Mohamed Fahmy foundation created to help others imprisoned abroad

Understand the position of Fahmy and his supporters but not sure whether a new law is needed, if it would make a difference to governments in the future.

One of the other questions is with respect to its effectiveness for dual citizens who entered a country under that country’s passport (a situation when “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian” does not apply according to the other government):

Mohamed Fahmy, the Egyptian-born Canadian journalist who was wrongly arrested and spent a year in a prison in Egypt, is working to make it law for the federal government step in and help others imprisoned abroad.

Fahmy, who is speaking in Halifax today at an Atlantic Journalism Awards event, said he is working on a “protection charter” through a non-profit foundation called Fahmy Foundation for a Free Press.

“I have been working with Amnesty [International] on this protective charter.  We are hoping to improve consular services for Canadians abroad,” he told CBC’s Mainstreet.

“At the moment the Canadian government deals on its own discretion when a Canadian is imprisoned abroad. We are pushing and hoping to obligate it to make it a law, enshrined in the Canadian system.”

Fahmy also gave a public talk in Halifax Saturday to raise funds for his foundation.

The foundation wants a mechanism that directs Canadian ambassadors to speak to families, NGOs and the media in a timely manner about Canadians being jailed abroad, he said.

“The urgency about moving in the first 48 hours someone is detained because that is the time someone can get tortured or killed in some of these Middle Eastern prisons, that I have seen myself.”

Source: Mohamed Fahmy foundation created to help others imprisoned abroad – Nova Scotia – CBC News