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Public
Demonstrations Held in Ottawa |
Feb 08,
2007 Public demonstrations organized by
close relatives of Mr. Bashir Makhtal,
community members and Concerned Canadians
for Mr. Makhtal took place in
multiple locations in Ottawa, Canada on
February seventh, 2007.
According to the organizers of the public
demonstration, the gist of the messages
parlayed by the community in front of the
Canadian Parliament, the Ethiopian Embassy
and the Kenyan high commission was to
highlight Canada’s slow response towards the
detained and now rendered Canadian citizen
Mr.Bashir Makhtal.
Said Makhtal, the cousin of the rendered
Canadian, added that the demonstration was
meant to show the community’s anger towards
Kenya’s contravention of all international
laws and protocols while rendering a
Canadian citizen to a third country, a
country now illegally occupied by Ethiopia.
The demonstrators who appeared well
organized with articulate posters started
demonstrating in front of the Ethiopian
embassy on Slater Street. They later moved
to the Canadian federal parliament where
student groups were also demonstrating
against the Canadian government for matters
relating to tuition fees.
While the community and the Concerned
Canadians for Mr. Bashir Maktal were
demonstrating in front of parliament hill,
they were informed that honorable Wayne
Marston, NDP human rights critic, was at
that point raising the Makhtal issue in
Parliament.
Honorable Marston had to cut short his
presentation of the matter in order to come
out of Parliament hill and meet with the
demonstrators who braved the bone chilling
cold breeze that was blowing in the city.
The demonstrators presented a seven hundred
plus petition signed by Canadians from all
walks of life.
The petition handed over to honorable Mr.
Marston bemoaned the lack of a sense of
urgency shown by the Canadian government so
far in tracing the whereabouts of the
rendered Canadian citizen.
The petitioners demanded that the Canadian
government take both Ethiopia and Kenya to
task one for rendering a Canadian citizen
and the other for
illegally holding and possibly torturing a
Canadian citizen.
>> see
pictures
--Ogaden Online News |
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