Timerman’s Son Asks Canadian Government to Aid His Father

The intercession of the Canadian government is being sought by Hector Timerman in behalf of his imprisoned father in Argentina. Timerman asked officials of the Canadian Department of External Affairs to appeal to Argentina authorities for the release of Jacobo Timerman, a journalist who has been held for more than two years without specific indictment.

The Canadian officials, Arthur E. Blonchette, Acting Director General of the Department of External Affairs, and Roger P. Gilbert, Director of the Department’s Latin American Division, assured him that the case of Jacobo Timerman would be brought to the attention of Flora MacDonald, Minister for External Affairs.

In his quest, the younger Timerman received the backing of Marvin Meretsky, national chairman of the League for Human Rights of the Canadian B’nai B’rith, who accompanied him to the meetings with the government officials. Meretsky said his organization would press for the release of Jacobo Timerman, and “we will inform Canadian public opinion of the plight of the thousands of people, Christians as well as Jews; incarcerated in Argentine prisons, whose human rights are being violated.” Hector Timerman was accompanied by Rabbi Morton M. Rosenthal, director of Latin American affairs of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in New York City.

Timerman, who spoke with various government and organization officials in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal, told them that his father was found innocent by a military tribunal of all charges against him. “Nevertheless,” he declared, “he remains under house arrest even though he has assured Argentina’s leaders that he will never write about the regime again if they permit him to leave for Israel as he has frequently requested.”