{"id":205911,"date":"2019-03-09T04:00:35","date_gmt":"2019-03-09T09:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=205911"},"modified":"2019-03-09T04:00:35","modified_gmt":"2019-03-09T09:00:35","slug":"canada-must-do-more-to-help-jailed-saudi-women-amnesty-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/03\/09\/canada-must-do-more-to-help-jailed-saudi-women-amnesty-international\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada must do more to help jailed Saudi women: Amnesty International"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An international rights group urged the federal government Friday to finally break its silence and loudly and specifically speak out against Saudi Arabia for jailing women who have been fighting for rights in their country. (File Photo: Jackie Hansen\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA \u2014 An international rights group urged the federal government Friday to finally break its silence and loudly and specifically speak out against Saudi Arabia for jailing women who have been fighting for rights in their country.<\/p>\n

Canada\u00a0was one of three dozen countries that jointly signed a United Nations Human Rights Council statement this week condemning Saudi Arabia for arresting 10 mainly female activists jailed as part of an ongoing crackdown on rights advocates in the kingdom.<\/p>\n

Canada\u00a0did speak out against Saudi Arabia for jailing female activists last summer \u2014 statements that led to economic consequences and diplomatic tensions between the two countries.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0Canada\u00a0has been muted in its calls for action since then, says Jacqueline Hansen, Amnesty International\u00a0Canada’s gender rights campaigner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are so grateful that\u00a0Canada\u00a0did speak out, but we want to see\u00a0Canada\u00a0continuing to speak out, and speaking out with specificity,\u201d Hansen said.<\/p>\n

She pointed to a statement issued by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday recognizing International Women’s Day, in which she said\u00a0Canada\u00a0\u201dwill always stand up for human rights \u2014 very much including women’s rights \u2014 even when speaking up has consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Saudi prisoners face serious consequences for speaking out, Hansen said, which is why more targeted messaging condemning their treatment is needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more public outcry about this from\u00a0Canada\u00a0and from other governments. We need it to be specific, not just saying, ‘We support women’s rights,’ but to talk about the rights that these women are defending and to talk about what we need to do to advocate for their release.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada\u00a0and Saudi Arabia became embroiled in a diplomatic spat after tweets last August from Freeland, her department, and the Canadian embassy in Saudi Arabia expressed concerns about the arrests of activists in the kingdom and called for their immediate release.<\/p>\n

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

The kingdom also suspended scholarships for Saudi students in\u00a0Canada\u00a0and sanctioned Canadian business interests.<\/p>\n

Freeland defended\u00a0Canada’s position, citing her government’s dedication to standing up for women’s rights at home and abroad. A few months later, Freeland condemned the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which Saudi Arabia confirmed took place in its consulate in Istanbul.<\/p>\n

Canada\u00a0later announced sanctions against 17 Saudi nationals linked to the killing.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the Liberals have faced pressure to end a $15-billion Saudi arms deal that includes providing armoured vehicles to the kingdom. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has expressed concern over killing the estimated $1 billion contract and has raised the spectre of job losses at the General Dynamics factory in Ontario, which is contracted to build the military vehicles.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International has been working with the families of the jailed activists and recently received consent from family members and the activists themselves to mount a more vocal campaign calling for their release.<\/p>\n

The need for action has intensified after reports, including from a multi-party panel of MPs in the U.K., the detained women have endured conditions in prison that meet the threshold of torture under international and Saudi law.<\/p>\n

If the Trudeau government is dedicated to forwarding its international feminist agenda, it must continue to call for these women to be released, Amnesty International\u00a0Canada\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada\u00a0has signed international human rights instruments, we’re part of the international community. We can’t just sit by and not say anything when these things happen. To have a feminist foreign policy means you need to be taking actions in a feminist way,\u201d Hansen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everybody in the world says, ‘This is terrible’ once and then stops doing anything, nothing will happen. So it really is about sustaining that pressure on authorities to release them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the human-rights organization hopes\u00a0Canada\u00a0will echo calls for Saudi Arabia to allow an independent investigation into reports the female prisoners have been tortured.<\/p>\n

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

OTTAWA \u2014 An international rights group urged the federal government Friday to finally break its silence and loudly and specifically …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":205912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-teresa-wright","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205911","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=205911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}