25 January 2004	Sunday	02 Zilhaj 1424

MONTREAL: When police raided an Ottawa journalist's office and home this week because of an article she wrote about a Canadian deported from the United States to face torture in Syria , it was a reminder how closely this country has followed the US lead in the "war on terrorism".

Just four months after Sept 11, 2001, Canada's parliament passed sweeping legislation, the Anti-Terrorism Act (Bill C-36), which amended 19 existing laws and allowed authorities to suspend long-held judicial rights to combat vague threats.

But aside from that new law, 9/11 ushered in a climate that has emboldened security agencies to make use of extraordinary powers that were already part of the legal system but seldom employed, according to experts.

Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill had her office and home searched and her computer and notes seized on Wednesday by officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) searching to discover who "leaked" information to her about the case of Maher Arar.

Arar is the Syrian-born Canadian who was stopped in New York in June 2002 on his way home following a holiday in Tunisia. Nine days later US officials deported him to Damascus, where he was jailed and tortured for 10 months.

On Thursday, Arar filed a lawsuit against US Attorney General John Ashcroft for deporting him to a country that US officials knew practised torture. He wants an apology and unspecified damages from Washington.

Canadian security agencies have denied they were involved in Arar's deportation, although US officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, have suggested otherwise.

In her article, O'Neill included details about Arar's alleged stay in a "terrorist training" camp, information the RCMP says could only have come from a document protected by the post-9/11 Security of Information Act.

If O'Neill is charged with breaching that law, she faces up to 14 years in jail. The Security of Information Act is basically the former Official Secrets Act, revamped in the fear-filled months that followed 9/11.

Neither this nor other measures in the anti-terrorism laws have been used often by authorities to target suspected terrorists. Late last year the Supreme Court heard the appeal of a man who was forced to testify in a secret hearing, a process created by Bill C-36, about a plane bombing in the 1980s.

It is the only known instance of the Anti-Terrorism Act being used to date. Yet judicial rights continue to be violated in the name of security, say experts.

"Canada's anti-terrorism legislation is broader than the anti- terrorism act. It plays out in a number of different pieces (of legislation)," says Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada.

For instance, authorities are beginning to employ a rarely used measure in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, called the security certificate, says Neve in an interview.

"There are at least five cases of individuals who have been arrested under the (Immigration Act), who are facing deportation from Canada on allegations that they have some sort of link or are involved in terrorism activities," he says.-Dawn/The InterPress News Service.