Abousfian Abdelrazik is a Canadian citizen from Montreal. In 2003 he took a trip to Sudan to visit his mother. While he was there, the authorities arrested him and he was jailed as a suspected terrorist.

While in detention Abdelrazik was beaten, tortured and interrogated. He says his interrogators included CSIS and US counter-terrorism agents.

Eleven months on, Sudanese authorities announced that he was innocent and he was released from jail. His lawyers say he was also cleared by US and CSIS agents.

The George Bush administration placed Abdelrazik on a UN Security Council terrorist blacklist and also on an international no-fly list - which, while not preventing him from being repatriated, presented obvious difficulties.

After being stuck in limbo, living in the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum where he slept in a cot in the lobby - Abdelrazik received word that the Canadian government would allow his return to Canada if he had a purchased ticket. Supporters of Abdelrazik pooled their money to send him around $1000 for the ticket.

Two hours before he was due to board the flight home, he received news that Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon had denied him a passport on the basis of national security concerns.

This is not only unconstitutional, it is a violation of Abdelrazik's civil liberties.

It should be pointed out that there are no charges against Abdelrazik. CSIS and the RCMP aren't after him for anything. Moreover this alleged 'terror risk' not fit to enter Canada, was allowed to hang out in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum and even sleep in the lobby. It doesn't add up.

The use of 'security concerns' to block Abousfian Abdelrazik's re-entry comes on the heels of the Galloway ban. Harper hiding-behind-Kenney, and Kenney hiding-behind-Border-Control branded the five times elected British MP George Galloway a security threat and banned him from entering Canada. Their decision made Canada the laughing stock of the international community. And of course the reason for the ban had nothing to do with the 'security threat' Galloway is alleged to pose - the real reason was because Harper couldn't handle the idea of Galloway bringing his anti-war message into town.

NDP foreign affairs critic, Paul Dewar, made a comparison between the treatment of Abdelrazik and that received by Brenda Martin, a Canadian woman jailed in Mexico. He pointed out that a private jet was dispatched to bring Martin home and added that if Abdelrazik had been someone with a different skin color and a different last name, the outcome might well have been different.

The term 'Kafkaesque' has been used to describe Abdelrazik's predicament. Anyone who is familiar with the works of the great Czech writer knows that the use of the term isn't altogether far-fetched. Abdelrazik, like Joseph K in The Trial, stands accused without having been charged with any specific crime.