Dr. Tarek Loubani and John Greyson are home. They landed at Pearson airport last night. Talk about giving thanks – there’s no one more grateful for freedom than these men.
Now let’s talk about the ignorance and suspicion surrounding them, shall we? A Sun TV/Sun media columnist who is so right wing he flies in circles, wrote a column last week about the men. In it he conveniently left out some details that I took it upon myself to research. Example: he said Dr. Loubani was taken, screaming, out of a meeting with an MP. Loubani, who spends every moment of his vacation and takes unpaid leaves to treat or teach third-world doctors how to treat the sick, was reacting to the federal government’s cancellation of health care for new immigrants. People will die because of that decision and he lost his cool. He didn’t make threats. He didn’t get violent. He was clearly upset and asked to leave.
Second, the “drones” carried by the two doctors that the Egyptian prosecutors thought were possible spy cameras: bullshit. Greyson is a filmmaker. Who would they be spying for? The small helicopters equipped with cameras can go places a human can’t go. Egypt has proven itself ridiculously paranoid. It recently – and you can look this up – arrested and detained a stork for suspicion of spying. A stork. The bird. After an investigation it was let go.
This misinformation about the Canadians has spawned a whole population of critics. “They should have known better than to approach cops.” “They must have been doing something to land in jail.” If you were caught up in a riot, wouldn’t you go to someone in uniform for help? If you were a documentary filmmaker passing through and you heard there was something going on downtown, wouldn’t you want to know what it was? I personally have no interest in visiting the volatile parts of the world but if not for those who do, we’d never know about them.
Loubani and Greyson’s documentation proved they planned to spend one night in Cairo before moving on. Their “drones” had nothing nefarious about them. Charges were never laid. The investigation was dropped, even by that paranoid country. Shouldn’t that be enough? They were swept up with 600 other men that night, beaten, shaved bald, forced to sign documents written in a language they couldn’t read and placed in a 3 meter by 10 meter cell with 36 other prisoners where they slept “like sardines on concrete with the cockroaches.” That’s not fair treatment for anyone. And those who are so quick to call these guys “far from innocent” would do well to seriously consider what their lives were like for 50 long days. And give thanks it wasn’t you.
Well said, hopefully they will never go back, sad to say that, since they only we’re trying to help people.