As of September 6th 2005, Sophie will have spent one thousand and one nights living under the shadow of destruction that began when her husband Mohammed was arrested via the auspices of the CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) Certificate, accused of having ties to terrorists. Within moments, anyone associated with a man detained behind the secret evidence of the Security Certificate has a new descriptive. In the case of Sophie, she has gone from being the wife of Mohammed or “Moe

On one of the hottest and most humid evenings Ottawa has experienced this summer, I sit across a patio table from Sophie Harkat, watching her wipe her brow and fan herself as students chatter around us. She is irritated and tired after a long day and warns me that I "don't want to catch [her] in a bad mood on a hot day". I take this as my cue to not engage in an interview just yet, and instead listen to her recount some wildly funny moments about a day that included two documentary film makers, a lawyer, a motorcycle and an interesting bus ride.

I can listen to Sophie talk for hours, but the arrival of her Diet Pepsi occasions a slight pause on her part, and so I begin my interview.

‘Alf Layla wa Layla’, more commonly known as ‘One Thousand and One Nights’, is one of the most famous Middle Eastern stories known to the Western world. One might use current parlance to say that it has often been used to “profile