Rally at US Consulate Opposes Conviction of Canadian for Trading With Cuba

At afternoon rush hour on August 22, the day Canadian businessman James Sabzali was to be sentenced in Philadelphia for selling water purification supplies to Cuban hospitals in the 1990s, a rally took place in front of the U.S. Consulate in Winnipeg. Sabzali had been convicted in April under the Trading with the Enemy Act for selling supplies to Cuba from his office in Hamilton while working for a subsidiary of a U.S. company. The Helms-Burton Act in the US forbids American companies and their subsidiaries from trading with Cuba. However, Canadian law ( the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act (FEMA)) expressly forbids Canadian companies or U.S. companies operating in Canada, from complying with the U.S. Blockade of Cuba. Sabzali, as a Canadian working in Canada, was necessarily following Canadian law. His arrest, trial and conviction in the U.S., therefore, constituted a serious violation of justice and international law.

The purpose of the rally was to draw attention to Sabzali's case, demand that the Canadian government intervene and oppose the Blockade itself, which has entered its fifth decade and continues to cause great hardships to the Cuban people and economy.

Sabzali's sentencing has been postponed until October 3, with oral arguments from his lawyers to be presented in September, a vital step which was bypassed during his initial trial.