Sucaad Xaaji Max'uud

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Diplomat's recall does not clear air

 

The Canadian diplomat at the heart of the uproar over Ottawa's indefensible treatment of Suaad Hagi Mohamud is suddenly back home. But Liliane Khadour's recall from Kenya to Ottawa doesn't begin to clear the air. If her political masters hope to shield themselves by scapegoating her, Parliament shouldn't let them get away with it.

 

Khadour is the official at Canada's high commission in Nairobi who sent a letter to Kenyan authorities saying that "conclusive investigations" had confirmed – wrongly, as it turned out – that Mohamud was an imposter. The letter said the high commission was "releasing" her passport to the Kenyans so she could be prosecuted.

 

As Canadians have learned, Mohamud is who she claimed to be. She returned to Toronto on Saturday. Now Ottawa must explain the indefensible. It rejected Mohamud's proofs of Canadian identity, denied the Somali immigrant's Canadian citizenship, seized her passport, blocked her right to return home, and turned her over to a foreign government. Then it took months to sort out the mess with a DNA test.

 

Is it credible that Khadour, a mere official, wreaked such havoc without her superiors eventually knowing? Hardly. Is it credible that "conclusive investigations" didn't include consultations with Ottawa officials? No. If higher officials didn't know, they should have.

 

At Prime Minister Stephen Harper's demand, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon (who faulted the victim) and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan are conducting probes. Canadian High Commission to Kenya Ross Hynes, too, should shed light on this fiasco.

 

But it's not reassuring that Mohamud's lawyer Raoul Boulakia has had to launch proceedings in Federal Court to obtain Mohamud's disputed passport and case file. What does Ottawa have to hide?

 

The Harper government has just a few weeks before Parliament resumes in mid-September to explain how a Canadian traveler could be treated so shabbily after seeking consular help. Absent a credible explanation, the Liberals and other opposition parties should use their majority in Parliament to force an inquiry.

 

As well, they should press for legislation requiring Ottawa to go to bat for citizens who get into trouble abroad. At present, Ottawa isn't bound to help. Ministers and bureaucrats can pick and choose.

 

That can leave new Canadians such as Mohamud feeling the sting of official indifference. Since 9/11, Muslims especially have suffered.

 

The Federal Court in several cases has sharply criticized Ottawa for neglecting citizens. This is not the Canadian way. If the government won't assume its responsibility to stand up for every citizen, Parliament should take up the cause.

 

Ibid

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

2nd Canadian stranded in Kenya

 

Members of Canada's Somali community say their relationship with the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya, is strained following a second case of disputed identity.

 

Abdihakim Mohammed, a 25-year-old Somali-Canadian, has been stuck in Kenya for three years, accused by Canadian diplomatic officials of being an imposter.

 

Mohammed is autistic. His mother took him to Somalia five years ago because doctors believed being around extended family could help him.

 

After leaving Mohammed in Somalia with his grandmother, his mother returned to Canada.

 

However, when she tried to bring him back to Canada three years ago, she was told the person travelling with her was not her son because he didn't look like his passport photo.

 

In an earlier case of disputed identity, Suaad Hagi Mohamud, 31, had been unable to leave Kenya since May, when local authorities said her lips did not look the way they did in her passport photo.

 

Canadian consular officials voided her passport and urged Kenya to prosecute her. After a DNA test proved Mohamud was who she said she was, a Kenyan judge agreed to drop identity fraud charges. Mohamud recently returned to Toronto where she was reunited with her son, Mohamed Hussein, 12.

 

The latest case remains unresolved despite offers by Mohammed's mother to undergo DNA testing.

 

"I was upset with them, the Canadian Embassy, they didn't want to give me my passport, my Canadian passport — I don't know why," Abdihakim Mohammed told CBC News.

 

Mohammed Dalmar, a family friend and a manager at Ottawa's Catholic Immigration Centre, said the federal government has a problem at the High Commission in Nairobi.

 

"The relationship between the Somali community and the High Commission in Nairobi is damaged and we need to repair it," Dalmar said.

 

No embassy

 

Canada has no embassy in Somalia, so people from that country must travel to Nairobi for consular services.

 

Dalmar said people travelling to Somalia through Kenya are targeted by corrupt Kenyan border agents.

 

"If you go through the airport, they will target you," he said. "They will say you have to pay some money as a bribe. Otherwise, they make life difficult for you."

 

When bribes aren't paid, the traveller can be accused of using a false passport. Now in at least two cases, it seems Canadian consular officials have sided with the Kenyans when this has happened.

 

Not drawing conclusions

 

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon isn't willing to draw any conclusions yet, but he said senior officials are looking into what happened.

 

"We're not looking for anything else than the truth," Cannon said.

 

Xigasho

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Now because the sister's unfortunate plight and subsequent national media coverage, this poor brother's predicament finally got a media attention he deserved and is receiving his passport as well after three long years of ordeal.

_____________

 

Stranded Canadian to be given new ID

 

A second Canadian stranded in Kenya while diplomats questioned whether he was an imposter will get a travel document to return to this country.

 

Abdihakim Mohamed, a 25-year-old autistic man of Somali origin, has been unable to get a passport to return to Canada because his mother, Anab Mohamed Issa, could not convince Foreign Affairs officials he was really her son.

 

Now, after another Somali-Canadian marooned in Kenya for months because of allegations she was an imposter returned home Saturday, Mr. Mohamed is to receive his own travel documents when his mother turns in a new application.

 

“Once the application is submitted, we're going to proceed with issuing the travel documents,” said Nathalie Sarafian, a spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon.

 

The recent case of Suaad Hagi Mohamud, accused by Canadian diplomats of faking her identity, brought new attention to the case of Mr. Mohamed, and new hope to his family.

 

“We are three years and more into the same situation and nobody can help us,” Ms. Issa said from Ottawa's Carleton University, where she works as a cleaner. “So I get happy she got help soon. It give me a big hope.”

 

The Ottawa woman and her friends had struggled for years to bring attention to the case of her son.

 

“Before Suaad, nobody was really taking it up,” said Mohammed Dalmar, a friend and manager at the Catholic Immigration Centre in Ottawa.

 

The cases of Ms. Mohamud and Mr. Mohamed open a window to the difficulties of those who have origins in one of the most infamous failed states of the day.

 

Somalia's lack of a functional government means the only papers of identification Somalis possess today are issued by outside governments. Many Somali-Canadians don't have birth certificates, and can only use documents from Canada.

 

“If those with big passports from Western countries are being treated like this, can you imagine how the refugees, fleeing from conflict, trying to cross borders, seeking asylum, how they are being treated?” said Hassan Noor, Oxfam's humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia. “Some have been attacked in airports and thrown in jail. Coming into another country is almost an illegal act.”

 

Mr. Mohamed's stay in East Africa began in 2004, when his mother brought him to live with relatives in the Somali port town of Bosaso. He had been struggling in Canada, and a doctor felt that being around his extended family might do him good. Ms. Issa stayed with him for several months as he settled in, then left, taking his passport with her because she feared it might be stolen. When she arrived in Toronto, Canadian officials confiscated the passport because it was not her own.

 

In 2006, Mr. Mohamed's grandmother in Bosaso died and Ms. Issa decided it was time to bring him home.

 

When she contacted the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi about getting him a new passport, she was asked to go for an interview with her son, and later informed she was under investigation for applying for a passport for an imposter.

 

She was told her son did not resemble a picture of him taken in 1996 when he became a Canadian citizen at age 11. They asked for more pictures of Mr. Mohamed then and since, but his mother didn't have any.

 

Mr. Dalmar said some Muslims do not get photographed unless it's really necessary, but she offered to provide DNA for a test – an offer the Canadian government never accepted.

 

Ms. Sarafian declined to comment on why Canadian officials did not accept that offer, or to explain the delay in proving his identity, citing privacy concerns.

 

Eventually, Ms. Issa was forced to leave her son with relatives in Nairobi so that she could return home to work, taking a second job to support her son.

 

Like many young Somali men in Nairobi, Mr. Mohamed was picked up by the police several times.

 

“They catch him many times and they take money.” Ms. Issa said. “Sometimes you care safety and you don't care money. If you don't pay money, maybe they put him in jail.”

 

Xigasho

[Kool_Kat]

Kenyan stranding triggered by skin colour: Mohamud

 

 

A Toronto woman who was stranded in Kenya over false claims she was an impostor said she believes the colour of her skin played a role in her ordeal.

 

In an exclusive interview with the CBC's Diana Swain, Suaad Hagi Mohamud was asked if she thought things would have been different if she were white.

 

"I wouldn’t be stopped at the Kenyan airport if I'm a white," Mohamud said.

 

"The Canadian High Commission wouldn’t be treating me the way they treat me. If I'm a white person, I wouldn't be there in one day. I wouldn't have missed the flight."

 

Mohamud, 31, who was visiting her mother in Kenya, had been stranded in the country since May after Kenyan authorities said she didn't look like the picture in her passport photo.

 

Mohamud, who filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against the federal government on Friday, said the reaction by officials to her situation was "really frustrating" because "deep inside I thought we all the same."

 

She said her ordeal began when a KLM worker stopped her and looked at her documents and said that she did not look like her photos.

 

Mohamud said she was asked to pay a bribe to "make the problem go away."

 

"They make you miserable, tired, give up, for some money there."

 

But she said she never considered paying a bribe, saying she’s "always a straight person" and that she had done nothing wrong.

 

Canadian consular officials called her an impostor, voided her passport and urged Kenyan officials to prosecute her, even after Mohamud handed over numerous pieces of identification, offered fingerprints and finally demanded that her DNA be tested.

 

She was charged on May 28 with identity fraud and spent eight days in jail.

 

Mohamud said prison was horrible and that she was put in with gang members, killers and thieves.

 

"It's really horrible and a bad place to be. It's not something I can describe — the food, the sickness I get over there."

 

She said she tried everything to prove who she was and asked officials to call her 12-year-old son in Toronto.

 

"Why don’t you just call him and say, 'Where is your mom? Where is she? Where [did] she go? Are you with someone?' In that case, they will know if they really wanted to find out."

 

DNA tests proved Mohamud was who she said she was and the charges were dropped. She returned to Toronto on Saturday.

 

She said she blames the Canadian government, saying they "let me down, big time.

 

"No matter where we are, where we go, we're all citizens and I believe that we don't have a different level, we're all Canadian citizens," she said.

 

"I'm just asking the government to get up and back up their people wherever they are."

 

Link

[rudy-Diiriye]

i was watching here interview in Ottawa about an hr ago from yahoo.com but its not there any more.

 

Good sista, time to cash in! u know that was a racist shyte. ching ching.