Treatment of Muslims and Arabs by RCMP and CSIS raises troubling questions, says Riad Saloojee

Reports about RCMP and CSIS security visitations in the Canadian Muslim and Arab community have been circulating since Sept. 11, 2001. In many of these instances - some documented, some not - individuals who were visited by security officials complained they had been harassed or intimidated. Documenting this information has been difficult. People are afraid to identify themselves, they are concerned about reprisal and many hail from countries where reporting on abuse of power is a no-no. Even in Canada, experts in anti-discrimination advocacy recognize that only a small fraction of such activity is documented. Imagine then, the reticence about reporting when - whether correct or not - an individual ran the risk of being "linked" to terrorism in the public eye. The stigma of being labelled a terrorist packs a punch akin to being called a pedophile or serial killer. Not everyone has the guts and grit of Maher Arar to defend his or her rights.

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