By Ritu Lamba
Imagine a family member being accused of something terrible without evidence. Imagine him being deported to another country. Imagine not knowing where he is for days. Imagine him being jailed indefinitely without being charged with a crime.
For most Canadians, this is the stuff of thrillers. For 33-year-old Monia Mazigh, it was reality for more than a year.
On Sept. 25, 2002, while vacationing with family in Tunisia, Mazigh and her two children waved goodbye to husband and father Maher Arar as he got into a taxi. He was returning home to Ottawa early because of work. They didn’t see him again until this Monday.
A week after he left for the airport, Arar called his family from the Metropolitan Detention Centre in New York City to tell them he had been arrested. He said he needed a lawyer but didn’t say why.
Another week later, an official at the Canadian Consulate in New York informed Mazigh that her husband, a Canadian citizen travelling on a Canadian passport, had been detained and interrogated while on a layover in New York.
She said United States authorities later deported him to Jordan and then to Syria, the country of his birth, on suspicion he was a member of the terrorist organization al Qaeda. Mazigh was shocked.
“I’ve known my husband for nine years. I’ve never seen him do anything wrong. All the time, he has been working hard to get a good social position. He is a good father and good husband. I have never and will never suspect him of being someone who would hurt other people.”
Mazigh’s life changed drastically when her husband was arrested. “Every moment since has been one question after another: Will I be able to see him again? Will our children ever enjoy his presence and feel his affection?” she wrote in an article in the Globe and Mail in January.
On Sunday, these questions were answered for Mazigh when Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham announced that Arar was released to a consular official and was on his way home.
“I think it takes time to realize all what this means, but I was very, very happy,” she said about the moment she found out.
“I was crying. We were all crying,” Mazigh added, surrounded by family.
Although she now has her husband back, the last 374 days of Mazigh’s life were filled with uncertainty, frustration, anger, despair, disappointment and false hope. Through it all, she showed strength, courage and dedication, according to her brother-in-law, Bassam Arar.
In September, on the first anniversary of Arar’s arrest, Mazigh led a quiet procession through the streets of Ottawa.
It began at Major’s Hill Park where about 40 supporters gathered, surrounded by reporters with cameras. Arar’s brother and mother and Mazigh’s mother were by her side. A hand-drawn family portrait carried by her six-year-old daughter Baraa pleaded: “Please bring my dad home.” Her son Houd, who was seven months old at the time of Arar’s arrest, sat in his stroller oblivious to the reason for the hubbub around him.
The first stop during the march was the American Embassy on Sussex Drive where Mazigh read a letter she wrote to U.S. President George W. Bush. She implored him to intervene on her husband’s behalf. She read with conviction and remembered to translate her words into French.
She did the same thing on Wellington Street in front of Parliament and at the Syrian Embassy on Slater Street. At the end of the two-hour march, it was clear she was tired but she took the time to personally thank many of her supporters.
She became accustomed to this kind of life since she made the decision, against the advice of Canadian officials, to go public with her husband’s case.
“I have been contacted a lot by the media . . . so I have been giving a lot of interviews. I have also been writing letters, to my member of Parliament first, then to the prime minister and the foreign affairs minister. I have been requesting meetings with politicians and asking them to take action. I’ve organized public events including two vigils. I have also written two op ed articles,” she said.
But it’s not only Mazigh’s life that was been turned upside down. She said her children had both been affected emotionally and maintaining a normal life for them was a challenge.
Mazigh’s life was complicated even more by the fact that her husband, a telecommunications engineer, was the sole breadwinner in the family. After he was deported, she took a part-time job teaching French to adults to make ends meet, along with government assistance. She has a PhD from McGill University in Montreal.
“Our lives have changed a lot from just a financial point of view,” she said.
Mazigh received a lot of public support. She said many people approached her on the street or sent her e-mails to encourage her and to express their concern. They also sent her photocopies of the letters they wrote to politicians on her husband’s behalf. She also received much support from human rights groups such as Amnesty International, which is paying for half of her legal bills. But as far as she is concerned, there was no concrete progress until her husband was released from jail.
She called the Canadian government’s seeming inaction one of the most frustrating aspects of the situation. It did not take any of the steps she requested, including: demanding that the Syrian government safely return her husband to Canada because he was not being afforded a fair trial there; pressing the U.S. to take responsibility for Arar’s situation by intervening with Syria to encourage his safe return; issuing a travel advisory to the U.S. if it refused to do so; informing Syria that if it did not release her husband, Canada would suspend all efforts to accelerate trade relations and investment there; conducting a parliamentary inquiry into what role Canadian security agencies played in the arrest and deportation of her husband.
Mazigh recognized that her member of Parliament, Marlene Catterall, was actively involved in her husband’s case since the very beginning. Catterall visited Arar in Syria last April and reported that he broke into tears when she gave him photographs of his family.
Mazigh said Catterall’s involvement was good, but it wasn’t enough.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien also wrote a letter to the Syrian government about Arar’s case, but Mazigh was disappointed that he did nothing when there was no reply, which defies international diplomacy conventions.
Bassam Arar agreed that the lack of action was frustrating. He said the government didn’t recognize the urgency of the situation.
Even after a year, he still had hope that his younger brother would return home. He said he found that hope in God. Mazigh, on the other hand, credited her children with giving her inspiration and hope.
Mazigh continued the fight for the sake of her children and her own love for her husband. But she said she was also doing it for all Canadians.
“Many Canadians may be suffering but they don’t talk about it. This is important for the future of Canada and for human rights. If we keep silent, who knows what will happen to people in the future.”
Despite the positive outcome, she said, this is still an opportunity for Canadians to question the value of their citizenship. The situation, she added, provokes questions like: Are all Canadians treated the same way? Are Canadians truly ruled by democratic principles?
Mazigh is overjoyed her husband is home, but she said, “The struggle now is to make sure his name is cleared.” She also wants answers as soon as possible, and emotional and financial compensation.
She said her family’s life will never be the same but she hopes this situation will bring them closer.