Hutto update: Harper accepts child imprisonment.

Update on the case of young Kevin, held in the T. Don Hutto Family Concentration Camp, down in sunny Texas. The ACLU has filed suit on behalf of Kevin, his father Majid and mother Masomeh as well as nine other detained children. The official Canadian response has been a cowardly failure to speak or to act, a disgrace to this nation.

Quoted in the CTV article Stephen Harper says, "his government isn't "in a position to dictate what happens in other jurisdictions."

What the sweet fuck is that supposed to mean? Canada's government isn't being asked to dictate, but it is certainly expected that it will advocate. Harper is nothing but a sad marionette and he refuses to pull back on the masters string. This abject failure to intercede on the behalf of a Canadian born child, imprisoned in conditions that fail to meet basic minimum standards, is a blight on this nation. We are not a nation that sanctions the organized state abuse of children. We are not a nation that refuses to address human rights issues in any nation.

Stephen Harper is a lying sack of crap. The Canadian government routinely comments on all manner of human rights abuses around the world. If Kevin and his family were named Stewart or Theberge or Bernstein, I suspect Mr. Harper would have rather more to say. I'm relatively sure that if China or Venezuela or Turkey were to imprison a Canadian child and his refugee parents, Mr. Harper would be far less reticent. I'm not used to being ashamed of Canada and I don't much like it.

Stephen Harper, not my Prime Minister.

PARDON THE INTERRUPTION (by CC): I don't want to step on PSA's toes on this post, but I wanted to point out that, when it suits him, PMSH has no problem whatsoever "dictating what happens in other jurisdictions":

[Huseyin] Celil's imprisonment has caused friction between Canada and China -- a nation whose human rights record has been publicly questioned by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, among others.

In fact, Harper pointedly spoke about Celil with Chinese President Hu Jintao while in Vietnam, where the two leaders were among 21 gathered for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit last November.

Harper also referred to Celil while en route to that conference.

"When a Canadian citizen is taken from a third country and imprisoned in China, this is a serious concern to this country," he said.

More recently, unnamed Canadian officials this week took to the media to slam Canadian diplomats for their failure to attend the hearing, and there were reports that Harper himself was upset at the handling of the case, The Globe reports.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay's spokesman, Dan Dugas, told The Globe that MacKay had personally called the Canadian embassy in Beijing.

"The Chinese government is not co-operating with the Canadian mission in China and we aren't going to stop asking them for what's happening with Mr. Celil," said Dugas. He would not comment directly on claims Harper was angered that no official was in the court.

"I can tell you he is not happy either," Dugas said, referring to MacKay. "He's asking for answers. He wants to know what is being done and what the next steps are going to be."

I'd ask Canada's wankers to discuss the double standard here, but I'm guessing they're all a bit tied up explaining how Scooter Libby is nothing at all like Bill Clinton. Or something like that.