Um ... OK:
Baird seeks high-level meeting in Ethiopia to press for jailed Canadian's freedom
Ottawa MP and senior cabinet minister John Baird is hoping to fly to Addis Ababa this month to press for the release of Bashir Makhtal, a Canadian citizen who has been in an Ethiopian jail for more than two years.
Earlier this week Baird made the formal request to the Ethiopian government for a meeting with a senior official. Thursday, he would not confirm which official, but it is believed to be Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Baird would like to travel during the Parliamentary recess, which is April 14 to 19.
So, if I understand this correctly, the Harper government is going to explicitly intervene on behalf of a Canadian citizen who is in prison in a foreign country, but will do nothing to aid an innocent Canadian citizen residing in a Canadian embassy for whom it needs to do nothing more than issue an emergency passport.
Please tell me I'm misunderstanding this. Because the thought that I'm understanding it correctly makes me want to strangle puppies. Or Conservatives.
P.S. I could have sworn that the reason Stephen Harper and the Harperettes never intervened on behalf of child soldier Omar Khadr was because it would be unseemly and inappropriate to interfere with the legal proceedings of another country.
Apparently, things have changed.
1 comment:
There's a story about what the Harper government has done to the Canadian foreign service that is waiting to be told, I'm sure. I've never seen such disarray in foreign affairs in my entire life.
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