A mistake has been made

Saudi Arabia is simply furious that Canada’s Foreign Minister had the audacity to say SA shouldn’t arrest human rights activists.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, said the kingdom was still “considering additional measures” against Canada. He did not elaborate.

“There is nothing to mediate. A mistake has been made and a mistake should be corrected,” he told a news conference in Riyadh.

Several countries have expressed support for Saudi Arabia, including Egypt and Russia, which both told Ottawa it was unacceptable to lecture the kingdom on human rights.

Yes, that’s unacceptable all right. Violations of human rights are just fine, in fact they’re glorious, but lecturing states about human rights, that is totally unacceptable.

Hey, any countries out there want to criticize the US on human rights? Please do. Criticize us for our massive rate of incarceration, for tearing children away from their parents at border crossings, for the death penalty, for union-busting, for escalating gun violence, for bad public schools.

“We have always said that the politicisation of human rights matters is unacceptable,” Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, told reporters on Wednesday.

Yes well they would, wouldn’t they, working in Putin’s authoritarian regime.

Meanwhile, the United States – one of Canada’s closest allies – has so far refused to wade into the row.

“It’s up for the government of Saudi Arabia and the Canadians to work this out,” said Heather Nauert, a spokesperson for the state department, on Tuesday. “Both sides need to diplomatically resolve this together. We can’t do it for them.”

Because Trump and his administration could not care less about human rights in Saudi Arabia…or anywhere else, for that matter.

[T]he kingdom has continued to announce measures against Canada, including urgent plans to remove tens of thousands of Saudi students and an unspecified number of medical patients from Canada.

Saudi Arabia’s state airline said it would suspend flights to and from Canada, starting next week.

Saudi Arabia’s main state wheat buying agency, the Saudi Grains Organization, has also told grains exporters it will no longer accept Canadian-origin grains in its international purchase tenders, according to European traders.

Most of this sounds as if it’s more damaging to them than to Canada. “We’ll show you, we’ll take away our students and our medical patients!”

I think this whole thing is long overdue; the US and many of its allies have been turning a blind eye to the tyrannical obscurantist mess that is Saudi Arabia for way too long.

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