Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Picking and choosing who to help.

Stockwell Day is in Saudi Arabia hoping to persuade Saudi authorities to revoke the beheading sentence imposed on a Canadian citizen. In the case of another Canadian in the U.S. the Conservative government would not even pick up the phone to ask for leniency.
While Stockwell Day is pleading on behalf of a convicted murderer in Saudi Arabia government lawyers were in court trying to prevent Omar Khadr's lawyers from obtaining information that might help in his defence. While France, as well as Canadian lawyers, have spoken up in Khadr's defence the government has been wholly silent.
The article on the Saudi Arabia case is at CBC. I support Day's attempt to have the Saudi conviction overturned but the Conservative government should also have requested clemency in the case of the Canadian convicted in Montana and sentenced to death. In the Khadr case, Canada is in effect an international pariah. Every other western country has intervened on behalf of any of its nationals imprisoned at Guantanamo. Added to this is the fact that Khadr was still a child when imprisoned.

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