Waiting in the torture chamber

The Globe and Mail points out that even as Canada tries to figure out what went wrong in Maher Arar's rendition, another Canadian remains trapped in a Syrian jail after three years:

In July of 2002, Mr. al-Boushi travelled to his native Syria to visit his dying father. He was arrested immediately on arriving at Damascus airport and, except for a brief period of freedom soon after to attend his father's funeral, the 46-year-old manager and former Ottawa resident has spent every moment since in jail...

The newly appointed Syrian ambassador to Canada, Jamil Sakr, says he would like Mr. al-Boushi freed as well. "I hope he will be released soon," he said in Ottawa. "It is a big hope for me."...

Hopes that Mr. al-Boushi might be freed were raised in February when Mr. Pettigrew went to Damascus. According to Mrs. al-Boushi, Syrian prison officials told her husband he was about to be released but "nothing happened." It's believed that the Syrians were willing to let Mr. al-Boushi go provided he would not speak publicly about his experience.

As the article points out, there's a slightly stronger "guilt by association" factor in al-Boushi's case: rather than merely having social contacts with suspected terrorists like Arar, he was convicted in Syria of being a member of a revolutionary group when he was 19. (Not that that justifies even the jail sentence, let alone any torture.) And unlike Arar, al-Boushi travelled to Syria of his own volition, meaning that Canada's responsibility doesn't extend to his initial detention.

But just the same, al-Boushi's case demonstrates that Canada still isn't managing to get its citizens freed from prisons known for torture - even when Syria's ambassador seems willing to make that happen. And Dan McTeague, who to his credit played a large role in having two other Canadians released, appears to be sitting back and seeing what happens rather than pressing Syria to meet a past commitment to allow al-Boushi to meet with consular officials.

As a result, there's serious reason to doubt that the Liberals have learned a thing from the Arar case. We can only hope that a scathing enough report in the inquiry will lead to greater efforts to protect Canadians abroad.