Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy is expressing shock over Canada’s refusal to issue him a passport while he awaits the outcome of a trial in Egypt on widely denounced terror charges. Fahmy says his original passport was seized by Egyptian authorities when he was first arrested in December 2013, and has never been returned.
“I assumed the delay of issuing a new passport was complicated due to the Egyptians,” Fahmy wrote in an e-mail to Canada’s QMI news agency on Wednesday (April 1). “Today, I was shocked to learn for the first time that Canada has been the obstacle.”
“I am crippled and it’s becoming a security threat that I’m walking around with no Canadian passport,” he said in an interview with CTV News from Cairo. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Asked about the Canadian government’s refusal to give Fahmy a Canadian passport during a House of Commons committee meeting on Thursday, Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson avoided answering directly, suggesting “travel documents” will be made available “to this individual when the time comes.”
Fahmy says without a passport he has no official identification in Egypt to allow him to rent a car or an apartment and prevents him from marrying his fiancée.
More information:
CBC News – Mohamed Fahmy shocked at Ottawa’s refusal to issue passport – here
Toronto Sun/QMI Agency – Canadian government refuses Fahmy’s passport application – here
CTV News – Fahmy shocked at Ottawa’s refusal to issue passport due to travel ban – here
Globe and Mail – Fahmy shocked at Ottawa’s refusal to issue passport – here
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