Saudi State Airline Suspends Toronto Flights

TEHRAN (Defapress)- The move on Monday came hours after Riyadh expelled Canada's ambassador over alleged interference in Saudi domestic affairs after Ottawa's foreign ministry rebuked Riyadh for jailing human rights activists.

Canadian Ambassador Dennis Horak was given 24 hours to leave the country, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

The kingdom also froze new trade and investment with Canada worth billions of dollars andrecalled its envoy to the country.

Saudi state television later reported that the Education Ministry was coming up with an "urgent plan" to move thousands of Saudi scholarship students out of Canadian schools to take classes in other countries.

The Saudi state airline, Saudia, meanwhile said in a statement on its official Twitter account that it would suspend all flights to Toronto starting next Monday, August 13.

The announcements came days after Canada called for the immediate release of rights campaigners detained during a recent wave of arrests in Saudi Arabia, including relatives of naturalised Canadian citizens.

The ministry of foreign affairs said Canada's actions were an "affront" that required a "sharp response".

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has never accepted any interference in its domestic affairs by - or orders from - any country," SPA quoted the ministry as saying.

Last week, Canada's ministry of foreign affairs said in a tweet it was "gravely concerned" about the detention of rights activists in the kingdom, including Samar Badawi.

Samar is the sister of Raif Badawi, a prominent human rights campaigner sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2014 on charges of insulting Islam. His wife and children are naturalised Canadian citizens.

Saudi authorities arrested Samar Badawi and fellow activist Nassima al-Sadah last month.

Both campaigned for women's right to drive, which was granted by the Saudi government when it ended a decades-old ban in June, as well as the abolishment of the male guardianship system.

More than a dozen female activists have been targeted by Saudi authorities since May, in what Human Rights Watch described as an "unrelenting crackdown on the women's rights movement".

Bilateral trade last year totalled about $4bn and more than 15,000 Saudi students attend Canadian universities.

A significant portion of two-way trade is based on Canada's export of military vehiclesarmed with high-powered weaponry, a deal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has received much criticism for making because of Saudi's human rights record.

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