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Is Canada doing enough to stop the flogging of a Saudi blogger?

Is Canada doing enough to stop the flogging of a Saudi blogger?

Sometime after prayers on Friday, it’s likely Raif Badawi will be led in front of a crowd outside a mosque in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and flogged.

It will be his second set of 50 lashes. Out of a thousand. He’s scheduled to receive them at a rate of 50 a week. It was postponed last week because a prison doctor determined wounds from the first 50 strokes, administered by a huge cane, hadn’t healed sufficiently to continue.

“In his sentence it was made clear that the lashes were to be administered with force,” Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada told Yahoo Canada News. “The eyewitnesses said that it was very clear while he was being flogged that he was in pain, he was grimacing, his back was arching.”

Badawi’s crime? Operating a blog the autocratic Islamic state has determined was blasphemous. He advocated for free speech and a sectarian state, a position that has also earned him 10 years in prison, along with the public flogging.


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Neve said his contacts in Saudi Arabia believe the lashes will continue Friday unless there’s another postponement, perhaps in response to outside pressure.

Badawi’s plight has spawned a growing international outcry, especially in light of earnest declarations about the right to freedom of expression in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to France was one of the national representatives who took part in a solidarity march after Islamic extremists killed staff of the satirical magazine.

So where does Canada fit in all of this, given the lucrative business its doing selling billions of dollars of military hardware to the desert kingdom?

Andrew Bennett, Canada’s ambassador for religious freedom, issued a statement two weeks ago condemning the flogging as “a gross violation of human dignity, which I strongly denounce.”

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird followed up last week, calling for clemency towards Badawi and reaffirming a commitment to protect human rights.

Amnesty calls for more action

But Neve believes Canada should be doing much more to rally support for Badawi, especially since his wife, Ensaf, and their children are living in Quebec as refugees.

“We have a pretty strong claim to be the country that should lead that kind of international effort,” he said.

Saudi Arabia generally ignores international concerns about its human rights violations, said Neve, which makes it important for a coalition of countries to speak as one and demand Badawi’s release.

But Canada, like other Saudi allies in the West, seems ready to subordinate human rights in favour of other priorities, judging from Baird’s diplomatically worded statement.

“What we have heard from Canada, and many governments have nuanced it this way, [is that] they’ve expressed concern but have not specifically and explicitly said, ‘do not lash him and free him from prison,’ ” said Neve.

There are three main reasons why western governments “go soft” on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, he said.

It remains an oil superpower, as demonstrated by the how it spearheaded OPEC’s decision not to cut production in the face of slowing demand, triggering the recent price collapse.

It’s also considered a strategic partner in the global war on terror, despite the fundamentalist strain of Islam that still lingers there.

And its immense wealth has made it a treasured customer for western goods, including the very best in military equipment.

Last February, Ottawa trumpeted a deal to sell Saudi Arabia light armoured vehicles built by General Dynamic Land Systems of London, Ont., worth between $10 billion and $15 billion (if service contracts are included).

It was, International Trade Minister Ed Fast said at the time, the largest advanced manufacturing deal in Canadian history.

Project Ploughshares, a broad-based organization that promotes peace, said that was the first time Saudi Arabia has replaced the United States as the largest recipient of military contracts brokered by the government’s Canadian Commercial Corp.

"Events are kind of catching up now," Kenneth Epps, the group’s recently retired arms-trade expert, told Yahoo Canada News.

"We have been trying to draw attention to the fact that it’s been the largest military equipment sale in Canada’s history, and it’s with a regime that has a very poor human rights record.”

Long-standing arms trade relationship

Saudi Arabia has been a major customer for Canadian arms since the early 1990s, said Epps.

While there is de facto free trade in military goods between Canada and the United States, exports to other countries can be reviewed by the foreign affairs minister. They’re supposed to be subject to guidelines, including in the area of human rights, said Epps.

“But none of this is made public,” he said. “It’s all an internal process within the department and it’s not transparent at all.”

The department does not release information on which countries have been denied export permits, so it’s not known who Canada won’t sell to, said Epps.

“The only evidence we have in the final analysis is what the government reports as having been sold,” he said, adding that based on the decision to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, “we can assume the bar [for trade partners] is not that high.”

Yahoo Canada News contacted Fast’s office to find out what conditions might have been attached to the armoured vehicle purchase.

"Canada has some of the strongest export controls in the world, including through the Export and Import Permits Act," Nicholas Doire, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Development, responded via email. "All proposed exports of goods and technology controlled under the act are carefully reviewed before a permit is issued.

"For reasons of commercial confidentiality, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development does not comment on specific applications."

Doire also reiterated Baird’s earlier statement that “Canada has an active partnership and candid relationship with Saudi Arabia, and believes it can play a positive role in many of the region’s security challenges.

"We will maintain an ongoing, respectful dialogue with Saudi Arabia on a number of issues, including human rights."

Neve said at this point there’s little Badawi’s advocates can do except to maintain the pressure on Saudi Arabia in hopes authorities there become uncomfortable enough to eventually cave in.

"As disheartening as the case is, it’s been very heartening to see how quickly internationally public opinion has built on this case," he said.