A pro-government Saudi organization is under fire after posting and deleting a tweet suggesting Canada was inviting a 9/11-style terrorist attack over its criticisms of the Kingdom’s crackdown on dissent.
On Friday, Global Affairs Canada tweeted concern over the Saudis’ arrest of activists, calling on the government to release peaceful advocates for human rights:
Canada is gravely concerned about additional arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in #SaudiArabia, including Samar Badawi. We urge the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and all other peaceful #humanrights activists.
Foreign Policy CAN (@CanadaFP) August 3, 2018
The Saudis responded by rejecting the sentiment and suggesting it was an “attack” on the KSA and an attempt to influence their internal affairs.
#Statement | The Canadian position is a grave and unacceptable violation of the Kingdom's laws and procedures. In addition to violate the Kingdom's judiciary and a breach of the principle of #sovereignty.
Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 (@KSAmofaEN) August 5, 2018
Further, the Kingdom expelled the Canadian ambassador to the country and recalled their ambassador to Canada, also announcing it “would be suspending all new trade and investment transactions with Canada,” CBC reported.
The government’s dramatic reaction to Canada’s call to free peaceful activists escalated Monday when Infographic KSA, described as a pro-government youth organization, tweeted an image of a plane heading toward the Toronto skyline, accompanied by a quote cautioning against interfering in the country’s domestic issues.
The image posted then deleted by Infographic KSA, an organization linked to the Saudi government.
“As the Arabic saying goes: ‘He who interferes with what doesn’t concern him finds what doesn’t please him,’” the now deleted image said. Amid the unsurprising backlash, the organization re-posted the image without the plane and denied it was suggesting Canada should be subject to a terror attack. “The aircraft was intended to symbolize the return of the ambassador,” the tweeted, according to CBC. “We realize this was not clear and any other meaning was unintentional.”
The Saudi Ministry of Media shut down the Twitter account, noting it was conducting an investigation. Though Infographic KSA is not part of the government, it “seems to exist solely to turn Saudi government press releases into pretty infographics for social media,” according to Amarnath Amarasingnam, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a U.K.-based think-tank with a mission of countering extremism. Amarasingnam said it’s possible the group is connected to the Ministry, though it’s difficult to pinpoint specific ties. The Washington Post noted that state-run media previously described the Twitter page as an “official government” account, but this was not explicitly verifiable.
The tweet was particularly in poor taste considering the majority of 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian citizens and there is significant evidence members of the Saudi government were involved in the 2001 attack. Further, it is well-documented that the Saudi Kingdom has funded the spread of Wahhabism, a radical faction of Islam, and provided support to the Islamic State.
The country’s harsh reaction to calls to respect human rights and peaceful protest hardly help its reputation, but that seems to matter little as the United States and President Trump refuse to break ties with the country, instead selling them weapons of war that are continuously used to kill civilians in Yemen. Though the government has recently been praised for attempting to make reforms, its ongoing behaviors suggest fundamentally little has changed.
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Hey Carey. Today is my first day on steemit. Looking to migrate my fb feed over here! Any tips on how this can be done smoothly? (i'm having trouble finding some pages - i guess not everyone has steemit)
I did put together a little index a while back. I'll hopefully be posting an updated series soon. Let me know if you find it useful.
The Saudi's have a history of such things. It reminds me of Prince Bandar threatening the UK with a terror attack on London should certain corruption investigations not disappear.
Next they'll be exporting radical Islam and terror to the world. Oh wait. I forgot that they've already done that !
I see from the lack of comments and just a bunch of empty feel-good upvotes, that no one wants to touch this with a 10 foot pole. So, I'll stir up some heat. Just to be clear, I'm not a fan of Saudi Arabia, I know how horrible their system is, I don't condone violence nor discrimination against other human being, being it woman or a man, but as long as you're willing to but their oil, and I imagine you drive a petrol vehicle, you, me and every one else is supporting or at least going along with their way of existence. I know that that might sound incomprehensible to some, but that's the way it works. Now, that we have that clear, another point is, just like their slogan says "Sticking one's nose where it doesn't belong"..., there is a reason, it's different country - different customs, different rules, different ideas on how life should be. If everyone's ideas on how we should live and how we should conduct ourselves would be the same, then there would be no need for countries. Hey, that's exactly what the PTB want to do anyways, make everyone homogenized and force everyone to same way of life. And you might say, hey what's wrong with that, can't we all just live happy "western" life, they way we live in Canada? Yes, you'll say that as long as it fits your moral standards, but what if someone tried to force their way of thinking on you, that you completely didn't agree with, then what? Let Canadian's worry about Canada and their problems, we have enough problems here, poverty, poor education system, corrupt health care system, crooked politicians; lets fix that and not stick our noses when it doesn't belong. Back in the day we used to have a good term for people like that - busybody, and nobody liked busybody. But now days it seems that everyone is sticking noses in other's business, neighbours, co-workers, politicians and now whole countries. I wonder where this behaviour comes from, could it be related to ever growing female influence on social standards. Oh my, did I just open a can of worms :)
I don't really see this as a "busybody" article. I found it very informative and does a good job of explaining the controversy. She uses this incident to justify her opinion of getting the US government to stop supporting the Saudi's.
I follow Carey as she is trying to make people aware of government shenanigans. The US government does indeed have home issues that need fixing and they should not be trying to fix the whole world.
As a person who grew up in Northern Alberta, I would like to see the Saudi's block all trade from Canada. Canada does not need Saudi Oil.
I did not say the author of this article was a busybody. Yes, the information is very good. I'm looking at the bigger picture as a busybody issue, in this case, the canadian government was the culprit. And yes, you absolutely right, we don't need any foreign oil, we should be self-sustainable in that aspect, use the resources that the country/region possesses in the best way possible, intelligently and humbly, not frivolously and without checks and balances. Once again, I found the original post very informative and important, as most of us don't have time to search through plethora of news out there, we need to rely on others to bring us the news that we miss.
The excuse is one of those funny ones where they are basically saying "Oh no, we weren't trying to make that shitty statement, we were actually trying to make this shitty statement instead!"
I don't see it as an accident or buy this for a second. It's bs, but even their supposed excuse isn't good. Deporting an ambassador is already basically just throwing a tantrum, and doing it because somebody in the West finally got the balls to criticize the bullshit your government pulls is just political. It is clear the Saudis are worried that other governments will start to do the same, and they want to send a message.