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Tribune News Network
Doha
Within hours of Saudi Arabia expelling Canada's ambassador, the country's broadcasters and pro-government social media accounts went into high gear digging up dirt on its newest enemy: Canada.
In a similar approach the blockading countries took against Qatar after imposing an unjust blockade more than a year ago, the Saudi media and social media started spreading a bizarre message ” Canada is hindering international efforts to fight terrorism and is harbouring terrorists!
This is not a joke. A Riyadh-based newspaper also published a full page report accusing Ottawa of sympathising with terrorists under a headline "The kingdom is stronger than your conspiracy".
Many Canadians expressed shock over the fact that Canada is actually getting the same treatment as Qatar.
Riyadh said Canada has become a haven for many leaders of terrorist organisations, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood.
It pointed out that the Saudi enjoys political and economic stability that distinguishes it from the world and is one of the first countries to deal with the phenomenon of terrorism that is devastating many countries.
The newspaper said democracy and human rights have become a ploy for some countries to intervene in the affairs of other countries, to try to twist its arm, or to harm the course of its development.
A recurring theme of Saudi attacks against Canada is,"those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," an expression that is roughly the same in both English and Arabic.
For this argument to hold up, though, it has placed Saudi propagandists in the uncomfortable position of having to prove that Canada is a pariah state of oppression, death and misery.
On Monday, the Saudi-owned TV channel Al Arabiya ran a segment on the allegedly appalling conditions in Canadian prisons. Amid claims that 75 percent of Canadian detainees die before standing trial, the segment also claimed that University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson is a Canadian prisoner of conscience. Peterson certainly has his qualms with the Canadian justice system; he first rose to prominence as a critic of an Ontario law regarding gender expression. But the professor remains a free man. In fact, he's arguably the opposite of incarcerated: An extraordinarily wealthy best-selling author who is selling out theatres across the continent.
Of all the ways to dig up dirt on Canada, Saudi sources are inexplicably fixating on Canada's treatment of women. A commentator on Saudi TV claimed that Canada has one of the world's highest rates of oppression against women."What about the mystery of 1000 murdered women in Canada?" wrote one widely followed Riyadh-based Twitter account. Saudi social media accounts were Statistics Canada report on violence against women, calling it Canada's"shame."
