Saudi Arabia expels Canada’s ambassador in human rights row

SAUDI ARABIA yesterday expelled Canada’s ambassador and froze trade links after the country criticised the kingdom’s recent arrest of women’s rights activists.

Canadian diplomats last Friday said Ottawa was “gravely concerned” about the arrests and called for the activists’ immediate release.

Saudi Arabia responded by ordering the Canadian ambassador to leave within 24 hours and recalling its own envoy back to Riyadh.

“Any further step from the Canadian side in that direction will be considered as acknowledgement of our right to interfere in Canadian domestic affairs,” Saudi’s foreign ministry said in an unusually aggressive statement. “Canada and all nations need to know that they can’t claim to be more concerned than the kingdom over its own citizens.”

The foreign ministry also said it would suspend education exchange programmes with Canada, which some 15,000 Saudi students are enrolled on, and freeze “all new business”.

The ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom arrested two women’s rights activists last week, including Samar Badawi, whose brother, Raif Badawi, was detained in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and later sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for criticising clerics. Ensaf Haidar, his wife, now lives in Canada.

Marie-pier Baril, a spokesman for Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister, said they were “seriously concerned” by Saudi Arabia’s actions. “Canada will always stand up for the protection of human rights, very much including women’s rights, and freedom of expression around the world,” she said. “Our government will never hesitate to promote these values and believes that this dialogue is critical to international diplomacy.”

Almost immediately after the news broke, Saudi Twitter accounts began tweeting similarly phrased messages of their “concern” for Canada’s own treatment of First Nation [indigenous peoples] members and the need for Quebec to gain independence.

Recent Saudi reforms included lifting the ban on women driving. However, more than a dozen rights activists were arrested before the ban was lifted in June and accused of illegal contact with “foreign entities”.