This is about Women Rights in the Kingdom….
Amid escalating tensions that are damaging economic and diplomatic ties between the countries, Saudi Arabia said Monday that it would relocate about 7,000 Saudi scholarship recipients studying in Canada.
The move is in response to Canadian officials accusing Saudi Arabia of human rights violations and demanding the release of activists imprisoned in the kingdom, Saudi Education Ministry spokesman Mubarak al-Osaimi wrote on Twitter.
The Saudi government has said it considers the Canadian position an assault on its sovereignty.
“We will be able to accommodate this number of students in excellent countries such as the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand,” Jasser bin Sulaiman Al Harbash, Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister of education for scholarship, told state-run television.
This is in addition to suspending training programs and fellowships in Canada, two Saudi Education Ministry officials said.
Saudi Arabia has already frozen all new trade and investment deals. State airline Saudia said it is suspending flights to and from Toronto starting August 13.
In a Sunday statement, its Foreign Affairs Ministry gave Canadian Ambassador Dennis Horak 24 hours to leave the country. Saudi Arabia also recalled its own envoy.
“The Kingdom views the Canadian position as an affront … that requires a sharp response to prevent any party from attempting to meddle with Saudi sovereignty,” read the statement, adding that it retained the “right to take further action.”…
image….Samar Badawi – a prominent human rights campaigner whose brother is serving a 10-year sentence – was arrested last week…EPA
More on the Canada /Saudi flare-up….
…Analysts and regional officials said the spat had little to do with Canada, instead characterising Riyadh’s actions as a broader signal to western governments that any criticism of its domestic policies is unacceptable.
Several countries expressed support for Saudi Arabia, including Egypt and Russia. But Canada continued to stand alone, even as state-run media in the kingdom reported the beheading and “crucifixion” of a man convicted of killing a woman and carrying out other crimes.
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, said Canada was continuing to engage diplomatically and politically with Saudi Arabia. “We have respect for their importance in the world and recognise that they have made progress on a number of important issues,” he told reporters this week….
…
While some in Canada had been disappointed to see the UK and Europe opt to publicly stay out of the diplomatic spat, Juneau described it as unsurprising. “When Saudi Arabia had comparable fights with Sweden and Germany in recent years, did Canada go out of its way to side with Sweden and Germany? No, not at all,” he said. “We stayed quiet because we had nothing to gain from getting involved. So on the European side, the calculation is the same.”…
More…