Canada recalls torture manual

OTTAWA, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- Canada's government has ordered a manual defining torture rewritten because it included U.S.-run and Israeli sites as possible torture locations.

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier ordered the "Torture Awareness Workshop Reference Materials" -- a manual providing legal definitions of torture -- rewritten because of references to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the United States and Israel, The Toronto Star said Sunday.

"I regret the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual used in the department's torture awareness training. It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies," Bernier said in a statement.

Critics said the Canadian government was pandering to its political allies rather than addressing human rights issues.

"The government is more concerned with international relations than making sure Canadian citizens aren't tortured," Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman told the newspaper.

Waldman represented Canadian Maher Arar, who was arrested in New York as a terror suspect and deported to Syria by U.S. officials. He was allegedly tortured and held without charge for more than a year. The Canadian government apologized to Arar last year and paid him $11.5 million for supplying wrong information to U.S. officials, The Star said.

The manual was inadvertently released as a part of the government's disclosure in a case brought by Amnesty International concerning prisoners in Afghanistan.