

363-467: A casual relationship with Almalki, having once worked with Almalki's brother at an Ottawa high-tech firm, the officials produced a copy of Arar's 1997 rental lease which Almalki had co-signed. The fact that US officials had a Canadian document in their possession was later widely interpreted as evidence of the participation by Canadian authorities in Arar's detention. It was later found that Almalki's signature

484-575: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as

605-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By

726-456: A deportation, but critics have called the removal an example of rendition for torture by proxy , as the Syrian government is infamous for its torture of detainees. Despite the recent public rhetoric , at the time of Arar's deportation, Syria was working closely with the United States government in their " War on Terror ." In November 2003, Cofer Black , then counterterrorism coordinator at

847-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to

968-499: A formal apology to Arar on behalf of the Canadian government, apologizing "for any role Canadian officials may have played in what happened to Mr. Arar, Monia Mazigh and their family in 2002 and 2003" and announced that Arar would receive C$ 10.5 million settlement for his ordeal and an additional one million for legal costs . On September 28, 2006, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli issued an apology to Arar and his family during

1089-534: A job that required a considerable amount of travel within the United States. In 2001, Arar returned to Ottawa to start his own consulting company, Simcomms Inc. At the time of his rendition, Arar was employed in Ottawa as a telecommunications engineer. On September 22, 2001, Jack Hooper , the director general of the Toronto region of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), chaired a meeting of members of CSIS,

1210-500: A lawyer. The US government suspected him of being a member of Al Qaeda and deported him, not to Canada, his current home and the passport on which he was travelling, but to Syria. He was detained in Syria for almost a year, during which time he was tortured by Syrian authorities, according to the findings of a commission of inquiry ordered by the Canadian government , until his release to Canada. The Syrian government later stated that Arar

1331-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic

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1452-734: A master's degree in telecommunications from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (a branch of the Université du Québec ) in Montreal . While studying at McGill University, Arar met Monia Mazigh . Arar and Mazigh married in 1994. Mazigh holds a PhD in finance from McGill University. They have two children: Barâa and Houd. In December 1997, Arar moved with his family to Ottawa from Montreal and listed Abdullah Almalki as his "emergency contact" with his landlord. In 1999, he moved again to Boston to work for MathWorks ,

1573-470: A meeting with Abdullah Almalki on October 12, 2001. Almalki, an Ottawa engineer, was also born in Syria and had moved to Canada in the same year as Arar. They met at the Mango Café, a popular shawarma restaurant in a strip mall and talked about doctors and bought a print cartridge together. At the time their movements were under close scrutiny by teams of Project A-O Canada . Before Project A-O Canada

1694-690: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb  [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak

1815-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from

1936-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",

2057-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for

2178-632: A trained member of an al-Qaeda terrorist cell. The RCMP later raided O'Neill's house pursuant to sealed search warrants it had obtained to investigate the leak. In November 2004, Ontario Superior Court Judge Lynn Ratushny ruled that the sealing of the search warrants was unacceptable, although Justice of the Peace Richard Sculthorpe had given approval after the RCMP invoked the Security of Information Act . Justice Ratushny stated that

2299-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means

2420-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as

2541-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted

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2662-591: A wider investigation, with Arar also becoming a "person of interest." While testifying at the Guantanamo military commission for alleged child soldier Omar Khadr , FBI agent Robert Fuller testified that Khadr had identified Maher Arar as among the al-Qaeda militants he met while in Afghanistan. On October 7, 2002, Fuller went to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and showed Canadian teenager Omar Khadr

2783-737: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic

2904-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak

3025-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It

3146-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in

3267-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon

3388-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and

3509-481: Is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offence or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada." The commission also found no evidence that Canadian officials acquiesced in the US decision to detain and remove Arar to Syria, but that it is very likely that the US relied on inaccurate and unfair information about Arar that was provided by Canadian officials. The report also confirms that he

3630-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference

3751-855: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not

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3872-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As

3993-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that

4114-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into

4235-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while

4356-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary

4477-596: The Best Copy copy shop in downtown Toronto, seizing the store's records and investigating its customers, adding a number of them to an Interpol database. By October, the RCMP claimed to have identified 10-12 "al-Qaida suspects" in the city, and a month later reported they had "undertaken 24-hour surveillance of at least five suspected supporters of Osama bin Laden ." The priorities that everybody had been assigned to, or working on, prior to 9/11, were basically put on

4598-657: The Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar revealed that there were no clear directions to RCMP officers regarding how to share information with the FBI and the CIA. Richard Proulx , a RCMP officer and then assistant RCMP commissioner, was the official singled out in the report for failing to provide these clear directions. The A-O Canada team included investigators and members from:

4719-526: The National Post took a different angle: Its headline described Maher as a suspected terrorist. Arar's case reached new heights of controversy after reporter Juliet O'Neill wrote an article in the Ottawa Citizen on November 8, 2003, containing information leaked to her from an unknown security source, possibly within the RCMP. The secret documents provided by her source suggested Arar was

4840-684: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Ontario Provincial Police , Toronto Police Service , and Peel Regional Police . On September 24, 2001, the RCMP's "O" Division in Toronto created a joint force investigative team called Project O Canada to handle national security investigations. The Toronto team included RCMP investigators and members of the Ontario, Peel, and Toronto police forces. In October 2001, Inspector Garry Clement , officer of

4961-587: The Syrian government , whose actions were complicit with the US. Additionally, the Attorney General and INS officials who carried out his deportation also likely violated his right to due process by recklessly subjecting him to torture at the hands of a foreign government that they had every reason to believe would carry out abusive interrogation. Further, Arar filed a claim under the Torture Victims Protection Act , adopted by

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5082-544: The US State Department and former director of counterterrorism at the CIA, was quoted as saying "The Syrian government has provided some very useful assistance on al Qaeda in the past." In September 2002, the George W. Bush administration opposed the enactment of the " Syria Accountability Act " citing effectiveness of current sanctions and the ongoing diplomacy in the region. In addition, the administration noted

5203-937: The United States Congress in 1992, which allows a victim of torture by an individual of a foreign government to bring suit against that actor in a US court. Arar's claim under the act against Ashcroft and the INS directors is based upon their complicity in bringing about the torture he suffered. The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York . Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized :  al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )

5324-568: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to

5445-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic

5566-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In

5687-743: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c.  8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Project O Canada Founded in 2001, Project O Canada

5808-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to

5929-519: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of

6050-834: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ    [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized

6171-478: The House of Commons committee on public safety and national security: Mr. Arar, I wish to take this opportunity to express publicly to you and to your wife and to your children how truly sorry I am for whatever part the actions of the RCMP may have contributed to the terrible injustices that you experienced and the pain that you and your family endured. Arar thanked Commissioner Zaccardelli for his apology but lamented

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6292-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around

6413-434: The O'Connor commission concluded public hearings after testimony from 85 witnesses. Maher Arar did not testify before the commission. The US ambassador at the time of the incident, Paul Cellucci , refused to testify. On October 27, 2005, Professor Stephen Toope , a fact-finder appointed by the Arar inquiry released a report saying that he believed Arar was tortured in Syria. He said that Arar had recovered well physically but

6534-690: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from

6655-489: The RCMP "A" Division in Ottawa, told RCMP Inspector Michel Cabana that Toronto's Project O Canada needed a team in Ottawa to help with its investigations of an Ottawa man named Abdullah Almalki . In response, Project A-O Canada was created. Garry Clement told Michel Cabana that the team would be working closely with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Later on,

6776-486: The RCMP closed the investigation, labeled Operation Soya, without concluding who leaked the false information. On September 25, 2004, the results of an internal RCMP investigation by RCMP Chief Superintendent Brian Garvie were published. Though the version released to the public was censored, the Garvie Report documented several instances of impropriety by the RCMP in the Arar case. Among its revelations were that

6897-870: The RCMP commercial crimes unit, "A" Divisions IPOC unit; the RCMP National Security Investigations Branch (NSIS), CSIS, the Ottawa Police , Gatineau Police , Hull Police and Ontario Provincial Police ; the Sûreté du Québec ; the Canada Border Services Agency ; and the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency , and the support of lawyers from the Canadian Justice Department . After he had moved back to Ottawa, Arar had

7018-460: The RCMP was responsible for giving American authorities sensitive information on Arar with no attached provisos about how this information might be used. Also, Richard Roy, the RCMP liaison officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs, may have known of the plan of removing Arar to Syria but did not contact his supervisors. Additionally, Deputy RCMP Commissioner Garry Loeppky lobbied hard, in

7139-576: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With

7260-436: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal on November 2, 2009. The Supreme Court of the United States declined to review the case on June 14, 2010. Maher Arar was born in Syria in 1970 and moved to Canada with his parents at the age of 17 in 1987 to avoid mandatory military service . In 1991, Arar became a Canadian citizen . Arar earned a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from McGill University and

7381-563: The Syrian government and the Jordanian government in Canadian courts but both cases were dismissed on the basis that the Canadian courts had no jurisdiction. In January 2004, Arar announced that he would be suing then- Attorney General of the United States John Ashcroft over his treatment. The Center for Constitutional Rights brought the suit Arar v. Ashcroft against former Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller , and then-Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge , as well as numerous US immigration officials. It charges

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7502-412: The United States as well as a public education campaign. Arar received a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Ottawa in 2010. The rendition of Maher Arar has received much attention and scrutiny in Canada, both in the media and in the government. ... whereas the Globe story described Maher as a "respected Canadian engineer" and focused on [Monia]'s efforts to find her missing husband,

7623-559: The United States. Arar believes that his torturers were given a dossier of specific questions by United States interrogators, noting that he was asked identical questions both in the United States and in Syria. While he was imprisoned, Arar's wife Monia Mazigh conducted an active campaign in Canada to secure his release. Upon his release in October 2003, Syria announced they could find no terrorist links. Syrian official Imad Moustapha stated that "We tried to find anything. We couldn't." Syrian authorities also denied that they tortured Arar. Arar

7744-724: The answers he provides you, a second series of questions has been prepared for him". Sgt. Rick Flewelling, from the RCMP headquarters, intervened and insisted that the Department of Justice and Foreign Affairs would have to be involved In September 2002, the A-O division began asking the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) to help them secure the ability to travel to Syria to interrogate Almalki themselves, or at least direct how he would be interrogated by Syrians. When DFAIT officer Jonathan Solomon demanded to know whether they would be clear not to use torture, since it had already been used against Ahmed el-Maati, A-O Division officers "got awkward" and Cabana claimed that it

7865-482: The book. It only opens a new chapter of a book that is about more than Maher Arar — it is about the erosion of civil and human rights in Canada as a result of the "War on Terror." The Arar saga brought into focus the unintended victims of draconian laws and policies hastily enacted post 9/11 in Canada and south of the border. It also shed light on the potential of religious and racial profiling inherent in such laws and practices. We can only hope that Arar's second wish which

7986-463: The case immediately dismissed the allegations. The information gathered from the United States' interrogation of Omar Khadr conflicts with the information gathered previously from the RCMP. Michael Edelson stated in public testimony given during the Arar Inquiry that RCMP officials from Project AO Canada had shown pictures of Arar to Khadr in either July or August 2002 and that Khadr denied ever seeing Maher Arar. Within an affidavit , Khadr stated he

8107-422: The case in the RCMP have not been reprimanded by the government for their mistakes. In fact, several have received promotions. As of December 2006, the only person held accountable in Canada has been RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, who resigned over contradictions in his testimony to the House of Commons Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The contradictions were with respect to what he knew at

8228-579: The control of Cpl. Randal Walsh, Garry Clement and Supt. Mike Cabana, quickly moved from providing assistance to their Toronto colleagues, and began conducting their own investigations focusing primarily on Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad Abou El Maati . When Almalki met with telecommunications engineer Maher Arar at the Mango Cafe shawarma restaurant in Ottawa to discuss local doctors and printer cartridges , officers clandestinely acquired his 1997 lease agreement from Minto Developments Inc. , and saw that he had listed Almalki as an emergency contact. He

8349-509: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after

8470-485: The cooperation and support by Syria in fighting al-Qaeda as a reason for its opposition to the "Syria Accountability Act." US officials repeatedly questioned Arar about his connection to certain members of al-Qaeda. His interrogators also claimed that Arar was an associate of Abdullah Almalki , the Syrian-born Ottawa man whom they suspected of having links to al-Qaeda, and they therefore suspected Arar of being an al-Qaeda member himself. When Arar protested that he only had

8591-473: The defendants violated Arar's constitutional right to due process ; his right to choose a country of removal other than one in which he would be tortured, as guaranteed under the Torture Victims Protection Act ; and his rights under international law. The suit charges that Arar's Fifth Amendment due process rights were violated when he was confined without access to an attorney or the court system, both domestically before being rendered, and while detained by

8712-652: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of

8833-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around

8954-552: The fact that the government was misleading the public when they said Canada had nothing to do with sending me to Syria." On February 5, 2004, the Canadian government established the " Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar " to investigate and report on the actions of Canadian officials. The United States refused to participate in the inquiry and, until January 2007, refused to share its own evidence with Canadian officials. On June 14, 2005, Franco Pillarella , Canadian ambassador to Syria at

9075-607: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From

9196-510: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and

9317-597: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward

9438-413: The lack of concrete disciplinary action against those individuals whose actions led to his detention and subsequent torture. Zaccardelli later resigned as RCMP commissioner because of this case. In Canada, Arar's ordeal has raised numerous questions that have yet to be answered. Canadian authorities have been unable to discover who leaked sensitive government documents to O'Neill. Those who were involved in

9559-613: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about

9680-604: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c.  603 –689)

9801-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA

9922-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya

10043-505: The media from reporting the identities of those targeted, although later reports confirmed which buildings had been searched. In addition, while they lacked a warrant to search his house, officers visited Arar to discover he was overseas. When he returned, he agreed to discussions with a lawyer present, but the RCMP found the requirement too "stringent" and did not follow up. In April 2002, Project A-O sent American officials their complete files without any limits on its use or "regard for

10164-782: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum  [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve

10285-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on

10406-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on

10527-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within

10648-529: The rights of citizens", leading to tension between RCMP headquarters and the anti-terrorism project. The Americans later used faxes detailing the sale of walkie talkies seized at Almalki's house in the raid as evidence in their trial against Mohamad Elzahabi . In August, after Almalki was arrested in Syria - Project A-O officers wanted to send Syria information about him, as well as a list of questions that they wanted him to answer, stating that "Depending on his willingness to answer truthfully and depending on

10769-463: The rules for the inquiry, the decision to release the remaining portions of the final report were to be decided within the Canadian courts. In July 2007, the Federal Court ruled that portions of the previously removed text could be released. On January 26, 2007, after months of negotiations between the Canadian government and Arar's Canadian legal counsel , Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued

10890-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there

11011-617: The same time as Khadr. Almalki had been under surveillance by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service since he first met with Khadr in 1998. Project C-O meanwhile put Abdelrahman, the younger brother of Mohamad Elzahabi working as a mechanic in Montreal, "under a microscope". Ontario Provincial Police officers were also tasked to help the Federal police agency. The Ottawa office, under

11132-548: The sealing of the search violated guarantees of a free press , freedom of expression and the public's right to an open court system. She ordered that a redacted copy be released to the public. All materials that were seized were subsequently ordered returned to O'Neill after Ontario Superior Court Judge Ratushny struck down Section 4 of the Security of Information Act, ruling that it was "unconstitutionally vague" and broad and an infringement of freedom of expression. In May 2008,

11253-506: The shelf and everybody was redirected to try and address the threat and the crisis that was ongoing with respect to terrorist attacks. In October 2001, the RCMP's Toronto office met with Ottawa officers in Newmarket, Ontario and requested they form a Project A-O division. Its first task was to help Toronto by taking over the investigation of the electronics store owner Abdullah Almalki , who had worked for Human Concern International at

11374-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of

11495-421: The spring of 2003, to convince his government (then led by Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien ) not to claim in a letter to Syria, that it "had no evidence Arar was involved in any terrorist activities" because Arar "remained a person of great interest." In response to the Garvie Report, Arar said that the report was "just the starting point to find out the truth about what happened to me" and that it "exposes

11616-563: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of

11737-703: The time and what he told government ministers. Several Conservative party members, including Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, apparently assumed Arar's guilt, labeling him a terrorist. Other commentators have suggested that the settlement reached by the Harper government was designed to embarrass the Liberals, on whose watch the events took place. Some commentators, including prominent human rights lawyer Faisal Kutty argued that: Arar settlement in Canada does not close

11858-469: The time frame of the alleged sighting which was sometime during September or October 2001. Arar was known to be in North America during this time frame and under surveillance by the RCMP. Khadr's lawyer told Canadian media that Khadr, claiming to be under torture at Bagram Theater Internment Facility , simply told his captors whatever he thought they wanted to hear. Lawyers and advocates familiar with

11979-452: The time of Arar's removal, said that at the time he had no reason to believe Arar had been badly treated, and in general had no reason to conclusively believe that Syria engaged in routine torture. These statements prompted widespread incredulity in the Canadian media, and a former Canadian UN ambassador responded to Pillarella asserting that Syria's human rights abuses were well known and well documented by many sources. On September 14, 2005,

12100-422: The torture," he says. Arar described his cell as a three-foot by six-foot "grave" with no light and plenty of rats. During the more than 10 months he was imprisoned and held in solitary confinement, he was beaten regularly with shredded cables. Through the walls of his cell, Arar could hear the screams of other prisoners who were also being tortured. The Syrian government shared the results of its investigation with

12221-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to

12342-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study

12463-405: Was "completely innocent." A Canadian commission publicly cleared Arar of any links to terrorism, and the government of Canada later settled out of court with Arar. He received C$ 10.5 million and Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized to Arar for Canada's role in his "terrible ordeal." Arar's story is frequently referred to as " extraordinary rendition " but the US government insisted it

12584-483: Was "suspected of being linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist movement". Growing out of an earlier project begun in 1997, the 35-officer project initially focused on the actions and acquaintances of NGO -worker Ahmed Khadr , who was believed to be financially supporting Islamic militants in Afghanistan . They also investigated claims from local residents that a man who resembled Mohamed Atta had worked part-time at

12705-491: Was a Toronto-based anti-terrorism investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police . Created in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks , subdivisions of the project named A-O Canada and C-O Canada were based in Ottawa and Montreal, RCMP Divisions A and C respectively. By December 2001, the RCMP was shifting its focus from gathering intelligence, to seeking information "in a manner suitable for court purposes". It

12826-611: Was a case of deportation . Arar, represented by lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights , filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York , Arar v. Ashcroft , seeking compensatory damages and a declaration that the actions of the US government were illegal and violated his constitutional, civil, and international human rights . After the lawsuit was dismissed by the Federal District Court,

12947-403: Was blindfolded, shackled and put in a van. "They made me bend my head down in the back seat," Arar recalled. "Then these men started beating me. Every time I tried to talk, they beat me." Arar was transferred to a prison, where he claims he was beaten for several hours and forced to falsely confess that he had attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. "I was willing to do anything to stop

13068-479: Was created, CSIS had been monitoring Almalki at least since 1998 with respect to his relationship with Ahmed Khadr , an Egyptian -born Canadian and alleged senior associate of Osama bin Laden . CSIS was also concerned with Almalki's electronic components export business that he operated with his wife. Almalki, however, was purely a person of interest and was not, in fact, the target of the investigation. Nonetheless, Almalki's meeting with Arar appears to have prompted

13189-546: Was detained by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The INS was acting upon information supplied by the RCMP. When it became clear he was going to be deported, Arar requested he be deported to Canada; though he had not visited Syria since his move to Canada, he retained Syrian citizenship as Syria does not permit the renunciation of citizenship. Canadian (initially) and United States officials have labelled his transfer to Syria as

13310-460: Was discovered that Canadian authorities had been complicit in the rendition and torture of an innocent Canadian, a Royal Commission was formed to investigate. Project A-O figured prominently in the explanation of Canada's anti-terrorism investigations, while attorney Don Bayne unsuccessfully argued that since the RCMP couldn't disclose full information due to national security concerns, it therefore shouldn't have to disclose any information about

13431-577: Was later criticised for bringing together forty members from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police 's (RCMP) Commercial Crimes , IPOC , and National Security Investigations branches, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Customs and Revenue Agency , Canada Border Services Agency , the Quebec and Ontario provincial police, and local officers from Hull, Gatineau and Ottawa. The team was composed almost entirely of individuals with no knowledge of intelligence gathering , Islam, or human rights issues, and

13552-603: Was not in fact on the lease agreement; rather, he was listed by Arar as emergency contact. Arar's requests for a lawyer were dismissed on the basis that he was not a US citizen , therefore he did not have the right to receive counsel. Despite his denials, he remained in US custody for two weeks and eventually was put on a small jet which first landed in Washington, D.C. , and then in Amman , Jordan . Once in Amman, Arar claims he

13673-438: Was possible that el-Maati had just been lying about Syria using torture. Also in September, as Arar was en route to New York from Switzerland, Project A-O officers faxed a memo to Americans which involved a number of "false claims" about Arar, stating that he and his wife were "Islamic Extremist individuals suspected of being linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist movement". Arar was subsequently arrested and deported to Syria where he

13794-520: Was released on October 5, 2003, 374 days after his removal to Syria. He returned to Canada, reuniting with his wife and children. The couple moved to Kamloops , in British Columbia , where his wife Monia accepted a job as professor at Thompson Rivers University . The couple later moved back to Ottawa . Back in Canada, Arar claimed that he had been tortured in Syria and sought to clear his name, embarking on legal challenges both in Canada and in

13915-491: Was simply told to cooperate fully with the American Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency , turning over all information without hesitation. The project was ultimately found to have played a "central role" in the wrongful rendition and torture of Canadian citizens, including Maher Arar , who was tortured for ten months before being found innocent of the officers' claims that he

14036-555: Was still suffering from psychological problems caused by his mistreatment, as well as anxiety caused by the Commission of Inquiry process itself. On September 18, 2006, the Canadian Commission of Inquiry, led by Dennis O'Connor , Associate Chief Justice of Ontario , issued its report. The final report exonerates Arar and categorically states that there is no evidence linking Arar to terrorist activity, stating "there

14157-478: Was subsequently placed under surveillance by Project A-O , and his name added to a Canada Customs "terrorist lookout list", although it was later determined there was no evidence to support such an action. In January 2002, Cpl. Randy Walsh received search warrants to raid seven homes, although later analysis suggested that if he had been honest about their evidence before the judge, the warrants would not have been granted. A publication ban initially prevented

14278-457: Was to "make sure this does not happen to any other Canadian citizens in the future," will also come true. For this to happen, however, more people must realize that due process and fundamental rights must be respected at all times and more so during times of real or perceived crisis when society has a tendency to overreact. Maher Arar on return to Canada brought lawsuits against Syria, Canada, the United States and Jordan. Arar attempted to sue both

14399-483: Was tortured for ten months before being found innocent of any wrongdoing. The project also sent officers to Pakistan in 2005, after it was announced that Khadr's son Abdullah had been arrested. Abdullah stated that when he was about 14 years old, his father had purchased two pairs of walkie talkies from Almalki, although his lawyers later argued the statement had been made due to his mistreatment by Pakistani officials. Toronto Members Ottawa Members After it

14520-422: Was tortured while in Syria. O'Connor cleared Arar of terrorism allegations, and found the actions of Canadian officials likely led to his being deported by US authorities to Syria. On August 9, 2007, an addendum to the final report containing previously undisclosed portions was released. The final report was released with certain portions blacked out for reasons of national security by the Canadian government. Under

14641-578: Was visited by three individuals claiming to be Canadians at Guantanamo Bay in March 2003. During their three-day visit, he was shown "approximately 20 pictures of various people" and asked about several people "such as my father and Arar." At which time he told them "what [he] knew." On September 26, 2002, during a stopover in New York City en route from a family vacation in Tunisia to Montreal, Arar

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