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 Randy Boswell
CanWest News Service
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
OTTAWA -- The Conservative government's hardline position in the
case of Ronald Smith -- the only Canadian on death row in the U.S.
-- is risking the lives of two other Canadians facing possible
execution in China and Ethiopia, a Liberal MP charged in the House
of Commons yesterday.
"Will they seek clemency for Chen Naizhi, a Canadian citizen
convicted in China, who faces a death sentence for car smuggling?"
asked Sue Barnes, the Liberal public safety critic. "How can they
have any credibility on this issue after choosing not to seek
clemency for a Canadian citizen now facing the death penalty in
Montana?"
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, who has emerged as the government's
chief defender of its recent decision to stop fighting for the lives
of Canadian death-row inmates in "democratic" countries, responded:
"With respect to the case in China, we'll have a close look at
that."
Naizhi, 32, was given a suspended death sentence last week at a
court in southern China for his role at the centre of a massive car
smuggling ring, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
His sentence is to be reviewed in two years, at which time it could
be commuted to life imprisonment, the report said.
The other case Barnes referred to involves former Toronto resident
Bashir Makhtal, a Canadian citizen who was initially arrested in
Kenya and has been held for nearly a year in Ethiopia -- without
charges or access to Canadian consular officials -- on suspicions of
terrorist activity.
At a news conference yesterday in Ottawa, Amnesty International
demanded more forceful action from Canada to defend Makhtal's rights
and protect him from possible torture in Ethiopia, where there is a
"prevalence of torture and ill-treatment of individuals in custody"
and executions can be ordered for a wide range of offences, the
human rights group said.
"The minister of justice claims Canada still supports the UN's
death-penalty moratorium," Barnes said during question period. "Will
Mr. Makhtal be caught up in the Conservative government's betrayal
of the principle of the death penalty (moratorium)?"
Nicholson replied, "We will certainly look into it," and argued the
Conservative government is responsive whenever "there are any
Canadians anywhere in the world potentially in difficulty."
He added that when it comes to "standing up for human rights, this
government has a record second to none."
But the government has come under fire from a united federal
opposition and international human rights advocates over the recent
decision to stop seeking clemency for some Canadian death-row
prisoners.
The uproar was sparked when CanWest News Service reported in October
that Canadian consular officials were quietly working to convince
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer to grant clemency to Smith, a
50-year-old Albertan who is facing a lethal injection for murdering
two Native American men during a drunken road trip in 1982.
Within days, the government had reversed Canada's long-standing
policy -- rooted in Canada's abolition of capital punishment in 1976
-- of lobbying foreign countries to commute the death sentence of
any Canadian facing execution.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
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Do all the
good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you
can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to
all the people you can, as long as ever you can.
by John
Wesley |
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