Mr. Speaker, yesterday Nigerian author and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa, the winner of the 1995 Goldman environmental prize for Africa, was sentenced to death by a special tribunal after a show trial. There is no right of appeal.
Saro-Wiwa is a founder of Nigerian PEN, an honorary member of PEN Canada, president of the Nigerian Association of Authors, president of the Ethnic Minority Rights Organization of Africa and leader of the movement for the survival of Ogoni people.
For 37 years these people have been exploited and their land ravaged by international oil interests which have taken more than $30 billion in oil and left an ecological disaster area.
I join with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and PEN Canada in condemning this death sentence. I call on the government to condemn the death sentence in the strongest possible terms, impose sanctions on Nigeria and call for the immediate and unconditional release of Saro-Wiwa, who has always flatly denied any involvement in these killings.