Wednesday, August 17, 2005
The federal government has become an accomplice to torture and possibly murder by disgracefully deporting a woman to face certain persecution in China, local MP John Duncan and human rights defender Clive Ansley charged Friday.
At a Campbell River press conference, Ansley said Ottawa's August 5 deportation of Hu Xiaoping to China was akin to handing Jews over to the Nazis.
"The determination by your departments that Hu Xiaoping would not be at risk if sent back to China is precisely analogous to a finding in 1938 that a Jew would not be at risk if sent back to Nazi Germany," Ansley wrote in a letter to the ministers of Immigration and Public Safety. "It is difficult to comprehend the level of ignorance and incompetence in this finding.
"Your government is now an accomplice to unlawful imprisonment and the most brutal forms of torture. More likely, it is an accomplice to murder."
Ansley is a lawyer with an international human rights reputation who moved to the Comox Valley two years ago after 14 years of practicing law in Shanghai. Duncan described him as "a national treasure and resource."
The two said Hu is a 47-year-old Chinese woman who fled China in 2003 after being imprisoned and tortured by Chinese authorities because of her [practice of] Falun Gong, a non-political, non-violent traditional meditation group that is like a religion, advocating truth, compassion and tolerance.
They said Hu applied for refugee status but was deported back to China on August 5 after an Immigration panel determined she was not at risk. She has not been heard from since.
"Hu Xiaoping was delivered directly into the hands of the people who will no doubt be torturing her; to the people who may well end up being her murderers," Ansley said. "This was done with the full knowledge of the Canadian Government and we think it's probably linked to the coming visit of Chinese president in September."
Ansley said the Chinese government launched a policy of genocide against Falun Gong in 1999. He said the murders of almost 2,800 Falun Gong practitioners at the hands of the Chinese government have been documented since then. He said an estimated 100,000 Falun Gong members have been imprisoned in slave-labor camps.
"You could have stopped this deportation but you chose not to do so," Ansley wrote in his letter to the federal ministers. "You consciously chose to deliver this woman directly into the hands of her awaiting torturers. Your government has disgraced all Canadians and further sullied Canada's hard won but now rapidly-eroding reputation as an international champion of human rights."
Duncan said his party, many Canadians and human rights groups are very concerned about the direction that Canada has taken in its relationship with China.
"We can't have Canada being essentially the only western democracy delivering people into torture and labor camps and possible execution," he said. "This is just not right.
"No other western democracy would knowingly allow this to happen. Canada is in a league of its own here and it's not a league that we want to be in."
He said reliable reports about six weeks ago stated that Chinese spies working in Canada have made it their business to identity Falun Gong members in Canada as well as carrying out industrial espionage.
"Canada should be very concerned from a security and sovereignty standpoint," he said.
A Courier-Islander call to Immigration Minister Joe Volpe's office resulted in a response from Kara Prest, Citizenship and Immigration Canada spokesperson.
"I can only speak for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and talk to issues and policies," she said Tuesday.
"Due to privacy concerns (it's) inappropriate to comment on any individual."
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Duncan has written to the Minister of Immigration and the Minister of Public Security to request that Falun Gong practitioners who request refugee status not be deported, because there is no doubt that they will be persecuted in China.