My Guantanamo Diary - Book Review

My Guantanamo Diary
by Mahvish Rukhsana Khan
Perseus Group, 2008
Authors website

Mahvish Khan was born and raised in USA. Her parents were immigrants from Afghanistan. now both respcted medical doctors. Mahvish grew up speaking fluent Pushtu (the lingua franca language of Afghanistan) as well as English. In 2005 Mahvish was a student at the University of Miamai Law School.

She had been raised to believe that the USA was a good country and that it respected the laws of justice and democracy.

Until the camp at Guantanamo Bay opened up. Then she began speaking out against the USA for illegally imprisoning men without trials. Her fiance got upset and said - Well why dont you stop complaining and get yourself involved if you feel so strongly.

So Mahvish sat down and googled the names of the attorneys for the 2004 Supreme Court case Rasul vs Bush. Mahvish bombarded those lawyers with emails saying she wanted to help. Eventually she was put in touch with a lawyer in Philadelphia who had 15 Afghani clients at Gitmo. The lawyer had never been able to speak to his clients as he did not speak Pushtun and they didnt speak English. Finally Mahvish had something of value that the lawyers could use - her fluency in Pushtun.

The FBI took 6 months to complete her back ground security check and when it was finally granted, Mahvish was off to Gitmo in January 2006 for her first visit.

Her role with the detainees quickly developed past that of just interpreter. She began providing supervised legal counsel and traveled to Afghanistan to find exonerating evidence for prisoners.

During more than thirty trips to Guantanamo, Khan unexpectedly connected with the very men that Donald Rumsfeld called “the worst of the worst.” She brought them starbucks chai, the closest available drink to the kind of tea they would drink at home. And they quickly befriended her, offering fatherly advice as well as a uniquely personal insight into their plight, and that of their families thousands of miles away. As time went by Khan began to question whether Guantanamo truly held America’s most dangerous enemies. But regardless of each prisoner’s innocence or guilt, she was determined to preserve their most fundamental right, the right to a fair trial.

For Mahvish Rukhsana Khan, the experience was a validation of her Afghan heritage—as well as her American Freedoms, which allowed her to intervene at Guantanamo purely out of her sense that it was the right thing to do. Her story is challenging, brave, and essential test of who she is — and who we are.

Washington Post article on which the book is based

Hope and Despair - Book Review

Hope and Despair
by Monia Mazigh
Translated from French by Patricia Claxton and Fred Reed
McClelland and Stewart 2008
Maher Arar Website
Wikipedia
Kerry Pither




In November last year, I previewed a book written by Monia Mazigh, about her husband Maher Arar who was sent to (renditioned) Syria by the USA to be tortured, just because the USA thought he was a terrorist.

I have finally read this book - borrowed from the library - so I can now offer my opinion on this book. Once again, I read this straight through and could not put it down. It is not a large book - barely 260 pages. I read it in just 5 hours (6pm to 11pm) last night.

Maher Arar was born in Syria in 1970, the youngest of 6 children. In 1987 at the age of 17, he and his family immigrate to Canada, specifically so he would not have to do his compulsory militsayr sevice. Maher become a Canadian citizen in 1991 at the age of 21.

Maher attended McGill university in Montreal, where he was completing a degree in computer engineering. There he met Monia Mazigh. Monia is an arab fom Tunisia in North Africa. She had been raised speaking French and Arabic. Monia had immigrated to Quebec in 1990 at age 20 so she could continue her studies. Her brother was already in Canada, and he had sponsored her. Monia was also a student at McGill University where she was working on a PhD in finance and economics.

Maher and Monia were married in 1994. Their first child, a daughter Baraa, was born in 1997. Their second child, a son Houd, was born in early 2002. In the summer of 2002 the family took a 3 months vacation in Tunisia so Monia could see her family and her family could see theuir new grandchildren. Monia had not seen her family for 10 years.

Towards the end of the vacation, Maher was heading home to Canada early so that he would get back to work at his new start up company. A possible new contract had arrived and Maher needed to get home to make the sale. He promised to call his wife as soon as he got home to Montreal. Maher never arrived home.

When the family had gone on vacation, their baby son was just 4 months old, he did not have a full Canadian passport, only a Canadian travel permit valid for the three months the vacation was supposed to be. Maher had taken the permit back to canada with him in the hopes that he would get it renewed and then he would send the new one to Monia. The permit expired several days after Maher disappeared.

Monia was stuck in Tunisia alone with her two children. Two days after Maher disappeared, Monia called the Candian embassy in Tunis and she called Maher's lawyer in Ottawa. The embassy could not do anything apart from contacting the Consular services department in Ottawa and try and get some answers. Another 3 days passed before Monia got the call from Maher's mother that he had called, asked for a lawyer and said that he might be going to Syria. He had then hung up.

Monia called the laweyer back to tell them this information. The lawyer said that she needed to get an American lawyer. The consul from the Canadian consulate in New York City, went to the prison and visited Maher. Monia was told that Maher looked well,was asking after his wife and kids and that he was being charged with being an al-Qaeda terrorist. Monia was shocked. He was not an terrorist, and he had never participated in any terorist activities.

A month after Maher went missing, Monia was told that he was deported by the American govermnt to Syria. A coutry he had not lived in for over 15 years.

When Monia and her two children finally returned home to Canada, Maher was assumed to be a terrorist, jut because the Americans ha said he was.

This book details the struggles Monia had in Canada. In order to survive, to feed abd clothe and raise her two young children. Monia was forced to go on Welfare. Fortunately she did not have to work, because she still had a young baby. The money was not much, but it kept the family together and alive.

Monia also worked tirelessly telling the Canadian and American governments that her husband was NOT a terrorist and that USA had renditioned him purely because he was of the wrong race and because he was born in the wrong country. It took 13 months before Maher was finally released. It took another 2 years before the Canadfian giovernmenbt apologised to him for their part in his rendition.

The USA refuses to apologise. The USA still claims that Maher is a terrorist. And the USA still has Maher listed on their No-Fly lists. They refuse to remove his name.

I read this book for the Second Canadian Book Challenge.

New Book about Maher Arar

Hope and Despair: My Struggle to Free My Husband, Maher Arar
Written by Monia Mazigh
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
October 2008

For those of you who don't know, Maher Arar was a Canadian citizen (Born in Syria) who was returning to Canada from North Africa after visiting relatives. He had a Canadian passport, and he was changing planes at JFK airport in New York City in USA.


He was arrested by the US immigrations, accused of being a terrorist and sent to Syria to be tortured. This is a practice called RENDITION and is supported by the US government - well the BUSH administration anyway. We will have to wait and see what Obama does.

Arar's wife Monia had no idea that her husband had not returned home, as she was still in North Africa with her family. It was not until she arrived back in Canada to discover that he was not at home. That is when her terror, and her struggle began.

After Arar returned home, he filed a lawsuit against both the Canadian and American governments. The Canadian government apologised and paid him about $10 million. The US government refuses to accept responsibility, refuses to apologise for their wrong doing, still refuses to remove Arar's name from the terrorist no-fly list and the USA still claims that he is a terrorist.

Monia has written a book - which was released in October this year. I have not read this book, but I do want to get it and read it ASAP. Below is the blurb on the book.

This is the inspiring story of Monia Mazigh’s courageous fight to free her husband, Maher Arar, from a Syrian jail.

On September 26, 2002, Maher Arar boarded an American Airlines plane bound for New York, returning early from vacation with his family because a work project needed his attention. He was a Canadian citizen, a telecommunications engineer and entrepreneur who had never been in trouble with the law. His nightmare began when he was pulled aside by Immigration officials at JFK airport, questioned, held without access to a lawyer, and ultimately deported to Syria on the suspicion that he had terrorist links. He would remain there, tortured and imprisoned for over one year. Meanwhile his wife, Monia, and their two children stayed on visiting family in Tunisia, unaware that their lives were about to be torn apart.

Upon her return to Canada, Monia was horrified at the media’s and public’s willingness to assume that the Canadian police and intelligence agencies, and their American counterparts, take on her husband as a terrorist was correct. She began a tireless campaign to bring public attention and government action to her husband’s plight, eventually turning the tide of public opinion in Arar’s favour, and gaining his release and return to Canada. Of her willingness to speak out, she has said that she was never afraid: “I had lost my life. I didn’t have more to lose.”

This is a remarkable story of personal courage, and of an extraordinary woman who lets us into her life so that other Canadians can understand the denial of rights and the discarding of human rights her family suffered. Candid, poignant, and inspiring, this is the most important book of the season.