Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror
My friend Kerry Pither’s book, "Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror," will be in stores August 26. Any one who knows Kerry knows, that whatever she does is exact and complete. She wrote this book and she did the behind the scenes communications work on the Maher Arar case, dedicating years of her life to do something, simply because, it is the right thing to do. She did the same on the East Timor Issue here in Canada. I am thankful for what she has done on both of those issues as are many others, and those intimitately affected by them.
Congatulations Kerry!
There will be two launches — one in Toronto on Tuesday, August 26, and one in Ottawa on Wednesday, August 27, starting at 6. Details TBD.
Penguin Books Write Up:
On August 26, 2008 Penguin Group (Canada) will release Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror by Kerry Pither. Dark Days is an exposé of Canadian national security investigations, told for the first time through the eyes of four of their targets: Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki, Maher Arar and Muayyed Nureddin. All are Muslim-Canadian men who were accused of terrorist links, then imprisoned abroad, tortured and interrogated with questions that point to Canada’s involvement in the process. All were eventually released without charge. Through first-person testimonials and government records, Dark Days argues that what happened to these men is rooted in a systemic pattern of complicity in torture, and cannot be explained away as coincidence or a series of mistakes.
Since the attacks of 9/11, much has been published about "terror suspects" through the eyes of investigators. Very little has been written about these agencies through the perspective of the people and communities they have targeted. Dark Days chronicles the human stories of these men—from their first encounters with CSIS and the RCMP, to their overseas incarceration, torture and interrogation, to their eventual release and the long wait for answers.
Written with the narrative drive of a thriller, Kerry Pither’s Dark Days exposes a disturbing record of human-rights abuses, both at home and abroad, and ultimately questions our notion of the "Just Society".
