I think it's disingenuous to put Brenda Martin in the same category as union activists or poor indigenous people swept off the streets. The latter are cases that AI highlights as abusive.
I think the penalties Brenda Martin and Rebecca Roth received are quite stiff since their respective roles seem minor in comparison to Waage's and the others extradited to the US. I also think that drug possession laws are pretty extreme in many jurisdictions. But we don't mount huge campaigns with MPs and Ministers intervening when a Canadian gets thrown in jail for getting caught with some weed in Malaysia or Thailand.
Brenda Martin stalled her own case by charging the Mexican judiciary of human rights violations. Yet she seems to have very little sympathy for Rebecca Roth who was held for the same charge and under similar conditions.
[url=http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/421443]Brenda Martin Fraud Sequel[/url]
quote:
Roth and Martin were brought to the Puente Grande women's prison within days of each other and both took part in a prison beauty pageant in exchange for staying outside an extra hour in the evening, but they are far from friends."I don't speak to Rebecca Roth. I have no reason to speak to her," Martin said in the telephone call from prison in a March interview with the Toronto Star in which she called Roth "evil" and said she believes she is guilty.
"Brenda has been very cruel to Rebecca, very cruel," Barbara Roth said.