Saudi Arabia\u2019s foreign minister asked Canada to apologise for demanding the release of Saudi women\u2019s rights activists and stop treating the kingdom as \u201ca banana republic\u201d if it wanted to resolve a diplomatic dispute between the two countries.<\/p>\n
In August, Saudi Arabia froze new trade with Canada, blocked grain imports, expelled Canada\u2019s ambassador and ordered all Saudi students home after Ottawa called for the release of activists detained for urging more rights for women.<\/p>\n
Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday she hoped to meet with her Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir this week on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is outrageous from our perspective that a country will sit there and lecture us and make demands … We demand the immediate release and independence of Quebec, granting of equal rights to Canadian Indians. What on earth are you talking about?,\u201d al-Jubeir said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can criticise us about human rights, women\u2019s rights … others do and that\u2019s your right. You can sit down and talk about it, but demand the immediate release? What are we, a banana republic? Would any country accept it? No! We don\u2019t,\u201d al-Jubeir said.<\/p>\n
The dispute arose from Canada\u2019s criticism over the arrests, including that of prominent women\u2019s rights campaigner Samar Badawi. Her brother Raif Badawi, a prominent blogger, is serving a 10-year sentence and has been publicly flogged for expressing dissenting opinions online. His wife and children live in Canada and are Canadian citizens.<\/p>\n
A number of women\u2019s rights activists, who campaigned for the right to drive and an end to the kingdom\u2019s male guardianship system, have been targeted in a government crackdown in recent months, human rights\u2019 groups say.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be a political football in Canada\u2019s domestic politics. Find another ball to play with. It\u2019s very easy to fix. Apologise and say you made a mistake,\u201d al-Jubeir said.<\/p>\n
Freeland said on Tuesday that Ottawa would not be changing its fundamental position.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada will always stand up for human rights … we feel a particular obligation to women who are fighting for their rights around the world,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we feel a particular obligation to people who have a personal connection to Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saudi Arabia\u2019s foreign minister asked Canada to apologise for demanding the release of Saudi women\u2019s rights activists and stop treating the kingdom as \u201ca banana republic\u201d if it wanted to resolve a diplomatic dispute between the two countries. In August, Saudi Arabia froze new trade with Canada, blocked grain imports, expelled Canada\u2019s ambassador and ordered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43281,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43279\/revisions\/43281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}