Stranded, abandoned, abroad

Punditman just texted Peacenik and asked Peacenik to post this article. Peacenik doesn't have time to comment.

From Mexico to Nairobi, they wait in vain for help from 'amateur-hour' Canadian officials
Canadians travel at their own risk

Aug 22, 2009 04:30 AM

Linda Diebel

Anab Issa's 25-year-old autistic son, Abdihakim Mohamed, is stuck halfway around the world in Nairobi, Kenya, stateless and without proper care, while she fights to prove he's a Canadian citizen so she can bring him home.

Sound familiar? It's yet another story of a lost Canadian, among scores abandoned by the federal government and dumped among the world's stateless pariahs.

It's been a frustrating, multi-year battle for Issa, and she's terrified for her son's safety. A big man who can turn aggressive when frightened, he's been bloodied by street gangs and harassed by police in Nairobi. "If you run, they shoot at you," she says.

Read on...

How Harperites are damaging our citizenship

punditman says...

A lot of stupid comments follow this article in the Toronto Star, if you get that far. This woman's freedom was stolen from her for almost three months, and some wingnuts still want to blame the victim. Punditman heard a call-in radio show the other day whereby people recalled their nightmare stories of misfortune when traveling abroad, and the "I don't give a damn" reception they got at Canadian embassies. Scary stuff. We only hear about the high profile ones, but stories abound of traveling Canadians befallen by misfortune abroad (such as being robbed and losing one's passport) and falling into a bureacratic black hole of indifference. Who the hell do these people think they are working for, if not us, the citizenry?

And that's to say nothing of Maher Arar or the horrors of extraodinary rendition. Or several other cases that punditman doesn't have time to list.

Governments are nasty pieces of business in this post 9-11, fear-driven world. Encoraching fascism is real.

This event is yet another example of the kind of brash cruelty we've come to expect from our politicians. Clearly, the Canadian government doesn't give a damn about its citizens anymore—whether they travel to the ends of the earth or to the end of their street. May she sue the Canadian and Kenyan governments and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines big time.

by Haroon Siddiqui

Welcome home, Suaad Hagi Mohamud.

Her case has raised a host of questions. First, who's to blame for her 11-week ordeal? The officials at the Canadian embassy in Nairobi? Or the politicians in Ottawa?

If the former, would some bureaucratic heads roll?

If the latter, as has been the case in several incidents of Canadians stranded abroad, the Stephen Harper government has a lot to answer for: Is it racist? Anti-Muslim? Too ideological? Prone to micromanagement? Or just plain incompetent?

Whatever the reason(s), why have the Tories been so tin-eared to so much public outrage in this regard? Or is there a method to their madness, namely, that they ignore public opinion because they only care about catering to their core constituency of Conservatives?

Finally and more broadly, what responsibility does the federal government, regardless of the party in power, have toward citizens imperilled abroad?

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