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.

Sorrow Mountain - Book Review

Sorrow Mountain
The Remarkable Story of a Tibetan Warrior Nun
by Ani Pachen & Adelaide Donnelly
Bantam Books 2001
Forward by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Preface by Richard Gere
This is the story of Pachen Dolma "Ani", a Tibetan woman born in the region of Gonjo in 1933. The only daughter of the local chieftain, Ani grew up learning the things a chieftain must know. When she over heard her parents arranging a marriage for her, she fled to a monastery and became a buddhist nun.


In 1949 the Chinese invaded Eastern Tibet (the Province now called Qinghai - but in Tibetan it is called Amdo). As the years passed, the Chinese slowly moved southwards. By 1958 the Chinese had invaded the region called Kham in Eastern Tibet where Ani lived. That same year when her father died, Ani came home and became the village chieftain. The Chinese were getting closer every day, and she called for the village people to evacuate. The plan was to walk south to the Himalayas, ahead of the Chinese, and hopefully to cross the border into India, where the Dalai Lama was living. They never made it.

Ani was captured by the Chinese and spent the next 21 years [1960 to 1981] in prisons. She was finally released in 1981, and then spent several years following her childhood dream and learning the Buddhist way, under a teacher. She was in Lhasa during the 1987 & 1988 riots, and shortly after, she was told that the Chinese were following her. So Ani decided that it was a good time to leave. Ani took a long and perilous journey via Mt Kailash over the mountains into Nepal, and then into Northern India. In 1989 Ani arrived in Dharamsala and got to meet the Dalai Lama. Only then did she finally feel truely free.

Ani Pachen died in 2002.

In light of the current uprising in Tibet - on the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's being forced into exile, I feel that this book is an excellent book for learning about the Tibetan culture, and how proud they are of their independence. They are a peaceful people, they love freedom, and all they ask of China - is to let them be a free nation.

For those of you reading about China claiming that the Tibetan monks were rioting and causing the Chinese to shoot - well here is proof that the chinese LIED. Photo of Chinese soldiers wearing monks clothing. It's not the first time they have done this.

Friends of Tibet - News and History
Ani Pachen Obituary
Wikipedia biography