SASKATOON (Staff) – At first glance, Andy McMechan’s case doesn’t appear to be the type Amnesty International gets involved in, says the organization’s spokesperson.
“People engaged in civil disobedience, who believe something is wrong and get themselves arrested, don’t pay a fine or whatever and wind up in prison think they are a case for Amnesty, but in most cases that’s not true,” said Roger Clark, secretary general of Amnesty International in Canada.
Amnesty was contacted by Farmers for Justice member Ken Dillen, but it hasn’t yet received a full briefing on McMechan’s situation, Clark said July 17 from Ottawa.
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“If the material arrives, we’d# make an assessment to see if it falls within our mandate.”
Lawbreakers rare
The situation falls closest to that of prisoners of conscience; those jailed solely because of their political or religious beliefs, their ethnic background, language or color. Rarely have they broken a law, Clark said.
If a law has been broken in the course of civil disobedience, Amnesty looks at whether the law has been created in a public manner, whether it has been applied fairly and whether the penalty reflects the nature of the offence and is in keeping with international standards.
“If all those things are properly applied, then Amnesty would not take up the case,” Clark said.
If further detail convinces Amnesty’s Canadian office there is a stronger link to the organization’s mandate, McMechan’s case will be sent to the organization’s London office for research and a determination on whether to adopt it, he said.
Amnesty has only looked into two situations in Canada – the Oka standoff and a prison riot in Montreal in the early 1980s.
