On September 18 2018, CUSJ President Margaret Rao sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and to Chrystia Freeland, asking them to terminate the arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Rao first commended the government for its principled verbal stand against Saudi Arabia’s recent arrest of women’s rights defenders. Then she went on to say,
“If your and Minister Freeland’s lofty words supporting human rights, including women’s rights around the world, are to be taken seriously, then you must follow up with concrete actions. Our highly-touted feminist foreign policy and Canada’s arm-control regulations impel us to end the export of weapons to any country where there is a substantial risk that they will be used to commit human rights violations. The latest United Nations’ report calls on the world to stop providing arms that may be used in the conflict in Yemen. Canada could show real leadership in the international community by ending the sale of LAVs (light-armoured vehicles) and weapons to a regime that uses them against unarmed civilians.”
You can read the full text of the letter here.
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