{"id":175325,"date":"2018-08-06T21:41:16","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T01:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=175325"},"modified":"2018-08-08T00:26:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T04:26:45","slug":"freeland-defends-canadas-position-says-will-always-speak-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/06\/freeland-defends-canadas-position-says-will-always-speak-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeland defends Canada’s position, says it will always speak up for human rights"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
File Photo: \u201cWe are always going to speak up for human rights, we are always going to speak up for women’s rights and that is not going to change,\u201d Freeland said. (Photo<\/a> by \u041a\u0430\u0431\u0456\u043d\u0435\u0442 \u041c\u0456\u043d\u0456\u0441\u0442\u0440\u0456\u0432 \u0423\u043a\u0440\u0430\u0457\u043d\u0438\/Wikimedia, CC BY 4.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Ottawa will wait to hear more details from Saudi Arabia before responding to the country’s decision to freeze new trade deals and expel\u00a0Canada’s ambassador, she defended\u00a0Canada’s position, insisting Ottawa will always stand up for human rights.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters in Vancouver on Monday, Freeland said\u00a0Canada\u00a0is \u201cvery comfortable\u201d with its position that led to the new measures announced by Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are always going to speak up for human rights, we are always going to speak up for women’s rights and that is not going to change,\u201d Freeland said.<\/p>\n

Freeland said Canadians \u201cexpect\u201d its foreign policy to be driven by Canadian values.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia’s move to freeze new trade deals could threaten\u00a0Canada’s $15-billion arms deal that includes providing armoured vehicles to the country, but Freeland called it \u201cpremature\u201d to comment on the status of the deal, or the economic consequences of the move.<\/p>\n

Thomas Juneau, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, said because the statement Sunday from Saudi Arabia specified that new trade deals will freeze, it is difficult to determine what the economic impact will be.<\/p>\n

On one hand, it would be a bad scenario to cancel the arms deals, but on the other, many human rights groups have criticized\u00a0Canada’s decision to sell armoured vehicles to a regime with a \u201chorrible human rights record,\u201d Juneau said.<\/p>\n

Freeland’s comments come a day after Saudi Arabia made the decision in retaliation to a Global Affairs tweet that \u201cCanada\u00a0is gravely concerned about additional arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia, including Samar Badawi. We urge the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and all other peaceful human rights activists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Saudi foreign ministry ordered\u00a0Canada’s ambassador, Dennis Horak, to leave the country and called the use of \u201cimmediately release\u201d in\u00a0Canada’s tweet \u201cunfortunate, reprehensible, and unacceptable in relations between states.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also said, \u201cAny other attempt to interfere with our internal affairs from\u00a0Canada, means that we are allowed to interfere in\u00a0Canada’s internal affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amnesty International has said Badawi, the sister of jailed blogger Raif Badawi, was recently detained along with Nassima al-Sada, another prominent female activist.<\/p>\n

Freeland would only tell reporters Monday that the Canadian ambassador is \u201cfine\u201d and would not disclose his location. Freeland said the embassy in Saudi Arabia is still in place and providing services to Canadians.<\/p>\n

Freeland also commented briefly on reports that Saudi Arabia is cancelling scholarships for more than 15,000 Saudi students attending university in\u00a0Canada, saying it would be a \u201cshame\u201d if those students lost the opportunity to study in\u00a0Canada.<\/p>\n

Bessma Momani, an analyst on Middle East affairs and professor at the University of Waterloo, said the move will resonate domestically.<\/p>\n

Momani called it, \u201cgetting tough on\u00a0Canada\u201d, which she said other countries in the region might welcome if they view Canadian foreign policy to be led by human rights concerns.<\/p>\n

There could be a sentiment among allies that, \u201cFinally the Trudeau government is getting poked back in the eye by the Saudis.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, it sends a strong message to European countries but also countries in the Middle East not to \u201cmess\u201d with Saudi Arabia, Juneau said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a clear, uniquely Saudi dimension to this in the sense that in the last three years Saudi Arabia has been behaving very aggressively and assertively in the Middle East,\u201d he said, noting the blockade of Qatar and the war in Yemen.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Saudi Arabia to punish\u00a0Canada, it’s fairly easy because we’re not an important country for them, either are they for us,\u201d he said, adding that it does send a message to others that it will not accept criticism.<\/p>\n

Regardless of how allies and others are perceiving the measure, it has rallied support among Saudis, said Momani, adding that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has a very young nationalistic base, many of whom have taken to Twitter to celebrate the decision and simultaneously criticize\u00a0Canada.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Media said in a tweet earlier Monday that it is investigating a Twitter account that posted a photo of an Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0plane heading toward the CN Tower, eerily reminiscent of the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

The ministry said it ordered the owner of the account to shut it down while investigations are completed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Ottawa will wait to hear more details from Saudi Arabia before responding to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":175328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-janice-dickson","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}