https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/saudi-a ... -1.4781002
https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-a ... ade-2018-8The diplomatic row, wherein the petulant Saudis have recalled their ambassador from Ottawa and threatened to pull out thousands of their students and patients from Canadian universities and hospitals, is emblematic of a liberal international system that is wobbling, though it still has proponents.
By now, it is evident that the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a hardliner who does not brook any dissent against the kingdom's monarchical absolutism. His loosening of social restrictions on Saudi women and imposition of restraints on the conservative Wahhabi clerical establishment impressed many, but political persecution of activists has simultaneously increased since the 32-year-old crown prince became the de facto king in 2017.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... support-usSaudi Arabia and Canada's diplomatic feud over human rights took a bizarre turn recently when the kingdom unleashed a smear campaign targeting Canada's treatment of women.
After the Canadian Foreign Ministry called for the immediate release of women's-rights activists detained in Saudi Arabia, the kingdom unleashed an attack that cut nearly every dimension of bilateral ties between the two countries.
Fahad Alshlimi, a Kuwaiti commentator, said on Saudi TV last week that Canada had one of the world's worst records for its treatment of women, according to a translation from the National Post. Other commentators on Saudi media pointed to the disappearance of about 1,000 indigenous Canadian women over the past hundred or so years.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned on investigating these disappearances, and he has since launched an investigation with $41 million budget to find answers.
Canada’s lonely stance was swiftly noticed north of the border. “We do not have a single friend in the whole entire world,” Rachel Curran, a policy director under former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, lamented on Twitter.
The UK was similarly muted in its response, noted Bob Rae, a former leader of the federal Liberal party. “The Brits and the Trumpians run for cover and say ‘we’re friends with both the Saudis and the Canadians,’” Rae wrote on Twitter. “Thanks for the support for human rights, guys, and we’ll remember this one for sure.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/4373334/saud ... -cn-tower/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/saudi- ... -1.4775133Amid an escalating diplomatic spat between Canada and Saudi Arabia, a Saudi youth organization shared and then deleted an image on Twitter that appeared to show an Air Canada plane heading toward the CN Tower in Toronto, evoking images of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S.
“As the Arabic saying goes: ‘He who interferes with what doesn’t concern him finds what doesn’t please him,'” reads a message superimposed over the image from the Twitter account @infographic_KSA on Monday. It also accused Canada of “sticking one’s nose where it doesn’t belong.”
audi Arabia said on Sunday that it is ordering Canada's ambassador to leave the country and freezing all new trade and investment transactions with Canada in a spat over human rights.
"We consider the Canadian ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia persona non grata and order him to leave within the next 24 hours," Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.
"Any other attempt to interfere with our internal affairs from Canada, means that we are allowed to interfere in Canada's internal affairs," it said.
Saudi state television later reported that the Education Ministry was coming up with an "urgent plan" to move thousands of Saudi scholarship students out of Canadian schools to take classes in other countries.
The sudden and unexpected dispute bore the hallmarks of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's 32-year-old future leader, whose recent foreign policy exploits include the war in Yemen, the boycott of Qatar and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's surprise resignation broadcast during a visit to the kingdom. Hariri later rescinded the resignation, widely believed to be orchestrated by Riyadh, and returned to Beirut.