Reports on Human Rights Practices.96 It remains unclear whether the immigration regulations that should govern cases like Arar’s were followed. In November 2003, just days after Maher Arar was released from Syrian custody, President Bush claimed in a speech that instead of restoring national honor, the government of Syria had left “a legacy of torture, oppression, misery, and ruin.”97 In January 2005, the Bush administration named Syria as a country that actively sponsors terrorism and encouraged the Syrian government to “open the door to freedom.”98 As one commentator has noted: From the U.S. perspective, Syria is led by a gangster regime that has among other things, sponsored terrorism, aided the insurgency in Iraq, and engaged in torture. So here’s the question. If Syria is such a bad actor—and it is—why would the Bush administration seize a Canadian citizen at Kennedy Airport in New York, put him on an executive jet, fly him in shackles to the Middle East and then hand him over to the Syrians, who promptly tortured him?99 96 See United States Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2001: Syria published on March 4, 2002 [online] http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/nea/8298.htm (retrieved March 29, 2005). Maher Arar was transferred to Syria in September 2002 and this report would have been an indicator at that time of Syria’s torture practices. The report stated that “torture methods include administering electrical shocks; pulling out fingernails; forcing objects into the rectum; beating, sometimes while the victim is suspended from the ceiling; hyperextending the spine; and using a chair that bends backwards to asphyxiate the victim or fracture the victim's spine. In September [2001] Amnesty International published a report claiming that authorities at Tadmur Prison regularly torture prisoners, or force prisoners to torture one another. Although torture occurs in prisons, torture is most likely to occur while detainees are being held at one of the many detention centers run by the various security services throughout the country, and particularly while the authorities are attempting to extract a confession or information regarding an alleged crime or alleged accomplices…There have been reports that security personnel force prisoners to watch relatives being tortured in order to extract confessions.” Subsequent Country Reports of 2002-2005 state that torture is an on-going serious human rights problem in Syria. For example, the 2005 State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices stated that torture in Syria is frequent and a common occurrence and documents the same torture methods as the 2001 report. It also states that “[t]orture was most likely to occur while detainees were being held at one of the many detention centers run by the various security services throughout the country, particularly while the authorities were attempting to extract a confession or information.” See United States Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004: Syria, published on February 28, 2005 [online] http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41732.htm (retrieved March 1, 2005). 97 Remarks by the President George W. Bush on the Occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, November 6, 2003 [online] http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-2.html (retrieved March 25, 2005). 98 President George W. Bush, 2005 State of the Union Address, February 2, 2005 [online] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/transcripts/bushtext_020205.html#syria (retrieved February 22, 2005). 99 Bob Herbert, “Our Friends, the Torturers,” New York Times, February 18, 2005 [online] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/18/opinion/18herbert.html?ex=1109653200&en=c5874c0077dd21bc&ei=5070 (retrieved February 22, 2005). HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17 NO. 4(D) 34