A “Life or Death Struggle” in East Turkestan;
Uyghurs face unprecedented persecution in post-Olympic period
For immediate release
September 4, 2008 3:15 PM EST
Contact: Uyghur Human Rights Project +1 (202) 349 1496
A new report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) examines sweeping security measures being targeted at Uyghurs in East Turkestan (also known as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or XUAR) following a series of violent attacks that took place prior and to the Beijing Olympics. While Uyghurs had experienced widespread repressive measures in the months and years leading up to the Olympics, the arrests, detentions and military and security presence being implemented following these attacks, and in the wake of the Olympic Games, indicate an unprecedented level of repression in the region. While Chinese government authorities claim the security measures are aimed at punishing individuals involved in a series of violent attacks in East Turkestan, the scope of the clampdown represents a broad, far-reaching campaign of intimidation and fear aimed at the Uyghur community.
A “life or death struggle” announced by Xinjiang Party Secretary Wang Lequan, together with a “Strike Hard” campaign issued by Political Consultative Committee head Zhu Hailun, indicate the implementation of a brutal campaign of suppression among the Uyghur population in the weeks and months to come. Wang has presided over a period of political repression and extremely rigid social controls for Uyghurs in East Turkestan, and has spearheaded a drive to blur the distinction between peaceful dissent and terrorism in the region.
UHRP’s report, A “Life or Death Struggle” in East Turkestan, documents a number of recent examples of harsh measures being carried out under the justification of anti-terrorism. These include:
**The arrest of 160 Uyghur children, aged 8 to 14 years old, for participating in “illegal religious activities. The children were brought to Bajiahu Prison in the regional capital of Urumchi, and their parents were asked for 20,000 yuan for the release of each child;
**The arrests of more than 1,000 individuals in post-attack security sweeps in Kucha and Kashgar;
**The confiscation of passports of almost every Uyghur living in the People’s Republic of China, in the run-up to the Olympic Games.
“Some of my worst fears about the Chinese government’s intent to use security as an excuse to detain innocent Uyghurs, including children, are now being realized,” said Uyghur democracy leader Rebiya Kadeer. “While I knew the Chinese government was capable of such a massive crackdown, I hoped I would never see repression on such a broad scale.”
The new crackdown takes place against a backdrop of far-reaching, systematic repression carried out by Beijing over the past seven years, using “terrorism” as a justification. As is common in the Chinese justice system, those arrested in these campaigns frequently suffer from physical abuse and other maltreatment while in government custody. In addition, they are often subject to nontransparent trials and denied access to independent counsel. Convictions are regularly obtained on the basis of forced confessions extracted through torture. Security forces target Uyghurs who express any type of dissent as they “strike hard” against the “three evil forces” of “separatism, terrorism, and extremism.”
The report, A “Life or Death Struggle” in East Turkestan; Uyghurs face unprecedented persecution in post-Olympic period, can be downloaded at:
http://uhrp.org/docs/A-Life-or-Death-Struggle-in-East-Turkestan.pdf
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Chinese region tightens controls over Muslims for Ramadan
Chinese region tightens controls over Muslims for Ramadan
Posted : Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:46:00 GMT
Beijing - Officials have tightened controls over mosques and religious practice in China's restive Xinjiang region for the ongoing Ramadan festival, according to exiled Uighurs and local government notices seen on Thursday. Xinjiang officials ordered Muslim restaurants to stay open during the traditional Ramadan fasting and imposed restrictions on mosques and government work units, Dilxat Raxit of the Munich-based World Uighur Congress said in a statement.
A notice on the official website of Xinjiang's Aksu city listed nine measures to be taken for Ramadan by the Yingmaili township government in Shaya (Xayar) county, starting by publicizing the religious policies of the ruling Communist Party.
The notice bans mosques in Yingmaili from hosting people from outside the area or playing music, videos, trumpets or drums; and prohibits them from coercing people into fasting or taking part in other religious activities.
Local officials should increase their minimum contact with mosques from twice weekly to eight times a week during Ramadan and enhance their knowledge to "prohibit illegal religious activities", it said.
Non-local families and work units should sign "stability contracts" to prevent any external religious influence.
"For men with heavy beards and women with veils, take every kind of positive measure [to persuade them] to shave off beards and remove veils," said the undated notice.
Similar measures were publicized by Yingwusitang township in Xinjiang's Shache (Yarkant) county, following a meeting on Monday of local government and religious officials on "maintaining stability during Ramadan".
A report on the official website of the Shache government said township officials were asked to make daily reports on local religious affairs during Ramadan and "strictly prohibit party members, cadres and students from fasting or taking part in religious activities".
Similar controls were introduced in Xinjiang during previous Ramadan festivals and it was not immediately clear if this year's measures exceeded the earlier ones.
Xinjiang witnessed a spate of deadly attacks that killed at least 26 people in less than 10 days last month.
Some analysts believed the attacks, which China blamed on Uighur terrorists and separatists, were timed to coincide with the Olympic Games in Beijing.
The Turkic-speaking Uighurs enjoyed brief periods of independence in the 1930s and 1940s, although Chinese dynasties have historically sought to control Xinjiang.
But since the Communist Party took control of China in 1949, the government has encouraged an influx of ethnic Han Chinese to the region, inflaming racial tension.
article source
Posted : Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:46:00 GMT
Beijing - Officials have tightened controls over mosques and religious practice in China's restive Xinjiang region for the ongoing Ramadan festival, according to exiled Uighurs and local government notices seen on Thursday. Xinjiang officials ordered Muslim restaurants to stay open during the traditional Ramadan fasting and imposed restrictions on mosques and government work units, Dilxat Raxit of the Munich-based World Uighur Congress said in a statement.
A notice on the official website of Xinjiang's Aksu city listed nine measures to be taken for Ramadan by the Yingmaili township government in Shaya (Xayar) county, starting by publicizing the religious policies of the ruling Communist Party.
The notice bans mosques in Yingmaili from hosting people from outside the area or playing music, videos, trumpets or drums; and prohibits them from coercing people into fasting or taking part in other religious activities.
Local officials should increase their minimum contact with mosques from twice weekly to eight times a week during Ramadan and enhance their knowledge to "prohibit illegal religious activities", it said.
Non-local families and work units should sign "stability contracts" to prevent any external religious influence.
"For men with heavy beards and women with veils, take every kind of positive measure [to persuade them] to shave off beards and remove veils," said the undated notice.
Similar measures were publicized by Yingwusitang township in Xinjiang's Shache (Yarkant) county, following a meeting on Monday of local government and religious officials on "maintaining stability during Ramadan".
A report on the official website of the Shache government said township officials were asked to make daily reports on local religious affairs during Ramadan and "strictly prohibit party members, cadres and students from fasting or taking part in religious activities".
Similar controls were introduced in Xinjiang during previous Ramadan festivals and it was not immediately clear if this year's measures exceeded the earlier ones.
Xinjiang witnessed a spate of deadly attacks that killed at least 26 people in less than 10 days last month.
Some analysts believed the attacks, which China blamed on Uighur terrorists and separatists, were timed to coincide with the Olympic Games in Beijing.
The Turkic-speaking Uighurs enjoyed brief periods of independence in the 1930s and 1940s, although Chinese dynasties have historically sought to control Xinjiang.
But since the Communist Party took control of China in 1949, the government has encouraged an influx of ethnic Han Chinese to the region, inflaming racial tension.
article source
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
39th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
39th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development
EVIDENCE
CONTENTS
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
1110
V The Chair (Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, CPC))
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (President, International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation)
1115
1120
1125
V The Chair
1130
V Hon. Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal, Lib.)
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1135
V The Chair
V Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire (Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, BQ)
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1140
V Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire
V The Chair
V Mr. Ted Menzies (Macleod, CPC)
V The Chair
V Mr. Mehmet Tohti (President, Uyghur Canadian Association)
1145
V The Chair
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, CPC)
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1150
1155
V The Chair
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V The Chair
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V The Chair
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V The Chair
V Mr. Wayne Marston (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, NDP)
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1200
V Mr. Mehmet Tohti
1205
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V The Chair
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1210
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1215
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V The Chair
V Mr. Mehmet Tohti
V The Chair
V Mr. Mehmet Tohti
V The Chair
1220
V Hon. Irwin Cotler
V The Chair
V Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire
1225
V The Chair
V Mr. Ted Menzies
V The Chair
V Hon. Irwin Cotler
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V Hon. Irwin Cotler
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V The Chair
V Mr. Wayne Marston
V The Chair
V Mr. Wayne Marston
V Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire
V The Chair
V Mr. Ted Menzies
V The Chair
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
1230
V Hon. Irwin Cotler
V The Chair
CANADA
Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development
NUMBER 008
l
1st SESSION
l
39th PARLIAMENT
EVIDENCE
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
* * *
+ (1110)
[English]
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The Chair (Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, CPC)):
Colleagues, this morning we resume the study of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights on the Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs and International Development with respect to our study of the Canada-China bilateral dialogue.
We have with us the very distinct honour of a special witness in Madam Rebiya Kadeer, who is president of the International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation and I believe also now newly elected as president of the World Uyghur Congress. Ms. Kadeer will have an opportunity to make a presentation. She is generally regarded as the leader of the Uyghur people.
It is a particular honour for us to have you here, Madam Kadeer.
Joining Madam Kadeer at the table is Mr. Mehmet Tohti, who is president of the Canadian Uyghur Association. Madam Kadeer's statement is being distributed in its writing, but it will be translated by her translator.
Please go ahead.
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (President, International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation) (Interpretation):
First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Jason Kenny for organizing this hearing today.
Also, I would like to express my special gratitude for all those interested parties who are here, who care for the human rights of the Uyghur people, and it is my really great pleasure to come here today to explain to you the human rights violations the Uyghur people are facing in China.
We are the Uyghur people. We are not Chinese. The Chinese government occupied our homeland in 1949, and after that the Chinese government changed our homeland's name from East Turkestan into Xinjiang. We are an autonomous region. Xinjiang means new territory in Chinese.
Our territory is nearly two million square kilometres in size. The fate of the Uyghur people is very similar to the fate of the Tibetans. We are both under Chinese rule, but because the Chinese have covered up our situation, we haven't been able to raise the case of the Uyghur people's human rights violations in the world as successfully as our Tibetan brothers.
Because of interpretation and language issues, now I'm going to turn to my interpreter, who is going to read my full statement for you. Before my interpreter reads the statement, I would like to express my greatest appreciation to the people and the Government of Canada for raising the case of the Uyghur people and even helping gain my release from a dark Chinese prison.
So thank you.
Statement of Ms. Rebiya Kadeer: Ladies and gentlemen of the parliamentary Subcommittee on International Human Rights, thank you so much for inviting me here today to speak about the human rights situation being faced by the Uyghur people in our homeland, East Turkestan, a land that has been under China's administration since 1949 and that has since been renamed the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
This is the first time I have been to Canada, and I'd like to take a moment to tell you what an honour and what a pleasure it is for me to be here. I hope you are aware that all over the world, the word “Canada” invokes in the minds of people, both free and oppressed, an image of a thriving, democratic, peaceful land where the rights and identity of all people are respected and protected. This is an extraordinary achievement on your part and one that I'm sure you as Canadian parliamentarians and citizens are rightly proud.
Personally, during my short stay here, I have already been struck by how well this multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural society functions. This society is of course founded on the ideals of respecting and protecting the individual's rights and identity, ideals that are sustained and nurtured by Canada's transparent and inclusive institutions.
The Uyghur people also come from a tradition of a multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural society. The government of the first East Turkestan republic, founded in 1933, included people of Uyghur, Uzbek, Kazakh, and Kyrgys ethnicity, even though the population of East Turkestan was overwhelmingly Uyghur. The first East Turkestan republic was the first democratic Muslim republic in the world at that time outside Turkey and was defined by that crucial feature of any healthy democracy: when a majority rules, a minority is still safe and included. During the time of the first East Turkestan Republic, even the tiniest population was embraced into broader society.
+ -(1115)
Ladies and gentlemen of the subcommittee, I am reluctant to define and describe people solely in terms of their race and ethnicity. However, this is the way I was brought up and how all Uyghurs, for two generations and counting, have been brought up. This is how we have been taught to understand our world.
We are Uyghurs. Therefore, we are second-class citizens in our own homeland, East Turkestan. They are Han Chinese. They run the government. Therefore, they have the better jobs, better schools, better clinics, and most of all, better lives. If you go to East Turkestan today, you will see for yourself, as clear as night and day, that the Han have, and the Uyghurs have not.
One of the first messages a Uyghur child learns is that Uyghurs are an ethnic minority and that the Han Chinese are the majority, even in those few places in the southern part of our homeland where Uyghurs still constitute over 90% of the population. A Uyghur child learns from a very young age that the Uyghur language is inferior to the Chinese language. Uyghur history is taught as a footnote to the longer and richer history of China. Uyghur culture is weak and in need of so-called Chinese protection. Look at the destruction wreaked on China's own culture, never mind the culture of Uyghurs and the Tibetans. Would you, as Canadians, want to have Canada's culture protected by China?
The Uyghur people are even expected to be eternally grateful that they are protected from themselves by the benevolence of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. In other words, our so-called minority ethnic status, and all the baggage of inferiority that comes with it, has been assigned to us by the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government.
We reject that status. We reject the identity that the Chinese government has assigned to us. We unapologetically reject the role of being merely child-like innocents who express our naive gratitude to the Chinese Communist Party by wearing gaudy costumes, singing songs, and dancing on the tables at banquets for the entertainment of our Chinese masters.
That is the root of the problem. We reject what the Chinese authorities want us to be. The Chinese political system is completely unable and unwilling to accommodate us as a result. That was the Chinese government's problem with me personally. I played the system in China, and I became the seventh wealthiest person in the whole of the People's Republic of China. I was a member of China's so-called Parliament. I was a senior government adviser. But as soon as I stopped playing the Chinese game, and as soon as I started to use my wealth and influence to offer help to the Uyghur people--help that was not forthcoming from the Chinese authorities--my rapid downfall began.
As I am sure you all know, I was sent to prison on trumped-up political charges. Now the legacy continues with one of my sons, who was sent to prison a couple of weeks ago for seven years, also on trumped-up charges. Another son is due to be tried soon on charges of subversion, which could mean a lifetime in prison for him. We have it on good authority that he has been severely beaten in detention. Trial proceedings against him will probably be delayed until he has recovered.
Uyghurs who insist on being Uyghurs are dissidents in Beijing's eyes. We are subversives or separatists, even terrorists, as far as Beijing is concerned. We are treated with extreme prejudice by the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. We are not Chinese Muslims, as the western press often describes us, and we are not Chinese Uyghurs, as the Chinese press often describes us. We are simply Uyghurs.
It is our rejection of China's version of the Uyghur people that has been the cause of the catalogue of human rights abuses against us. These abuses are only now starting to be systematically documented.
The second East Turkestan Republic, which lasted from 1945 until 1949, was the last time the Uyghur people could speak, pray, socialize, and simply exist as they saw fit in their ancestral homeland. Since 1949, the Chinese government has tried everything to eliminate our culture.
+ -(1120)
Ladies and gentlemen of the subcommittee, I'm aware that saying the Chinese government is trying to eliminate Uyghur culture can seem overly emotive, and that I run the risk of being accused of exaggeration; however, the evidence is compelling. I need not repeat that evidence here for the benefit of the subcommittee. Your are no doubt fully aware of the scale and nature of the rights violations being perpetrated against the Uyghur people; otherwise, I would not be here today.
The main purpose of being here today is to discuss what can be done by the Canadian government to help improve the human rights situation faced by the Uyghur people.
Ladies and gentlemen of the subcommittee, the Uyghur people are already heavily indebted to the Canadian government for the recognition and support you have given us. There is a large and thriving Uyghur community here in Canada--Uyghur people who have fled oppression at home, who were offered and accepted sanctuary here, and who today are among the proudest new citizens of this great nation.
That naturally brings us to the case of Huseyin Celil, the Canadian Uyghur currently in Chinese detention. I have no suggestions for how the Canadian government could handle his case better and with more integrity than it is already doing. The Chinese government's treatment of Mr. Celil and the Chinese government's decision to ignore or flout diplomatic protocol and standards in his case are quite typical of the Chinese government's reaction to being legitimately challenged on its human rights record.
The best recommendation we have in this case is for the Canadian government to keep pressing China for consular access to Mr. Celil, which would be the first step toward reviewing the fake charges against him and, hopefully, securing his release back to his young family here in Canada as soon as possible.
On the back of the Huseyin Celil case, we would recommend that Canada should make the human rights of the Uyghur people a top priority in its bilateral relations with the People's Republic of China. Canada's voice is uniquely authoritative in the field of human rights. The Uyghur people's plight is unique in that it not only encompasses the whole spectrum of human rights violations perpetrated against all vulnerable groups in the People's Republic of China, but also has a fundamental bearing on the stability of the entire Central Asian region.
To that end, we also recommend that the Canadian government do what it can to help champion and broker discussions between the Chinese government and the World Uyghur Congress to discuss how best to address and resolve the problems of growing Uyghur despair and discontent in our homeland, East Turkestan.
We would recommend that CIDA continue its invaluable work with HIV/AIDS and environmental projects in particular in East Turkestan, with a possible view to increasing funding for HIV/AIDS projects in response to recent reports of a surge in HIV infections in East Turkestan.
With such a large Uyghur community in Canada, we recommend that funding or other forms of assistance be offered to our sole organization here, the Uyghur Canadian Association, so that the UCA can be an effective and responsible partner to the Canadian government in its ongoing work with Uyghur asylees and its humanitarian projects in East Turkestan.
We would also recommend that the Canadian government send, possibly, a fact-finding mission to East Turkestan with a special focus on the human rights situation of the Uyghur people. The findings of this mission, depending on the levels of access and the contact permitted by the Chinese authorities, could be included as a matter of course in governmental and commercial communications with Chinese interlocutors by representatives of Canada.
We would recommend that Canada offer asylum to any Uyghurs who are cleared for release from the U.S. naval detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
We would also recommend--I would personally plead--that the Canadian government do absolutely everything in its power to ensure the false charges against my sons are dropped and that they are released immediately and unconditionally.
+ -(1125)
Ladies and gentlemen of the subcommittee, thank you so much for the opportunity to come here today and to submit these recommendations. Thank you all for attending this hearing today.
next intervention previous intervention
The Chair:
Thank you.
Before we begin with questions, I'd like to take care of a couple of things. First of all, it was my intention when we originally discussed this to have Mr. Tohti as a witness. He didn't end up on the witness list. He was originally a witness in an earlier hearing and we decided to move him to this hearing, so he could appear with Mrs. Kadeer.
I won't ask you, Mehmet, to make a statement.
If any of the committee members have questions about the Canada-China dialogue, I think Mr. Tohti, who is a signatory of the letter to the Prime Minister, will be well suited to respond to that issue.
Secondly, I'd like to acknowledge the presence in the gallery of Kamila Celil, Mr. Huseyin Celil's wife.
Welcome to Ottawa and welcome to the committee. We wish your husband well.
Thirdly, we began almost 20 minutes late. We had initially scheduled for this to be only a one-hour meeting, but I'd like the committee's support in perhaps some extension of time, so that we all have a chance to get to questions. As well, there is, under committee business, a notice of motion.
We will begin with Mr. Cotler and our question period.
+ -(1130)
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Hon. Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal, Lib.):
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like as well to welcome you, Ms. Kadeer, to this committee today. You are here, as has elsewhere been described and what has appropriately been described, as the mother of the Uyghur nation. As someone who has followed your case and cause, I want to state as well that I regret your own personal ordeal of imprisonment and that now of your two sons.
As you summed it up by way of analogy, your fate is very similar to that of the Tibetan people, though I believe the condition and the fate of the Uyghur nation is not as well known, and we have to raise awareness of the situation of the Uyghur people.
I must say that you've been an excellent witness. You've actually made some very specific recommendations as to what this committee can do--for example, to press China for consular access to Mr. Celil, to put the whole question of the Uyghur people and the human rights of the Uyghur people on the agenda of Canada-China bilateral relations; to have the Chinese government enter into discussions with the World Uyghur Congress; the CIDA work; a fact-finding mission that we should be sending; and that the false charges be dropped against your sons. I think you've given us a very good inventory of what we need to do.
Let me ask one question. Perhaps you might elaborate upon it.
I know that our chairman, Mr. Kenney, has been very active, among others--singularly active--in terms of trying to seek the release of Mr. Celil. Is there anything in particular that you wish to recommend that this committee might be able to do in that regard in support of Mr. Kenney's work in this matter?
next intervention previous intervention
Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Normally, the response of the Chinese government to a soft approach is to listen to Canadian or foreign concerns, just pat their shoulders, just smile, be nice, let the time go by so that they can waste as much time as possible. That's usually the Chinese approach to foreign inquiries.
For example, one good thing the members of the U.S. Congress did on behalf of my children was that some 72 U.S. congressmen and women signed a letter and specifically sent it to the Chinese President Hu Jintao. That put a lot of pressure on the president, so it helped to gain the release of my two children.
I believe that if the members of the Canadian Parliament could also draft and sign a letter sent specifically to Chinese President Hu Jintao asking him to release Mr. Celil, it would play a big role. The Canadian government should not be soft on the case of Mr. Celil, because otherwise the Chinese government will not take Canada seriously.
It seems the Chinese government has been using trade as a weapon to threaten other nations so that other nations bend their knees to Chinese demands. Actually, the big western trading partners, countries like Canada, should not bend their knees because of trade, because the Chinese government has more to lose if there is any kind of trade problem than Canada or any other country. So the Canadian government or other countries should not be too worried about China's trade threat, but instead should press forward.
Thank you.
+ -(1135)
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The Chair:
Madam St-Hilaire.
[Translation]
next intervention previous intervention
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire (Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, BQ):
Thank you, Madam President, for joining us here this morning.
I have to say that this is basically the first time since we began our hearings that we've been given a clear, concise overview of the situation. I want to thank you for that. I think you were spot on when you said the Chinese government's approach to everything is to just smile. That's an image that constantly flashes through my mind.
My colleague aptly summarized the situation. I would like you to give us a clearer, more direct mandate. I understand that you'll be meeting later with Prime Minister Harper. I can't say what the outcome of this meeting will be. Perhaps it will be a private, or a semi-private meeting. I really don't know. After the meeting, I'd like you to report back to Mr. Kenney so that in turn he can ask the subcommittee to take up your cause and be your voice. I would like us to take up your cause if Mr. Harper is reluctant to take the steps you want him to take. As a subcommittee, perhaps we can do something more, if Mr. Harper chooses not to call for Mr. Celil's release. That's basically what I wanted to ask you.
Welcome to Canada and good luck. The Quebec nation is firmly behind you.
[English]
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Thank you very much for what you suggest.
Of course, raising the case of Mr. Huseyin Celil, and not just raising it but demanding that the Chinese government release him immediately and unconditionally, is critical; otherwise the Chinese government can do anything in its prison and may even just torture him to death. It's going to be really terrible if he's tortured or just dies in prison.
Mr. Huseyin Celil is a Canadian citizen, so the Canadian government should absolutely demand his immediate and unconditional release from Chinese custody.
+ -(1140)
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Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
Thank you.
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The Chair:
Because the interpretation is taking additional time and because we might have to deal with further committee business that could be a complex question, I'm going to decide to extend, if necessary, to 12:30. Because people have adjusted their schedules to finish at 12, we'll try to stick to that as much as possible, but we also have this interpretation issue.
I forgot to mention at the top, as well, that I'd like to invite members of the committee to a reception that I'll be hosting in honour of Madame Kadeer this evening, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., in the East Block.
Mr. Menzies.
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Mr. Ted Menzies (Macleod, CPC):
I'll start off. Thank you.
First of all, thank you so much for coming and sharing this most enlightening information with us. We do appreciate that.
Just so you know, on the topic of Mr. Celil, our government—and I'm sure this is shared with all of our colleagues—raises this issue whenever we have an opportunity.
I met with a member of Parliament from China, not this last weekend but the weekend before, and I once again raised the issue. I said it's very concerning for us to have a Canadian citizen in a jail in China.
Your comments about CIDA interested me. Can you tell me what CIDA, our Canadian International Development Agency, is doing in your country and what they're able to accomplish? Hopefully we are accomplishing some things. You spoke about HIV and AIDS. Can you share with us what some of the concerns are, what we may do better?
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The Chair:
Mr. Tohti, I thought you might be better positioned to answer that question.
next intervention previous intervention
Mr. Mehmet Tohti (President, Uyghur Canadian Association):
Yes, I probably know more than she does, because in six years as the president of the Uyghur Canadian Association, I have been closely involved in the CIDA project. I sent some recommendations to them.
First, they started a project in the southern part of East Turkestan, which is called the Hoten region. Most of the majority are Uyghurs and are very poor people. CIDA initiated a project there, a poverty reduction program, for three or four years. Unfortunately, the program has expired or ended. I received many letters and phone calls from people in Hoten when Canada recalled the poverty reduction program.
As you can see in a lot of information from Amnesty International or in U.S. congressional reports, there is economic discrimination in the region. A CBC journalist, Mr. Anthony Germain, also recently reported from there.
There are no Uyghurs working in industry. There are no Uyghurs in oil and other industrial factories. All of them are employed by the Chinese. Uyghurs are very poor. They are discriminated against. Therefore, nearly 70% of Uyghurs are unemployed.
It is the main reason to continue the poverty reduction program. If you expand it not only in Hoten but, at the same time, in Kashgar and some other regions, first, it would help the local people to start up businesses, and secondly, it would send a strong message to the Chinese government that they're not taking care of their own citizens and are discriminating against them.
I believe the program should continue. That's one suggestion.
The second one is this. For a couple of years, as the Chinese government did in the SARS epidemic, the Chinese government covered up the HIV situation in the Uyghur region. Unfortunately, East Turkestan has now become the crossroads for drug traffickers from the Chinese Golden Triangle to Central Asia and Eurasia. The famous scenic road has now become a drug road. At the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, unfortunately, there are also drugs traffickers from that region, because it is the closest land road to enter into the Kashgar region.
It's the reason HIV is now the biggest problem, or the second biggest problem. Yunan is the number one problem for China, and East Turkestan is the number two problem.
People do not have the economic power to buy drugs. Because of some of the social customs or traditions among the Uyghurs, the biggest problem is that there's a stigma, if I can describe it that way. People are not free to go to the clinic because they are ashamed or afraid.
I made one more suggestion to CIDA to open one clinic, do some checkups, and prevent the further spread of this terrible disease. We should work on this area, because the Chinese government is ignoring the problem.
Recently, last week, the Xinhua News Agency, the official Chinese news agency, said that 17 Uyghurs are infected with HIV every day. It is a huge number.
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The Chair:
You may want to come back on the second round, but go ahead, if you want to.
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Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, CPC):
Very quickly, I have about two or three questions.
I want to thank you for coming.
I have certainly had the opportunity to bring up the Celil case as well, and I have done so. I know this government is committed to bringing forward those issues at every possible opportunity.
The first question is this. What are other countries doing that we could learn from? Canada has taken a stand. We brought forward some cases of human rights violations. You referenced the United States and the human rights bill they brought forward. What are some of the other countries doing specific to the Uyghur people that we could learn from?
What are your views on the new Human Rights Council and on Canadian action that we could perhaps take via this United Nations forum?
The third question is specific to what Mr. Menzies asked. Does CIDA have the ability to direct programming and funds to the Uyghur people, or does it get all passed and vetted through the Chinese government?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
In the case of the United States, the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Congress are quite concerned with the case of the Uyghur people. And also, a lot of human rights organizations, certainly in the U.S., have been raising the case of the Uyghur issue together with the case of the Tibetans, so it's pretty high level.
In addition to that, the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization funded by the U.S. Congress, has been funding our organizations. Currently we have three organizations being funded by that organization.
The European Union countries all have been very interested in raising the Uyghur issues, including the members of the European Parliament and British government officials, Sweden, and all the other countries there are raising the Uyghur case as a high-profile case.
We have been raising the case of Huseyin Celil with the other countries as well. We also urge them to raise the case of Huseyin Celil and of my sons' arrest and detention together, so they can raise it directly with the Chinese government to put more pressure on them.
One of our goals is to urge the Canadian Parliament, if that can be done, to introduce a bill to specifically protect human rights and the culture of the Uyghur people.
This time, during my trip to the European Parliament and after meeting with high-level European Parliament officials, they said they were also interested in introducing such a bill.
Another thing that can be done on behalf of the Uyghur people is to fund Uyghur organizations, such as the Uyghur Canadian Association of which Mehmet is president, to be locally active. He could provide you with the latest information, so the Canadian government will be more proactive by getting timely information.
If the Canadian government can give some funding to the Uyghur association here, so the Uyghur association can work professionally toward promotion of the human rights of the Uyghur people, that's going to really help in many ways. Otherwise, for example, the president of the UCA is currently working part-time. Although he has done everything in his power to raise the cases, that is really not enough.
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In terms of CIDA's aid and funds, if CIDA directly transfers funds to the Chinese government, then the Uyghur people will never see those funds. It would be much better if CIDA directly opened clinics or hospitals or test centres that could treat AIDS patients instead of just giving money to the Chinese government and letting them do the job. CIDA should also send their own team to supervise and monitor the process.
As well, millions of Uyghur people who fled from Chinese persecution are living in Central Asia. They need protection, and they probably also need refugee resettlement. The Canadian government could help with that.
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The Chair:
Before we go to the next question, Madam Kadeer mentioned the UCA. I believe that's the Uyghur Congress of America?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
The Uyghur Canadian Association.
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The Chair:
The Uyghur Canadian Association, excuse me.
I don't think Madam Kadeer said this in her statement, but I think it's worth noting that one of her sons was convicted and given a seven-year sentence two weeks ago--the very same day she was elected president of the World Uyghur Congress. Is that correct?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Yes.
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The Chair:
As well, Madam Kadeer didn't say this exactly, but I believe it's also true that her six-year sentence, or what ended up being limited to a six-year sentence, was for engaging in espionage, which consisted of sending in the mail publicly available newspaper articles to her husband in the United States. Is that correct?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Yes, that's correct.
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The Chair:
Thank you.
Mr. Marston.
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Mr. Wayne Marston (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, NDP):
First of all, I want to say that I feel honoured by your presence here today.
Because of our parliamentary style of democracy here, you will find that oftentimes in our discussions we don't agree with members of the government, even though their interest here in particularly Mr. Celil's case is certainly commendable. One thing I'm very concerned about is ethical trade. Human rights should take a priority at all times.
I've been calling for a special envoy, a parliamentary delegation perhaps, to go to China to take up Mr. Celil's case. Would you see that as being effective?
I would add this: thank you for joining the many voices who have said that we need to push harder at China on the issue of human rights.
As well, you mentioned Guantanamo. How many combatants from your area would be down there?
To Mr. Tohti, I have a question around the dialogue we're looking at. What would you call the main failure of the dialogue?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
First of all, thank you very much for your questions and for your concern with regard to Mr. Celil's case. For me it's very important that Canada puts human rights before trade, because that could really help improve the human rights situation for Uyghurs and in China overall.
You suggest that perhaps a parliamentary delegation should visit China's prisons and other places to find out more about Mr. Celil's case and about the cases of people like him. That would really help with our case, and it would definitely help with the release of Mr. Celil and of people like him, those who are imprisoned for doing absolutely nothing.
In terms of the Uyghurs at Guantanamo, there are different attorneys working on different cases. Initially, for the first five, there was another attorney who worked on their cases. He's still working on the cases of the rest of the Uyghurs there.
There are attorneys working very hard on these cases. Our impression is that they may be released very soon. And if they are released, not as enemy combatants but rather as innocents, I would be really delighted if Canada could give them refuge.
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Mr. Mehmet Tohti:
The Canada–China human rights dialogue is the topic I love the most, because of six years of non-stop fighting with the Department of Foreign Affairs, with my friend Tenzin Khangsar. Each year before the dialogue starts, or after the dialogue, or before the UN human rights conference in Geneva starts, I have been invited by the Department of Foreign Affairs for a consultation meeting. I was a member of this consultation meeting on behalf of International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation.
There are a couple of reasons for the failure. One is lack of understanding of tricky Chinese diplomatic policy. The Chinese foreign policy is based upon one Asian theory: to hang out the head of the sheep and sell the meat of the dog. Put a different label on something and do a different thing behind the table. That is traditional Chinese foreign policy. Talking from different mouths ends up with different sounds.
It is the same case in North Korea--six-party talks, teaching North Korea how to act. Then after the dialogue ends, teach other tactics, because China is the only country that wants this crisis. It is the only country that doesn't want a solution for North Korea. It has to be continued so that western countries need China. It is the same policy.
The second main reason for the failure was that Canada acted very softly. Until 1997 we used to sponsor the resolution at the United Nations conference in Geneva condemning Chinese human rights abuses. Then the Chinese diplomats came to us and said, “Do not support this resolution. Let's have a dialogue.” Canada agreed. In the second phase, the Chinese diplomats said, “If you'd like to have a dialogue with us, let's keep it closed-door, without going public.” Canada agreed. In the third phase, the Chinese diplomats said, “We would like to improve our judicial system and the police forces. We would like to reform our detention facilities, but we don't have the money. We have money to send a manned mission to space and expand our military, but we do not have money to improve the quality of our citizens.” Canada said, “Okay, let's provide the money.” So Canada was the order taker; China was the order giver. That was not a dialogue. A dialogue is between two parties. It was a monologue.
The Chinese government assigned four or five diplomats whose primary job was to find answers to the possible questions raised by Canadians. “For Tibetans, okay, we are doing well.” If Canada raised the issue of the Panchen Lama: “Okay, he doesn't want to see anyone. He's okay. He's very good.” If Canada raised the issue of the Falun Gong: “It's an evil cult.” The answers were ready. And as for Uyghurs: “Ah, they are terrorists”. It continued for seven years. We spent a lot of resources on it.
That is a brief picture of the dialogue. It ended up that the four or five Chinese diplomats never passed the messages from Canada to upper-level policy-makers. They didn't know. It was just the job of five people to prepare the answers to possible questions. It was not a dialogue. The Chinese government never implemented any suggestions or took any of Canada's suggestions seriously. It was a waste of resources, money, and everything.
Therefore, if there is a dialogue, there should be a mission accomplished. There should be a clear, step-by-step, case-by-case strategy on what we are going to achieve. The Chinese government should know that if we are going to raise the issue of Tibetans, in what timeframe are they going to achieve something? If we raise the Uyghur issue, what is the timetable? What are the steps? What are the obstacles? How can we overcome it? There should be a clear strategy.
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Secondly, there should be accountability. That is important. All the bureaucrats at the Department of Foreign Affairs conduct talks with the Chinese government, but the Canadian public doesn't know what is going on, what is said by the Chinese, and what the response of the Canadians is, what it has to do with development. We don't know. So on the format of the China–Canada human rights dialogue, as we've said for five or six years, it is a waste of time. We've wasted a lot of time and a lot of resources. It has to be reformatted.
You have to tell the Chinese government that if they would like to have a human rights dialogue, it has to be a dialogue between governments, not with four or five people. The mandate of the dialogue and the agenda for the dialogue should be part of the Chinese government's official policy. The recommendations should be implemented. There should be follow-ups.
I have a lot of things to say about the dialogue because I'm the one who is frustrated. Imagine repeating the same things for six years. I thank the Canadian Parliament and I thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is the first time the Canadian Parliament has acted. At least I feel that Canadians today have listened.
I love Canada. I am Canadian--proudly Canadian. I want this relationship to be a better relationship, with mutual respect, not humiliation.
Thank you.
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Although I'm still not yet a U.S. citizen, it was the United States' firm, hard-line pressure on China that got my release. As you probably know, the Chinese government accused me of being a terrorist, and not only of espionage or anything like that. China released me after the United States took a very strong stand on my case, saying, “You have to release her.” Then I was released.
I'm really proud of what the Prime Minister said regarding putting human rights first and trade behind—not trade first, but human rights first. That really means a lot to the Uyghur people and all the oppressed people.
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The Chair:
Thank you very much.
Mr. Tohti in particular, I found that to be one of the most useful encapsulations of the issue that we've heard from any of our witnesses. I would like to invite you to perhaps summarize some of those points in writing and submit them to committee. I think it would be quite fruitful as we prepare our report.
For a five-minute round, we go to Mr. Sorenson.
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Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
I have two quick questions.
You mentioned that there are 17 Uyghur people in the naval detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. What are they there for?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
In 1997 there was a big massacre. To us, it was more like a June 4 Tiananmen Square massacre. It happened in the city of Ghulja, which is very close to the Central Asian borders, and a lot of Uyghurs were executed. It was a peaceful protest, but the Chinese government cracked down on that protest very hard.
After 1997, the Chinese government also executed a lot of Uyghur people. As a result, a lot of Uyghurs fled to Central Asian countries. Because they couldn't return—if they got deported, they would be executed—some of them fled to countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. A lot of them were actually later picked up by Pakistani bounty hunters, because the U.S. paid money for picking up people. These people were picked up and given to the Americans, then the Americans brought them to Guantanamo Bay.
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Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
But were they fighting with al-Qaeda?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
No, they were not fighting with al-Qaeda.
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Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
I got that. I don't understand the language, but I understood that.
I have one other quick question, Mr. Chair.
In the material that you gave us—and I appreciate it—you talk a lot about the Uyghur culture being weak and in need of protection. You speak quite a bit about culture. You talk about how the Chinese government would like to get rid of the Uyghur culture, and you realize that stating “the Chinese government is trying to eliminate Uyghur culture’ can seem overly emotive, and that I run the risk of being accused of exaggeration”, but that's what they're doing. Can you define for me the Uyghur culture?
Take religion. I don't know much about the Celil case, but I do know what is of concern to Canadians. First of all, he's a Canadian citizen. Secondly, he was sent to China and he's being held. He hasn't been given consular services. All those things go against the values that we have here in Canada. But on religious freedom, is it a religion? Is it religious freedom that is not being protected? What could the Chinese government do to protect the culture of Uyghur people? Religious freedom is one of the issues that I'd like you to speak about.
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
The Uyghur people have a completely separate set of cultural, historical, religious, and value systems when compared to the Chinese. Even our territory and way of life are completely different from those of the Chinese.
When the Chinese government actually gave us so-called autonomy, the Chinese government promised to respect our human rights, our culture, our language, and our religion. But now, after China's rise, with it becoming this emerging superpower, our language is becoming completely useless right now in terms of education at all levels, because the Chinese government is forcing the Chinese language onto us.
In terms of religion, we believe in Islam. Basically, the Chinese government, after 9/11, immediately labelled us as terrorists. In fact, you see hardly anything that resembles terrorism among the Uyghurs.
As you all know, religion plays a big role in helping the people to keep their morality, in giving them true values. If you visit our homeland today, you will see beautiful mosques and you will even see people praying inside. That's what the Chinese government is basically showcasing, so that foreign delegation people will come and see that.
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Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
That is my point.
One of the recommendations is that you want us to go on a fact-finding mission: “We...recommend that the Canadian government send a fact-finding mission to East Turkestan”. What are we going to see when they get there? When we get there, we're going to see what the Chinese government wants us to see.
The Uyghur people aren't a pluralistic society either. They're a fairly closed Islamic society. Are other religions free in this area? Do you believe in religious pluralism?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Of course, the Chinese government will do everything to ensure you see what they want you to see. The thing is, if you go inside the mosques, they post regulations on the walls specifically saying minors cannot be allowed, that preaching is, for example, for 30 minutes, and they only use their own imams and mullahs trained by the government, not the individual clerics who train elsewhere. In all of those regulations, if you read them, all those imams and mullahs are supposed to strictly follow government guidelines in terms of their clerical activities.
If you just go to mosques and see people praying and try to talk to a Uyghur, and you tap on his or her shoulder and ask them what religious freedom is, or things like that, you can see the fear on their face. But when they say things, they would say they have their religious freedom and are living their best lives under Chinese rule.
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The Chair:
Thank you very much.
We're over our time. I would invite members of the committee again to attend a special reception this evening from 6 to 8 o'clock in the East Block, if they have further questions for Ms. Kadeer.
Madam Kadeer, Mr. Tohti, and your interpreter, thank you very much for your time and your visit to Ottawa.
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Mr. Mehmet Tohti:
I have just one more request. I gave Mr. Kenney the Chinese number seven secret document. Please read that document, and you'll find the answer about religious freedom.
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The Chair:
We'll have this translated and distributed to the committee.
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Mr. Mehmet Tohti:
Yes, and also there is one paragraph to answer a question about whether or not there are Chinese spies in Canada. There is one paragraph; you just have to read it. It is a very clear mission set by the Chinese government on how to conduct, how to be involved with the Chinese communities, how to train them, how to get the information. There is a signature on that document; it was chaired by Jiang Zemin, the Chinese president. There is the Chinese president's signature. That document was just leaked by Ms. Rebiya Kadeer.
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The Chair:
Thank you again.
Thank you. We're adjourned.
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?COM=10945&SourceId=188498&SwitchLanguage=1
Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development
EVIDENCE
CONTENTS
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
1110
V The Chair (Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, CPC))
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (President, International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation)
1115
1120
1125
V The Chair
1130
V Hon. Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal, Lib.)
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1135
V The Chair
V Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire (Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, BQ)
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1140
V Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire
V The Chair
V Mr. Ted Menzies (Macleod, CPC)
V The Chair
V Mr. Mehmet Tohti (President, Uyghur Canadian Association)
1145
V The Chair
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, CPC)
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1150
1155
V The Chair
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V The Chair
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V The Chair
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V The Chair
V Mr. Wayne Marston (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, NDP)
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1200
V Mr. Mehmet Tohti
1205
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V The Chair
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1210
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
1215
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V Ms. Rebiya Kadeer
V The Chair
V Mr. Mehmet Tohti
V The Chair
V Mr. Mehmet Tohti
V The Chair
1220
V Hon. Irwin Cotler
V The Chair
V Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire
1225
V The Chair
V Mr. Ted Menzies
V The Chair
V Hon. Irwin Cotler
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V Hon. Irwin Cotler
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
V The Chair
V Mr. Wayne Marston
V The Chair
V Mr. Wayne Marston
V Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire
V The Chair
V Mr. Ted Menzies
V The Chair
V Mr. Kevin Sorenson
1230
V Hon. Irwin Cotler
V The Chair
CANADA
Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development
NUMBER 008
l
1st SESSION
l
39th PARLIAMENT
EVIDENCE
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
* * *
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[English]
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The Chair (Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, CPC)):
Colleagues, this morning we resume the study of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights on the Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs and International Development with respect to our study of the Canada-China bilateral dialogue.
We have with us the very distinct honour of a special witness in Madam Rebiya Kadeer, who is president of the International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation and I believe also now newly elected as president of the World Uyghur Congress. Ms. Kadeer will have an opportunity to make a presentation. She is generally regarded as the leader of the Uyghur people.
It is a particular honour for us to have you here, Madam Kadeer.
Joining Madam Kadeer at the table is Mr. Mehmet Tohti, who is president of the Canadian Uyghur Association. Madam Kadeer's statement is being distributed in its writing, but it will be translated by her translator.
Please go ahead.
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (President, International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation) (Interpretation):
First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Jason Kenny for organizing this hearing today.
Also, I would like to express my special gratitude for all those interested parties who are here, who care for the human rights of the Uyghur people, and it is my really great pleasure to come here today to explain to you the human rights violations the Uyghur people are facing in China.
We are the Uyghur people. We are not Chinese. The Chinese government occupied our homeland in 1949, and after that the Chinese government changed our homeland's name from East Turkestan into Xinjiang. We are an autonomous region. Xinjiang means new territory in Chinese.
Our territory is nearly two million square kilometres in size. The fate of the Uyghur people is very similar to the fate of the Tibetans. We are both under Chinese rule, but because the Chinese have covered up our situation, we haven't been able to raise the case of the Uyghur people's human rights violations in the world as successfully as our Tibetan brothers.
Because of interpretation and language issues, now I'm going to turn to my interpreter, who is going to read my full statement for you. Before my interpreter reads the statement, I would like to express my greatest appreciation to the people and the Government of Canada for raising the case of the Uyghur people and even helping gain my release from a dark Chinese prison.
So thank you.
Statement of Ms. Rebiya Kadeer: Ladies and gentlemen of the parliamentary Subcommittee on International Human Rights, thank you so much for inviting me here today to speak about the human rights situation being faced by the Uyghur people in our homeland, East Turkestan, a land that has been under China's administration since 1949 and that has since been renamed the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
This is the first time I have been to Canada, and I'd like to take a moment to tell you what an honour and what a pleasure it is for me to be here. I hope you are aware that all over the world, the word “Canada” invokes in the minds of people, both free and oppressed, an image of a thriving, democratic, peaceful land where the rights and identity of all people are respected and protected. This is an extraordinary achievement on your part and one that I'm sure you as Canadian parliamentarians and citizens are rightly proud.
Personally, during my short stay here, I have already been struck by how well this multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural society functions. This society is of course founded on the ideals of respecting and protecting the individual's rights and identity, ideals that are sustained and nurtured by Canada's transparent and inclusive institutions.
The Uyghur people also come from a tradition of a multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural society. The government of the first East Turkestan republic, founded in 1933, included people of Uyghur, Uzbek, Kazakh, and Kyrgys ethnicity, even though the population of East Turkestan was overwhelmingly Uyghur. The first East Turkestan republic was the first democratic Muslim republic in the world at that time outside Turkey and was defined by that crucial feature of any healthy democracy: when a majority rules, a minority is still safe and included. During the time of the first East Turkestan Republic, even the tiniest population was embraced into broader society.
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Ladies and gentlemen of the subcommittee, I am reluctant to define and describe people solely in terms of their race and ethnicity. However, this is the way I was brought up and how all Uyghurs, for two generations and counting, have been brought up. This is how we have been taught to understand our world.
We are Uyghurs. Therefore, we are second-class citizens in our own homeland, East Turkestan. They are Han Chinese. They run the government. Therefore, they have the better jobs, better schools, better clinics, and most of all, better lives. If you go to East Turkestan today, you will see for yourself, as clear as night and day, that the Han have, and the Uyghurs have not.
One of the first messages a Uyghur child learns is that Uyghurs are an ethnic minority and that the Han Chinese are the majority, even in those few places in the southern part of our homeland where Uyghurs still constitute over 90% of the population. A Uyghur child learns from a very young age that the Uyghur language is inferior to the Chinese language. Uyghur history is taught as a footnote to the longer and richer history of China. Uyghur culture is weak and in need of so-called Chinese protection. Look at the destruction wreaked on China's own culture, never mind the culture of Uyghurs and the Tibetans. Would you, as Canadians, want to have Canada's culture protected by China?
The Uyghur people are even expected to be eternally grateful that they are protected from themselves by the benevolence of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. In other words, our so-called minority ethnic status, and all the baggage of inferiority that comes with it, has been assigned to us by the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government.
We reject that status. We reject the identity that the Chinese government has assigned to us. We unapologetically reject the role of being merely child-like innocents who express our naive gratitude to the Chinese Communist Party by wearing gaudy costumes, singing songs, and dancing on the tables at banquets for the entertainment of our Chinese masters.
That is the root of the problem. We reject what the Chinese authorities want us to be. The Chinese political system is completely unable and unwilling to accommodate us as a result. That was the Chinese government's problem with me personally. I played the system in China, and I became the seventh wealthiest person in the whole of the People's Republic of China. I was a member of China's so-called Parliament. I was a senior government adviser. But as soon as I stopped playing the Chinese game, and as soon as I started to use my wealth and influence to offer help to the Uyghur people--help that was not forthcoming from the Chinese authorities--my rapid downfall began.
As I am sure you all know, I was sent to prison on trumped-up political charges. Now the legacy continues with one of my sons, who was sent to prison a couple of weeks ago for seven years, also on trumped-up charges. Another son is due to be tried soon on charges of subversion, which could mean a lifetime in prison for him. We have it on good authority that he has been severely beaten in detention. Trial proceedings against him will probably be delayed until he has recovered.
Uyghurs who insist on being Uyghurs are dissidents in Beijing's eyes. We are subversives or separatists, even terrorists, as far as Beijing is concerned. We are treated with extreme prejudice by the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. We are not Chinese Muslims, as the western press often describes us, and we are not Chinese Uyghurs, as the Chinese press often describes us. We are simply Uyghurs.
It is our rejection of China's version of the Uyghur people that has been the cause of the catalogue of human rights abuses against us. These abuses are only now starting to be systematically documented.
The second East Turkestan Republic, which lasted from 1945 until 1949, was the last time the Uyghur people could speak, pray, socialize, and simply exist as they saw fit in their ancestral homeland. Since 1949, the Chinese government has tried everything to eliminate our culture.
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Ladies and gentlemen of the subcommittee, I'm aware that saying the Chinese government is trying to eliminate Uyghur culture can seem overly emotive, and that I run the risk of being accused of exaggeration; however, the evidence is compelling. I need not repeat that evidence here for the benefit of the subcommittee. Your are no doubt fully aware of the scale and nature of the rights violations being perpetrated against the Uyghur people; otherwise, I would not be here today.
The main purpose of being here today is to discuss what can be done by the Canadian government to help improve the human rights situation faced by the Uyghur people.
Ladies and gentlemen of the subcommittee, the Uyghur people are already heavily indebted to the Canadian government for the recognition and support you have given us. There is a large and thriving Uyghur community here in Canada--Uyghur people who have fled oppression at home, who were offered and accepted sanctuary here, and who today are among the proudest new citizens of this great nation.
That naturally brings us to the case of Huseyin Celil, the Canadian Uyghur currently in Chinese detention. I have no suggestions for how the Canadian government could handle his case better and with more integrity than it is already doing. The Chinese government's treatment of Mr. Celil and the Chinese government's decision to ignore or flout diplomatic protocol and standards in his case are quite typical of the Chinese government's reaction to being legitimately challenged on its human rights record.
The best recommendation we have in this case is for the Canadian government to keep pressing China for consular access to Mr. Celil, which would be the first step toward reviewing the fake charges against him and, hopefully, securing his release back to his young family here in Canada as soon as possible.
On the back of the Huseyin Celil case, we would recommend that Canada should make the human rights of the Uyghur people a top priority in its bilateral relations with the People's Republic of China. Canada's voice is uniquely authoritative in the field of human rights. The Uyghur people's plight is unique in that it not only encompasses the whole spectrum of human rights violations perpetrated against all vulnerable groups in the People's Republic of China, but also has a fundamental bearing on the stability of the entire Central Asian region.
To that end, we also recommend that the Canadian government do what it can to help champion and broker discussions between the Chinese government and the World Uyghur Congress to discuss how best to address and resolve the problems of growing Uyghur despair and discontent in our homeland, East Turkestan.
We would recommend that CIDA continue its invaluable work with HIV/AIDS and environmental projects in particular in East Turkestan, with a possible view to increasing funding for HIV/AIDS projects in response to recent reports of a surge in HIV infections in East Turkestan.
With such a large Uyghur community in Canada, we recommend that funding or other forms of assistance be offered to our sole organization here, the Uyghur Canadian Association, so that the UCA can be an effective and responsible partner to the Canadian government in its ongoing work with Uyghur asylees and its humanitarian projects in East Turkestan.
We would also recommend that the Canadian government send, possibly, a fact-finding mission to East Turkestan with a special focus on the human rights situation of the Uyghur people. The findings of this mission, depending on the levels of access and the contact permitted by the Chinese authorities, could be included as a matter of course in governmental and commercial communications with Chinese interlocutors by representatives of Canada.
We would recommend that Canada offer asylum to any Uyghurs who are cleared for release from the U.S. naval detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
We would also recommend--I would personally plead--that the Canadian government do absolutely everything in its power to ensure the false charges against my sons are dropped and that they are released immediately and unconditionally.
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Ladies and gentlemen of the subcommittee, thank you so much for the opportunity to come here today and to submit these recommendations. Thank you all for attending this hearing today.
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The Chair:
Thank you.
Before we begin with questions, I'd like to take care of a couple of things. First of all, it was my intention when we originally discussed this to have Mr. Tohti as a witness. He didn't end up on the witness list. He was originally a witness in an earlier hearing and we decided to move him to this hearing, so he could appear with Mrs. Kadeer.
I won't ask you, Mehmet, to make a statement.
If any of the committee members have questions about the Canada-China dialogue, I think Mr. Tohti, who is a signatory of the letter to the Prime Minister, will be well suited to respond to that issue.
Secondly, I'd like to acknowledge the presence in the gallery of Kamila Celil, Mr. Huseyin Celil's wife.
Welcome to Ottawa and welcome to the committee. We wish your husband well.
Thirdly, we began almost 20 minutes late. We had initially scheduled for this to be only a one-hour meeting, but I'd like the committee's support in perhaps some extension of time, so that we all have a chance to get to questions. As well, there is, under committee business, a notice of motion.
We will begin with Mr. Cotler and our question period.
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Hon. Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal, Lib.):
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like as well to welcome you, Ms. Kadeer, to this committee today. You are here, as has elsewhere been described and what has appropriately been described, as the mother of the Uyghur nation. As someone who has followed your case and cause, I want to state as well that I regret your own personal ordeal of imprisonment and that now of your two sons.
As you summed it up by way of analogy, your fate is very similar to that of the Tibetan people, though I believe the condition and the fate of the Uyghur nation is not as well known, and we have to raise awareness of the situation of the Uyghur people.
I must say that you've been an excellent witness. You've actually made some very specific recommendations as to what this committee can do--for example, to press China for consular access to Mr. Celil, to put the whole question of the Uyghur people and the human rights of the Uyghur people on the agenda of Canada-China bilateral relations; to have the Chinese government enter into discussions with the World Uyghur Congress; the CIDA work; a fact-finding mission that we should be sending; and that the false charges be dropped against your sons. I think you've given us a very good inventory of what we need to do.
Let me ask one question. Perhaps you might elaborate upon it.
I know that our chairman, Mr. Kenney, has been very active, among others--singularly active--in terms of trying to seek the release of Mr. Celil. Is there anything in particular that you wish to recommend that this committee might be able to do in that regard in support of Mr. Kenney's work in this matter?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Normally, the response of the Chinese government to a soft approach is to listen to Canadian or foreign concerns, just pat their shoulders, just smile, be nice, let the time go by so that they can waste as much time as possible. That's usually the Chinese approach to foreign inquiries.
For example, one good thing the members of the U.S. Congress did on behalf of my children was that some 72 U.S. congressmen and women signed a letter and specifically sent it to the Chinese President Hu Jintao. That put a lot of pressure on the president, so it helped to gain the release of my two children.
I believe that if the members of the Canadian Parliament could also draft and sign a letter sent specifically to Chinese President Hu Jintao asking him to release Mr. Celil, it would play a big role. The Canadian government should not be soft on the case of Mr. Celil, because otherwise the Chinese government will not take Canada seriously.
It seems the Chinese government has been using trade as a weapon to threaten other nations so that other nations bend their knees to Chinese demands. Actually, the big western trading partners, countries like Canada, should not bend their knees because of trade, because the Chinese government has more to lose if there is any kind of trade problem than Canada or any other country. So the Canadian government or other countries should not be too worried about China's trade threat, but instead should press forward.
Thank you.
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The Chair:
Madam St-Hilaire.
[Translation]
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Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire (Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, BQ):
Thank you, Madam President, for joining us here this morning.
I have to say that this is basically the first time since we began our hearings that we've been given a clear, concise overview of the situation. I want to thank you for that. I think you were spot on when you said the Chinese government's approach to everything is to just smile. That's an image that constantly flashes through my mind.
My colleague aptly summarized the situation. I would like you to give us a clearer, more direct mandate. I understand that you'll be meeting later with Prime Minister Harper. I can't say what the outcome of this meeting will be. Perhaps it will be a private, or a semi-private meeting. I really don't know. After the meeting, I'd like you to report back to Mr. Kenney so that in turn he can ask the subcommittee to take up your cause and be your voice. I would like us to take up your cause if Mr. Harper is reluctant to take the steps you want him to take. As a subcommittee, perhaps we can do something more, if Mr. Harper chooses not to call for Mr. Celil's release. That's basically what I wanted to ask you.
Welcome to Canada and good luck. The Quebec nation is firmly behind you.
[English]
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Thank you very much for what you suggest.
Of course, raising the case of Mr. Huseyin Celil, and not just raising it but demanding that the Chinese government release him immediately and unconditionally, is critical; otherwise the Chinese government can do anything in its prison and may even just torture him to death. It's going to be really terrible if he's tortured or just dies in prison.
Mr. Huseyin Celil is a Canadian citizen, so the Canadian government should absolutely demand his immediate and unconditional release from Chinese custody.
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Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
Thank you.
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The Chair:
Because the interpretation is taking additional time and because we might have to deal with further committee business that could be a complex question, I'm going to decide to extend, if necessary, to 12:30. Because people have adjusted their schedules to finish at 12, we'll try to stick to that as much as possible, but we also have this interpretation issue.
I forgot to mention at the top, as well, that I'd like to invite members of the committee to a reception that I'll be hosting in honour of Madame Kadeer this evening, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., in the East Block.
Mr. Menzies.
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Mr. Ted Menzies (Macleod, CPC):
I'll start off. Thank you.
First of all, thank you so much for coming and sharing this most enlightening information with us. We do appreciate that.
Just so you know, on the topic of Mr. Celil, our government—and I'm sure this is shared with all of our colleagues—raises this issue whenever we have an opportunity.
I met with a member of Parliament from China, not this last weekend but the weekend before, and I once again raised the issue. I said it's very concerning for us to have a Canadian citizen in a jail in China.
Your comments about CIDA interested me. Can you tell me what CIDA, our Canadian International Development Agency, is doing in your country and what they're able to accomplish? Hopefully we are accomplishing some things. You spoke about HIV and AIDS. Can you share with us what some of the concerns are, what we may do better?
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The Chair:
Mr. Tohti, I thought you might be better positioned to answer that question.
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Mr. Mehmet Tohti (President, Uyghur Canadian Association):
Yes, I probably know more than she does, because in six years as the president of the Uyghur Canadian Association, I have been closely involved in the CIDA project. I sent some recommendations to them.
First, they started a project in the southern part of East Turkestan, which is called the Hoten region. Most of the majority are Uyghurs and are very poor people. CIDA initiated a project there, a poverty reduction program, for three or four years. Unfortunately, the program has expired or ended. I received many letters and phone calls from people in Hoten when Canada recalled the poverty reduction program.
As you can see in a lot of information from Amnesty International or in U.S. congressional reports, there is economic discrimination in the region. A CBC journalist, Mr. Anthony Germain, also recently reported from there.
There are no Uyghurs working in industry. There are no Uyghurs in oil and other industrial factories. All of them are employed by the Chinese. Uyghurs are very poor. They are discriminated against. Therefore, nearly 70% of Uyghurs are unemployed.
It is the main reason to continue the poverty reduction program. If you expand it not only in Hoten but, at the same time, in Kashgar and some other regions, first, it would help the local people to start up businesses, and secondly, it would send a strong message to the Chinese government that they're not taking care of their own citizens and are discriminating against them.
I believe the program should continue. That's one suggestion.
The second one is this. For a couple of years, as the Chinese government did in the SARS epidemic, the Chinese government covered up the HIV situation in the Uyghur region. Unfortunately, East Turkestan has now become the crossroads for drug traffickers from the Chinese Golden Triangle to Central Asia and Eurasia. The famous scenic road has now become a drug road. At the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, unfortunately, there are also drugs traffickers from that region, because it is the closest land road to enter into the Kashgar region.
It's the reason HIV is now the biggest problem, or the second biggest problem. Yunan is the number one problem for China, and East Turkestan is the number two problem.
People do not have the economic power to buy drugs. Because of some of the social customs or traditions among the Uyghurs, the biggest problem is that there's a stigma, if I can describe it that way. People are not free to go to the clinic because they are ashamed or afraid.
I made one more suggestion to CIDA to open one clinic, do some checkups, and prevent the further spread of this terrible disease. We should work on this area, because the Chinese government is ignoring the problem.
Recently, last week, the Xinhua News Agency, the official Chinese news agency, said that 17 Uyghurs are infected with HIV every day. It is a huge number.
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The Chair:
You may want to come back on the second round, but go ahead, if you want to.
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Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, CPC):
Very quickly, I have about two or three questions.
I want to thank you for coming.
I have certainly had the opportunity to bring up the Celil case as well, and I have done so. I know this government is committed to bringing forward those issues at every possible opportunity.
The first question is this. What are other countries doing that we could learn from? Canada has taken a stand. We brought forward some cases of human rights violations. You referenced the United States and the human rights bill they brought forward. What are some of the other countries doing specific to the Uyghur people that we could learn from?
What are your views on the new Human Rights Council and on Canadian action that we could perhaps take via this United Nations forum?
The third question is specific to what Mr. Menzies asked. Does CIDA have the ability to direct programming and funds to the Uyghur people, or does it get all passed and vetted through the Chinese government?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
In the case of the United States, the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Congress are quite concerned with the case of the Uyghur people. And also, a lot of human rights organizations, certainly in the U.S., have been raising the case of the Uyghur issue together with the case of the Tibetans, so it's pretty high level.
In addition to that, the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization funded by the U.S. Congress, has been funding our organizations. Currently we have three organizations being funded by that organization.
The European Union countries all have been very interested in raising the Uyghur issues, including the members of the European Parliament and British government officials, Sweden, and all the other countries there are raising the Uyghur case as a high-profile case.
We have been raising the case of Huseyin Celil with the other countries as well. We also urge them to raise the case of Huseyin Celil and of my sons' arrest and detention together, so they can raise it directly with the Chinese government to put more pressure on them.
One of our goals is to urge the Canadian Parliament, if that can be done, to introduce a bill to specifically protect human rights and the culture of the Uyghur people.
This time, during my trip to the European Parliament and after meeting with high-level European Parliament officials, they said they were also interested in introducing such a bill.
Another thing that can be done on behalf of the Uyghur people is to fund Uyghur organizations, such as the Uyghur Canadian Association of which Mehmet is president, to be locally active. He could provide you with the latest information, so the Canadian government will be more proactive by getting timely information.
If the Canadian government can give some funding to the Uyghur association here, so the Uyghur association can work professionally toward promotion of the human rights of the Uyghur people, that's going to really help in many ways. Otherwise, for example, the president of the UCA is currently working part-time. Although he has done everything in his power to raise the cases, that is really not enough.
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In terms of CIDA's aid and funds, if CIDA directly transfers funds to the Chinese government, then the Uyghur people will never see those funds. It would be much better if CIDA directly opened clinics or hospitals or test centres that could treat AIDS patients instead of just giving money to the Chinese government and letting them do the job. CIDA should also send their own team to supervise and monitor the process.
As well, millions of Uyghur people who fled from Chinese persecution are living in Central Asia. They need protection, and they probably also need refugee resettlement. The Canadian government could help with that.
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The Chair:
Before we go to the next question, Madam Kadeer mentioned the UCA. I believe that's the Uyghur Congress of America?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
The Uyghur Canadian Association.
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The Chair:
The Uyghur Canadian Association, excuse me.
I don't think Madam Kadeer said this in her statement, but I think it's worth noting that one of her sons was convicted and given a seven-year sentence two weeks ago--the very same day she was elected president of the World Uyghur Congress. Is that correct?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Yes.
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The Chair:
As well, Madam Kadeer didn't say this exactly, but I believe it's also true that her six-year sentence, or what ended up being limited to a six-year sentence, was for engaging in espionage, which consisted of sending in the mail publicly available newspaper articles to her husband in the United States. Is that correct?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Yes, that's correct.
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The Chair:
Thank you.
Mr. Marston.
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Mr. Wayne Marston (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, NDP):
First of all, I want to say that I feel honoured by your presence here today.
Because of our parliamentary style of democracy here, you will find that oftentimes in our discussions we don't agree with members of the government, even though their interest here in particularly Mr. Celil's case is certainly commendable. One thing I'm very concerned about is ethical trade. Human rights should take a priority at all times.
I've been calling for a special envoy, a parliamentary delegation perhaps, to go to China to take up Mr. Celil's case. Would you see that as being effective?
I would add this: thank you for joining the many voices who have said that we need to push harder at China on the issue of human rights.
As well, you mentioned Guantanamo. How many combatants from your area would be down there?
To Mr. Tohti, I have a question around the dialogue we're looking at. What would you call the main failure of the dialogue?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
First of all, thank you very much for your questions and for your concern with regard to Mr. Celil's case. For me it's very important that Canada puts human rights before trade, because that could really help improve the human rights situation for Uyghurs and in China overall.
You suggest that perhaps a parliamentary delegation should visit China's prisons and other places to find out more about Mr. Celil's case and about the cases of people like him. That would really help with our case, and it would definitely help with the release of Mr. Celil and of people like him, those who are imprisoned for doing absolutely nothing.
In terms of the Uyghurs at Guantanamo, there are different attorneys working on different cases. Initially, for the first five, there was another attorney who worked on their cases. He's still working on the cases of the rest of the Uyghurs there.
There are attorneys working very hard on these cases. Our impression is that they may be released very soon. And if they are released, not as enemy combatants but rather as innocents, I would be really delighted if Canada could give them refuge.
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Mr. Mehmet Tohti:
The Canada–China human rights dialogue is the topic I love the most, because of six years of non-stop fighting with the Department of Foreign Affairs, with my friend Tenzin Khangsar. Each year before the dialogue starts, or after the dialogue, or before the UN human rights conference in Geneva starts, I have been invited by the Department of Foreign Affairs for a consultation meeting. I was a member of this consultation meeting on behalf of International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation.
There are a couple of reasons for the failure. One is lack of understanding of tricky Chinese diplomatic policy. The Chinese foreign policy is based upon one Asian theory: to hang out the head of the sheep and sell the meat of the dog. Put a different label on something and do a different thing behind the table. That is traditional Chinese foreign policy. Talking from different mouths ends up with different sounds.
It is the same case in North Korea--six-party talks, teaching North Korea how to act. Then after the dialogue ends, teach other tactics, because China is the only country that wants this crisis. It is the only country that doesn't want a solution for North Korea. It has to be continued so that western countries need China. It is the same policy.
The second main reason for the failure was that Canada acted very softly. Until 1997 we used to sponsor the resolution at the United Nations conference in Geneva condemning Chinese human rights abuses. Then the Chinese diplomats came to us and said, “Do not support this resolution. Let's have a dialogue.” Canada agreed. In the second phase, the Chinese diplomats said, “If you'd like to have a dialogue with us, let's keep it closed-door, without going public.” Canada agreed. In the third phase, the Chinese diplomats said, “We would like to improve our judicial system and the police forces. We would like to reform our detention facilities, but we don't have the money. We have money to send a manned mission to space and expand our military, but we do not have money to improve the quality of our citizens.” Canada said, “Okay, let's provide the money.” So Canada was the order taker; China was the order giver. That was not a dialogue. A dialogue is between two parties. It was a monologue.
The Chinese government assigned four or five diplomats whose primary job was to find answers to the possible questions raised by Canadians. “For Tibetans, okay, we are doing well.” If Canada raised the issue of the Panchen Lama: “Okay, he doesn't want to see anyone. He's okay. He's very good.” If Canada raised the issue of the Falun Gong: “It's an evil cult.” The answers were ready. And as for Uyghurs: “Ah, they are terrorists”. It continued for seven years. We spent a lot of resources on it.
That is a brief picture of the dialogue. It ended up that the four or five Chinese diplomats never passed the messages from Canada to upper-level policy-makers. They didn't know. It was just the job of five people to prepare the answers to possible questions. It was not a dialogue. The Chinese government never implemented any suggestions or took any of Canada's suggestions seriously. It was a waste of resources, money, and everything.
Therefore, if there is a dialogue, there should be a mission accomplished. There should be a clear, step-by-step, case-by-case strategy on what we are going to achieve. The Chinese government should know that if we are going to raise the issue of Tibetans, in what timeframe are they going to achieve something? If we raise the Uyghur issue, what is the timetable? What are the steps? What are the obstacles? How can we overcome it? There should be a clear strategy.
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Secondly, there should be accountability. That is important. All the bureaucrats at the Department of Foreign Affairs conduct talks with the Chinese government, but the Canadian public doesn't know what is going on, what is said by the Chinese, and what the response of the Canadians is, what it has to do with development. We don't know. So on the format of the China–Canada human rights dialogue, as we've said for five or six years, it is a waste of time. We've wasted a lot of time and a lot of resources. It has to be reformatted.
You have to tell the Chinese government that if they would like to have a human rights dialogue, it has to be a dialogue between governments, not with four or five people. The mandate of the dialogue and the agenda for the dialogue should be part of the Chinese government's official policy. The recommendations should be implemented. There should be follow-ups.
I have a lot of things to say about the dialogue because I'm the one who is frustrated. Imagine repeating the same things for six years. I thank the Canadian Parliament and I thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is the first time the Canadian Parliament has acted. At least I feel that Canadians today have listened.
I love Canada. I am Canadian--proudly Canadian. I want this relationship to be a better relationship, with mutual respect, not humiliation.
Thank you.
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Although I'm still not yet a U.S. citizen, it was the United States' firm, hard-line pressure on China that got my release. As you probably know, the Chinese government accused me of being a terrorist, and not only of espionage or anything like that. China released me after the United States took a very strong stand on my case, saying, “You have to release her.” Then I was released.
I'm really proud of what the Prime Minister said regarding putting human rights first and trade behind—not trade first, but human rights first. That really means a lot to the Uyghur people and all the oppressed people.
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The Chair:
Thank you very much.
Mr. Tohti in particular, I found that to be one of the most useful encapsulations of the issue that we've heard from any of our witnesses. I would like to invite you to perhaps summarize some of those points in writing and submit them to committee. I think it would be quite fruitful as we prepare our report.
For a five-minute round, we go to Mr. Sorenson.
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Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
I have two quick questions.
You mentioned that there are 17 Uyghur people in the naval detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. What are they there for?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
In 1997 there was a big massacre. To us, it was more like a June 4 Tiananmen Square massacre. It happened in the city of Ghulja, which is very close to the Central Asian borders, and a lot of Uyghurs were executed. It was a peaceful protest, but the Chinese government cracked down on that protest very hard.
After 1997, the Chinese government also executed a lot of Uyghur people. As a result, a lot of Uyghurs fled to Central Asian countries. Because they couldn't return—if they got deported, they would be executed—some of them fled to countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. A lot of them were actually later picked up by Pakistani bounty hunters, because the U.S. paid money for picking up people. These people were picked up and given to the Americans, then the Americans brought them to Guantanamo Bay.
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Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
But were they fighting with al-Qaeda?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
No, they were not fighting with al-Qaeda.
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Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
I got that. I don't understand the language, but I understood that.
I have one other quick question, Mr. Chair.
In the material that you gave us—and I appreciate it—you talk a lot about the Uyghur culture being weak and in need of protection. You speak quite a bit about culture. You talk about how the Chinese government would like to get rid of the Uyghur culture, and you realize that stating “the Chinese government is trying to eliminate Uyghur culture’ can seem overly emotive, and that I run the risk of being accused of exaggeration”, but that's what they're doing. Can you define for me the Uyghur culture?
Take religion. I don't know much about the Celil case, but I do know what is of concern to Canadians. First of all, he's a Canadian citizen. Secondly, he was sent to China and he's being held. He hasn't been given consular services. All those things go against the values that we have here in Canada. But on religious freedom, is it a religion? Is it religious freedom that is not being protected? What could the Chinese government do to protect the culture of Uyghur people? Religious freedom is one of the issues that I'd like you to speak about.
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
The Uyghur people have a completely separate set of cultural, historical, religious, and value systems when compared to the Chinese. Even our territory and way of life are completely different from those of the Chinese.
When the Chinese government actually gave us so-called autonomy, the Chinese government promised to respect our human rights, our culture, our language, and our religion. But now, after China's rise, with it becoming this emerging superpower, our language is becoming completely useless right now in terms of education at all levels, because the Chinese government is forcing the Chinese language onto us.
In terms of religion, we believe in Islam. Basically, the Chinese government, after 9/11, immediately labelled us as terrorists. In fact, you see hardly anything that resembles terrorism among the Uyghurs.
As you all know, religion plays a big role in helping the people to keep their morality, in giving them true values. If you visit our homeland today, you will see beautiful mosques and you will even see people praying inside. That's what the Chinese government is basically showcasing, so that foreign delegation people will come and see that.
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Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
That is my point.
One of the recommendations is that you want us to go on a fact-finding mission: “We...recommend that the Canadian government send a fact-finding mission to East Turkestan”. What are we going to see when they get there? When we get there, we're going to see what the Chinese government wants us to see.
The Uyghur people aren't a pluralistic society either. They're a fairly closed Islamic society. Are other religions free in this area? Do you believe in religious pluralism?
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Ms. Rebiya Kadeer (Interpretation):
Of course, the Chinese government will do everything to ensure you see what they want you to see. The thing is, if you go inside the mosques, they post regulations on the walls specifically saying minors cannot be allowed, that preaching is, for example, for 30 minutes, and they only use their own imams and mullahs trained by the government, not the individual clerics who train elsewhere. In all of those regulations, if you read them, all those imams and mullahs are supposed to strictly follow government guidelines in terms of their clerical activities.
If you just go to mosques and see people praying and try to talk to a Uyghur, and you tap on his or her shoulder and ask them what religious freedom is, or things like that, you can see the fear on their face. But when they say things, they would say they have their religious freedom and are living their best lives under Chinese rule.
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The Chair:
Thank you very much.
We're over our time. I would invite members of the committee again to attend a special reception this evening from 6 to 8 o'clock in the East Block, if they have further questions for Ms. Kadeer.
Madam Kadeer, Mr. Tohti, and your interpreter, thank you very much for your time and your visit to Ottawa.
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Mr. Mehmet Tohti:
I have just one more request. I gave Mr. Kenney the Chinese number seven secret document. Please read that document, and you'll find the answer about religious freedom.
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The Chair:
We'll have this translated and distributed to the committee.
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Mr. Mehmet Tohti:
Yes, and also there is one paragraph to answer a question about whether or not there are Chinese spies in Canada. There is one paragraph; you just have to read it. It is a very clear mission set by the Chinese government on how to conduct, how to be involved with the Chinese communities, how to train them, how to get the information. There is a signature on that document; it was chaired by Jiang Zemin, the Chinese president. There is the Chinese president's signature. That document was just leaked by Ms. Rebiya Kadeer.
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The Chair:
Thank you again.
Thank you. We're adjourned.
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?COM=10945&SourceId=188498&SwitchLanguage=1
Celil Granted Access To Lawyer
Celil Granted Access To Lawyer
Wednesday June 13, 2007
The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) welcomed news reports that jailed Canadian Huseyin Celil has finally been allowed to meet with his lawyer in China.
TORONTO. The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) welcomed news reports that jailed Canadian Huseyin Celil has finally been allowed to meet with his lawyer in China. Mr. Celil of Burlington, Ontario, a Canadian citizen, was sentenced back in April to life in prison by a Chinese court. Since his arrest last year, Mr. Celil has been denied Canadian consular services as China refuses to recognize his Canadian citizenship. CCNC maintains its position that the plight of Huseyin Celil has far-reaching implications for naturalized Canadians of Chinese origin who travel to China or to surrounding nations where they may face the threat of arrest, imprisonment or deportation to China and no access to consular services.
“We are encouraged by this new development,” Colleen Hua, CCNC National President said today. “We know that Prime Minister Harper, former Prime Minister Martin, Foreign Minister Peter MacKay and many other Ministers and MPs have raised this case with Chinese officials and insisted that Mr. Celil’s rights as a Canadian, be recognized.”
“We urge the Canadian Government to continue to press for full consular access to Mr. Celil including proper legal assistance and medical personnel to check on Mr. Celil’s health and well-being.”
CCNC is a community leader for Chinese Canadians in promoting a more just, respectful, and inclusive society. CCNC is a national non-profit organization with 27 chapters across Canada with a mandate to promote the equality rights and full participation of our community members in all aspects of Canadian society.
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For more information, please contact Victor Wong at (416) 977-9871.
End
CANADIAN DETAINED
Celil granted access to lawyer in jail after Martin visit with Chinese PM
OMAR EL AKKAD
June 6, 2007
Jailed Canadian activist Huseyin Celil has finally been allowed to meet with his lawyer, more than a month after a Chinese court sentenced him to life in prison for terrorism-related offences.
Mr. Celil met with his hired Chinese lawyer last Thursday and Friday, according to the Uyghur Canadian Association. Each meeting lasted about two hours, marking a dramatic shift in the amount of access China allows to Mr. Celil.
Previously, neither his Chinese lawyer nor Canadian embassy officials were allowed to meet the prisoner.
Indeed, embassy officials were barred from entering the courtroom when his sentence was handed down in April.
Mr. Celil was represented by another court-appointed lawyer during his trial. His current lawyer was hired by relatives and supporters to work on his appeal.
Mehmet Tohti, head of the Uyghur Canadian Association, said Mr. Celil's Chinese lawyer was given assurances after his first two meetings that he would be granted consistent access to his client.
That's a sharp change from a little more than a month ago, when Mr. Celil's lawyer asked the jailed Canadian's family to deny his involvement in the case, for fear of potential retribution from the Chinese authorities.
Last month, former prime minister Paul Martin visited China to attend the African Development Bank's annual meeting. He serves as an adviser to the organization.
During his time in the country, Mr. Martin met with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao for 35 minutes, where he raised Mr. Celil's case and repeated the Conservative government's demand that the imprisoned Canadian be given consular access. Yesterday, Mr. Tohti said the newly relaxed restrictions on Mr. Celil's access to lawyers is likely a sign that Mr. Martin's meeting and the current government's tough stand on the issue are working.
According to Mr. Tohti, the meetings between Mr. Celil and his lawyer included two other people: a translator and a representative of China's secret police.
Mr. Celil looked to be in good health, Mr. Tohti said, but it was unclear how honest he was able to be about certain topics, due to the police representative at the meeting.
Mr. Celil is an ethnic Uyghur, a Muslim minority group that resides primarily in the Xinjiang region of northwest China.
He was arrested in Uzbekistan and handed over to China more than a year ago. He was travelling on a Canadian passport at the time of his arrest.
Chinese authorities have labelled Mr. Celil a terrorist, and charged him with engaging in violent separatist activities.
His case has strained relations between China and Ottawa, as government officials in Canada continued to protest against his detention without consular access. Human-rights groups have also expressed concerns that Mr. Celil has been tortured during his time in Chinese custody.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070606.CELIL06/TPStory/TPInternational/Asia/
Wednesday June 13, 2007
The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) welcomed news reports that jailed Canadian Huseyin Celil has finally been allowed to meet with his lawyer in China.
TORONTO. The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) welcomed news reports that jailed Canadian Huseyin Celil has finally been allowed to meet with his lawyer in China. Mr. Celil of Burlington, Ontario, a Canadian citizen, was sentenced back in April to life in prison by a Chinese court. Since his arrest last year, Mr. Celil has been denied Canadian consular services as China refuses to recognize his Canadian citizenship. CCNC maintains its position that the plight of Huseyin Celil has far-reaching implications for naturalized Canadians of Chinese origin who travel to China or to surrounding nations where they may face the threat of arrest, imprisonment or deportation to China and no access to consular services.
“We are encouraged by this new development,” Colleen Hua, CCNC National President said today. “We know that Prime Minister Harper, former Prime Minister Martin, Foreign Minister Peter MacKay and many other Ministers and MPs have raised this case with Chinese officials and insisted that Mr. Celil’s rights as a Canadian, be recognized.”
“We urge the Canadian Government to continue to press for full consular access to Mr. Celil including proper legal assistance and medical personnel to check on Mr. Celil’s health and well-being.”
CCNC is a community leader for Chinese Canadians in promoting a more just, respectful, and inclusive society. CCNC is a national non-profit organization with 27 chapters across Canada with a mandate to promote the equality rights and full participation of our community members in all aspects of Canadian society.
-30-
For more information, please contact Victor Wong at (416) 977-9871.
End
CANADIAN DETAINED
Celil granted access to lawyer in jail after Martin visit with Chinese PM
OMAR EL AKKAD
June 6, 2007
Jailed Canadian activist Huseyin Celil has finally been allowed to meet with his lawyer, more than a month after a Chinese court sentenced him to life in prison for terrorism-related offences.
Mr. Celil met with his hired Chinese lawyer last Thursday and Friday, according to the Uyghur Canadian Association. Each meeting lasted about two hours, marking a dramatic shift in the amount of access China allows to Mr. Celil.
Previously, neither his Chinese lawyer nor Canadian embassy officials were allowed to meet the prisoner.
Indeed, embassy officials were barred from entering the courtroom when his sentence was handed down in April.
Mr. Celil was represented by another court-appointed lawyer during his trial. His current lawyer was hired by relatives and supporters to work on his appeal.
Mehmet Tohti, head of the Uyghur Canadian Association, said Mr. Celil's Chinese lawyer was given assurances after his first two meetings that he would be granted consistent access to his client.
That's a sharp change from a little more than a month ago, when Mr. Celil's lawyer asked the jailed Canadian's family to deny his involvement in the case, for fear of potential retribution from the Chinese authorities.
Last month, former prime minister Paul Martin visited China to attend the African Development Bank's annual meeting. He serves as an adviser to the organization.
During his time in the country, Mr. Martin met with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao for 35 minutes, where he raised Mr. Celil's case and repeated the Conservative government's demand that the imprisoned Canadian be given consular access. Yesterday, Mr. Tohti said the newly relaxed restrictions on Mr. Celil's access to lawyers is likely a sign that Mr. Martin's meeting and the current government's tough stand on the issue are working.
According to Mr. Tohti, the meetings between Mr. Celil and his lawyer included two other people: a translator and a representative of China's secret police.
Mr. Celil looked to be in good health, Mr. Tohti said, but it was unclear how honest he was able to be about certain topics, due to the police representative at the meeting.
Mr. Celil is an ethnic Uyghur, a Muslim minority group that resides primarily in the Xinjiang region of northwest China.
He was arrested in Uzbekistan and handed over to China more than a year ago. He was travelling on a Canadian passport at the time of his arrest.
Chinese authorities have labelled Mr. Celil a terrorist, and charged him with engaging in violent separatist activities.
His case has strained relations between China and Ottawa, as government officials in Canada continued to protest against his detention without consular access. Human-rights groups have also expressed concerns that Mr. Celil has been tortured during his time in Chinese custody.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070606.CELIL06/TPStory/TPInternational/Asia/
The other thorn in China's side
REUTERS FILE PHOTO
Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uighur Congress, fears that China will use the Tibetan riots as an excuse to harass her people in Xinjiang.
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CHINA'S WARNING
The official Xinjiang News Agency yesterday warned against outbreaks of unrest inspired by the Tibetan protests.
"No matter whether it's Tibetan independence, Xinjiang independence or Taiwanese independence, their goal is all the same – to create chaos and split the motherland," said the regional service on its website.
"China and Beijing's holding of the Olympic Games in 2008 has led separatists at home and abroad to believe they have a golden opportunity.
"To put it bluntly, if they don't wreck things, they won't feel comfortable, because they won't have achieved their goal of spoiling China's image."
Reuters
'Tibetans are like pandas. Uighurs are like camels'
JAMES MILLWARD, Georgetown University professor
While the world focuses on Tibet, Beijing is also putting pressure on its Turkic Muslim minority
Mar 23, 2008 04:30 AM
Andrew Chung
Staff Reporter
As Chinese troops have been fanning out across Tibetan regions inside China in an attempt to quell spreading anti-government riots, another restive group has also come under intense police scrutiny in the country's northwest.
The Uighurs of Xinjiang province – a largely Muslim ethnic minority of Turkic descent that has long inhabited the Central Asia region – have felt the strong arm of a stepped-up police presence since the Tibetan protests began two weeks ago.
"Because of what's going on in Tibet, the government has stepped up its security measures to make sure no Uighur would stand up against it," says Rebiya Kadeer, president of the German-based World Uighur Congress, in a phone interview via an interpreter.
"In the streets, whenever three or four Uighurs come together, a van appears and plainclothes police arrive and either disperse them or take them away.
"I have also learned that the Chinese authorities have sent plainclothes Chinese police into Uighur schools ... to make sure nothing is going on there."
She says there are also curfews in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region's cities and the government is also rounding up Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) previously released from prison for political offences.
The actions appear to signal China's willingness to take pre-emptive action against perceived threats as it steps up security in advance of the Beijing Olympics in August.
"There is great potential for the people (in Xinjiang) to follow the Tibetans and make some noise there," says Mehmet Tohti, president of the Uighur Canadian Association. "That's the fear of the Chinese government."
Wang Baodong, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said it's understandable that authorities would take action to prevent problems from arising in the wake of the Tibetan riots.
"In the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, there are people calling for the independence or the separation of the region from China, and some extreme or fundamental elements, both outside and inside the region, have been engaged in various kinds of activities to try to realize their scheme."
Wang could not provide details of specific police actions but said "it's only natural for the local governments and relevant agencies to take preventive measures."
Chinese authorities have numerous times in the past clamped down on Uighur communities in Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and a handful of other Central Asian republics.
There is a fierce mutual mistrust between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese, the country's majority ethnic group.
For decades, the Han have migrated, with the government's active encouragement, into Xinjiang. In 1949, when the Communists took over China and assumed control over Xinjiang, they made up just 5 per cent of the population. Now they're threatening to reach majority.
Like the Tibetans, Uighurs say the Chinese have run roughshod over their culture and livelihoods.
The region is booming economically with tremendous development, especially in oil production, but observers note that it's mostly the Han who benefit, dominating the region's commerce and accessing the best jobs and education.
Han Chinese tend to live in newer areas, while they have also torn down historically and architecturally significant Uighur neighbourhoods.
"There does seem to be a sense among Uighurs, as well as Tibetans, that they are not benefiting from the development of Xinjiang as much as many Han immigrants are," says James Millward, a professor of history and expert on Xinjiang at Georgetown University.
Many Uighurs resent government control over their religious practices, including the banning of religious schools.
Uighur separatists, who reject the name "Xinjiang" and instead use "East Turkestan," have shown no compunction about using violence. The 1990s saw widespread riots and murders of Han Chinese and officials also blamed a 1997 Beijing bus bombing on Uighur extremists.
But iron-fisted rule has allowed China to thwart most violent activity.
In January 2007, Chinese forces killed 18 people in a raid at what Beijing described as a training camp in the mountains of southern Xinjiang, run by the ETIM.
This year, China acknowledged launching a Jan. 27 raid on a "terrorist gang" in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.
State-controlled media reported that two members of the cell were shot dead, but not before the militants lobbed homemade grenades, wounding two police officers. Fifteen others were arrested.
It was alleged that the group had collaborated with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which the United Nations has listed as a terrorist organization and the U.S. insists has ties to Al Qaeda.
Xinjiang's Communist party chief Wang Lequan recently told Xinhua News Agency that investigators seized weapons, books on terrorism and materials that suggested the group was planning an attack on the Olympics.
Then came reports of a March 7 incident in which a China Southern Airlines flight crew broke up an apparent attempt to down a plane flying from Urumqi to Beijing. Reports said a female passenger had smuggled gasoline aboard the plane and there was an attempt to ignite it in a lavatory toilet.
The alleged plot was discovered and the passengers, described by some witnesses as Uighurs, were apprehended. The flight made an emergency landing in Lanzhou, in Gansu province.
Some human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have expressed skepticism over the reports, saying Chinese authorities don't give details about these incidents and restrictions make it impossible to verify them.
"I think that in many Western countries, these kinds of announcements would not have been met with skepticism," says Georgetown professor Millward. "Some of that arises from the way the media is so closely allied with the (Communist) party and government authorities in China."
In fact, human rights groups have long suspected China of overstating the terrorist threat as a pretext for smothering Uighur separatism.
China's claims to Xinjiang and Tibet remain controversial but uncontested by the world community, observes Millward, who published a book last year called Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang.
Both regions were under control of the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century. With the 1911 fall of the dynasty and rise of the Republic of China, their status became questionable. The Nationalists never actually had control over Tibet and wielded little influence in Xinjiang, Millward explains, "but always maintained claims" to them.
The Uighur people had their own state in the region, both in 1933 based in the city of Kashgar, and again just after World War II in northern Xinjiang.
Taiwan was also part of the Qing Dynasty and it was to the island that Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist army fled in 1949 to escape Mao Zedong's conquering Communists. Mao's forces also took control of Xinjiang in 1949 and did the same in Tibet two years later.
China has made it clear it will not countenance a formal declaration of independence by Taiwan, nor any kind of "splitting" activity from either the Tibetans or Uighurs.
Notes Millward: "They were all part of the Qing empire, for which the transition to being part of the modern Chinese state and being part of the People's Republic of China has been at times difficult.
"There remain tensions and contradictions about their status that have yet to be fully resolved and fully faced."
As the Tibetan riots and apparent resurging struggles in Xinjiang attest, China is facing touchy political battles under a heavy international gaze.
"It's a lot for China, just as it would be for any country, to deal with," says Millward. "There are lingering contradictions from the Qing Dynasty to the modern Chinese state and these have not so far been treated openly."
World Uighur Congress president Kadeer says she worries that the Chinese government will use the Tibetan riots as an excuse to harass Uighurs and implement policies that would have seemed too heavy-handed in the past.
She estimates tensions in the cities to be "very high right now as a result of the Chinese government's media portrayals of both the Uighurs and Tibetans as the enemy."
However, it's not easy to get a true picture of what is happening on the ground at any given time.
The Uighur Canadian Association's Tohti says southern Xinjiang had been closed to tourists, foreigners and media – just as in Tibet and Tibetan cities in neighbouring provinces.
But a call from the Toronto Star confirmed with a hotel in central Kashgar that it was accepting reservations from Western tourists.
The latest Tibetan uprising has brought an outpouring of concern from around the world. But little is heard about the plight of the Uighurs.
To explain the disparity, Millward points to a well-worn maxim concerning China's ethnic minorities.
"Tibetans are like pandas," he says. "Uighurs are like camels. The pandas are cuddly – there is great sympathy for Tibetan Buddhism and no fear of it. Camels are prickly beasts, not something you necessarily want to cozy up to.
"Yet pandas and wild camels, both, are endangered species."
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/349844
The Uyghur pawn
The Uyghur pawn
By Kevin Steel ⋅ May 21, 2007 ⋅ Email this post Email this post ⋅ Print this post Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
Beijing’s dictatorship sentences a Canadian to life in prison without evidence to support their charges. The question remains, why?
He calls it a “basket charge.” That’s the term Hamilton-area lawyer Chris MacLeod uses when describing “split-ism,” or seeking “to divide the motherland.” This is the charge his client Huseyin Celil has been convicted of in Communist China. On April 19, Celil–a Canadian citizen and ethnic Uyghur by birth–was sentenced to life in prison. “It’s a basket charge for anyone who is either a Tibetan or a Uyghur,” MacLeod says. In other words, if they want to throw someone in prison, all they have to do is allege split-ism, and since the Communist Chinese are pretty much detested in both regions and just about everybody wants them out, they don’t have to do much to make it stick.
Since 1949, China has occupied both Tibet and East Turkistan, the homeland of the Uyghurs, which the Chinese call Xinjiang province. A vague, broad catch-all charge like “split-ism” might explain why the Chinese felt there was no need to show evidence at Celil’s trial. He was also convicted of “organizing, leading and participating in terrorist groups.” For that he received 10 years. Again, no evidence was presented.
But the Chinese Communist party doesn’t do this type of thing without its reasons. So, in the absence of evidence, perhaps there might be an explanation that fits the facts.
MacLeod is willing to offer one. “I think [Celil’s conviction is] for activities he’s done in Canada. This is the Chinese government sending a message to the Uyghur diaspora that if you speak up and speak out in a foreign country for the Uyghur population, that is a crime punishable by life imprisonment or even death,” MacLeod says. And he says it’s now a matter of “message sent, message received”; Uyghurs abroad are fearful of speaking out.
The problem with this theory is that Celil wasn’t known for being a particularly vocal member of the Uyghur community in Canada, which only numbers in the low hundreds. Mehmet Tohti, president of the Toronto-based Uyghur Association of Canada, says Celil simply wasn’t that visible. “He is not an extraordinary man in our community. He’s a real family man, an ordinary man. We arrange protest rallies sometimes in front of the Chinese Consulate. Sometimes he comes, sometimes not, because he has three kids and his oldest son is handicapped,” Tohti says. However, Tohti does agree with MacLeod that the “Chinese government is simply trying to send a message to all Uyghurs outside of China: ‘Just watch your step.’”
Tohti believes the Chinese kidnapped Celil simply because they could. In March 2006, Celil traveled to Uzbekistan with his family to visit his wife’s relatives. Uzbekistan, friendly with the Beijing government because of business ties and Chinese aid, detained Celil when he tried to renew his visitor visa. They concocted a story that he was in fact a wanted terrorist named Guler Dilaver on Interpol’s watch list. Eventually, the Uzbeks spirited him to China without informing his family or Canadian authorities. He continued to be held incommunicado until February this year, when he made a one-day court appearance in the city of Urumchi.
The Chinese initially maintained that because Celil was on an international terrorist watch list, consular agreements didn’t apply–and so China didn’t have to deal with Canadian diplomats regarding his arrest. When it became apparent that this was too weak a pretext to maintain, the Chinese then said they didn’t recognize Celil’s Canadian citizenship, and on that basis have consistently denied him Canadian consular services. But even this latest explanation shows how rickety the rule of law is in China. Tohti is emphatic on this point: “Chinese nationality law is very clear and cut, without giving any room for other interpretations. Chinese nationality law, Article 3, says China does not accept dual citizenship. And Article 9 says if anyone becomes a foreign national, becomes a citizen of any other country except China, he or she will lose Chinese citizenship automatically,” he says. In other words, Celil cannot legally be a Chinese subject.
According to Tohti, when Celil became a Canadian citizen in 2005, he contacted the Chinese consul general’s office in Toronto to find out if there were any formalities he had to undertake to cut all ties with China. The officials there apparently informed him of Chinese law negating his Chinese citizenship. Tohti thinks this was a mistake on Celil’s part because that may have been the moment he appeared on the Communist party’s radar.
China’s human rights abuses against the Turkistan have been widely publicized and internationally condemned, but the plight of the Uyghurs in East Turkistan has largely gone unnoticed. The Uyghurs are not ethnically Chinese. They are a Muslim, mainly Sufi, Turkic-language minority of about 10 million. For years, the Communists treated them as subhuman, denying them basic human rights and treating the region as a buffer-zone wasteland between China and the Soviet Union, a place where they would conduct multiple above-ground nuclear tests without any regard for the population.
Then, as China began to develop and became more energy dependent, it turned out that East Turkistan was oil rich. It also borders with Kazakhstan, which has large oil deposits as well. (Any pipeline from Kazakhstan to China–and the Chinese have been inking oil deals with Kazakhstan–will traverse East Turkistan.) To say that this occupied territory is strategically important to China is an understatement; it is rapidly becoming the heart for the lifeblood of China’s rapidly expanding economy. But Beijing has a problem with this heartland: namely, their long and ongoing conflict with the people who live there.
Throughout their occupation, ethnic Chinese, particularly Han Chinese, have been sent to live in the region to replace and rule over the Uyghurs. In 1997, riots started breaking out in response. These were ruthlessly suppressed by the ruling Communists and were quickly followed by mass executions and a clampdown on religious practice. By 1998, the Chinese began what they called “patriotic education” of the Uyghurs.
Enter, or rather exit, Huseyin Celil. He escaped East Turkistan in 1999. (Canadian newspapers keep repeating that he escaped from prison, but Kamila Telendibayeva, Celil’s wife, says this simply isn’t true; he escaped from East Turkistan without a passport, not from prison.) He managed to get to Turkey, and in May 1999 applied at a United Nations office for refugee status. After two years, in October 2001, he was accepted into Canada as a refugee and eventually settled in Burlington, Ont.
The timeline belies the transparent nonsense of China’s case against Celil. For the first six months of his detention, Beijing said Celil was being detained in relation to two terrorist events: a kidnapping in March 2000, and an assassination of a Chinese diplomat in 2002, both in Kyrgyzstan. But it is well documented that he was living under the protection of the UN in Turkey in 2000, and then in Canada in 2002. Neither event was mentioned at Celil’s trial. Still, he was convicted of a terror charge and sentenced.
Anwar Yusuf Turani is the prime minister of the East Turkistan government-in-exile based in Washington, D.C. He says he isn’t surprised by what China has done. “They’ve been doing it for a long time, arresting people in East Turkistan, labelling them separatists or religious extremists or terrorists. China is very good at labelling people without any proof,” Turani says.
Celil’s plight illustrates how Beijing has used the war on terror to justify continued oppression of the Uyghurs. As lawyer Chris MacLeod points out, the Chinese alleged that Celil gave money to Hizb’allah while he was in East Turkistan. “They didn’t say where he got this money or who he gave it to, but Hizb’allah is a name recognized in the West,” MacLeod says, implying the Chinese are just throwing around disinformation to justify what they’ve done. In 2002, the U.S. government put an organization known as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement on its Treasury Department terrorism watch list, as did the UN, despite the fact that not much is really known about the group. It was largely viewed as a concession to China for their support in the international war on terror. This allows them to pretend to be on the right side. At an April 26 press briefing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said, “We believe the case is China’s internal affair and in essence relates to anti-terrorism. It has no connection with Canada. We hope the Canadian side will not interfere with China’s internal affairs under this pretext.”
Turani believes the Chinese are playing a game with the international community, and Canada in particular, by kidnapping Celil and then imprisoning him for life. “Eventually they are going to exchange Celil for something they want from Canada,” Turani says. China did a similar thing, he says, when in 1999 they imprisoned Rabiya Kadir, a once successful Uyghur businesswoman, after she refused to speak out against her scholar husband, then living in the U.S., who had been critical of China. After six years in jail, she was freed in March 2005 and allowed to go to the U.S., after the American government exerted pressure on Beijing. Many China watchers interpreted her release as a public relations manoeuvre rather than a change of heart by the CCP. “They wanted to show the world, ‘See how generous we are: we treat the people humanely, we don’t have absolute dictatorship,’” Turani says.
If this is what China intends to do with Celil, then the CCP has done it at the expense of exposing yet again their bogus legal system. Also, it’s a safe bet that, before the Celil case, only foreign policy wonks and human rights activists knew anything about the Uyghurs. Celil’s trumped-up conviction has put a spotlight on that obscure ethnic minority, and has created a permanent irritant in Canada-Chinese relations. Just ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, that can’t be good for a CCP desperately trying to whitewash its image.
THE MEDDLERS:
Throughout Huseyin Celil’s ordeal, numerous Chinese officials have repeated the claim that the matter is entirely a domestic affair and Canada shouldn’t be meddling. Anyone who knows anything about Communist China would find this hypocrisy laughable. China is always meddling in the domestic affairs of other nations.
A good example was put before the Canadian public at the beginning of April, when it was revealed that Zhang Jiyan, the wife of a diplomat at the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, had defected to Canada in early March. She brought with her a document that showed how the embassy had tried to subvert the CRTC application of a New York-based Chinese-language television station, New Tang Dynasty Television, to broadcast in Canada. NTDTV is linked with the Falun Gong and is known to be critical of the Chinese Communist party.
There are numerous other examples. Two years ago, Chen Yonglin, a defector in Australia, identified a network of more than a thousand Chinese operatives in Canada, mostly keeping tabs on ethnic Chinese here. Then there are the connections with Canada’s Power Corp., which has a stake in CITIC, one of the largest Chinese conglomerates, while Power Corp. has had direct links to past Canadian prime ministers going back to Trudeau. And who can forget the infamous Johnny Chung case in the U.S., where China funnelled money to the Democratic party in order to influence the 1996 election?
[This article appeared in the May 21, 2007 issue of the Western Standard.]
http://kevinsteel.org/2007/05/21/the-uyghur-pawn/
By Kevin Steel ⋅ May 21, 2007 ⋅ Email this post Email this post ⋅ Print this post Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
Beijing’s dictatorship sentences a Canadian to life in prison without evidence to support their charges. The question remains, why?
He calls it a “basket charge.” That’s the term Hamilton-area lawyer Chris MacLeod uses when describing “split-ism,” or seeking “to divide the motherland.” This is the charge his client Huseyin Celil has been convicted of in Communist China. On April 19, Celil–a Canadian citizen and ethnic Uyghur by birth–was sentenced to life in prison. “It’s a basket charge for anyone who is either a Tibetan or a Uyghur,” MacLeod says. In other words, if they want to throw someone in prison, all they have to do is allege split-ism, and since the Communist Chinese are pretty much detested in both regions and just about everybody wants them out, they don’t have to do much to make it stick.
Since 1949, China has occupied both Tibet and East Turkistan, the homeland of the Uyghurs, which the Chinese call Xinjiang province. A vague, broad catch-all charge like “split-ism” might explain why the Chinese felt there was no need to show evidence at Celil’s trial. He was also convicted of “organizing, leading and participating in terrorist groups.” For that he received 10 years. Again, no evidence was presented.
But the Chinese Communist party doesn’t do this type of thing without its reasons. So, in the absence of evidence, perhaps there might be an explanation that fits the facts.
MacLeod is willing to offer one. “I think [Celil’s conviction is] for activities he’s done in Canada. This is the Chinese government sending a message to the Uyghur diaspora that if you speak up and speak out in a foreign country for the Uyghur population, that is a crime punishable by life imprisonment or even death,” MacLeod says. And he says it’s now a matter of “message sent, message received”; Uyghurs abroad are fearful of speaking out.
The problem with this theory is that Celil wasn’t known for being a particularly vocal member of the Uyghur community in Canada, which only numbers in the low hundreds. Mehmet Tohti, president of the Toronto-based Uyghur Association of Canada, says Celil simply wasn’t that visible. “He is not an extraordinary man in our community. He’s a real family man, an ordinary man. We arrange protest rallies sometimes in front of the Chinese Consulate. Sometimes he comes, sometimes not, because he has three kids and his oldest son is handicapped,” Tohti says. However, Tohti does agree with MacLeod that the “Chinese government is simply trying to send a message to all Uyghurs outside of China: ‘Just watch your step.’”
Tohti believes the Chinese kidnapped Celil simply because they could. In March 2006, Celil traveled to Uzbekistan with his family to visit his wife’s relatives. Uzbekistan, friendly with the Beijing government because of business ties and Chinese aid, detained Celil when he tried to renew his visitor visa. They concocted a story that he was in fact a wanted terrorist named Guler Dilaver on Interpol’s watch list. Eventually, the Uzbeks spirited him to China without informing his family or Canadian authorities. He continued to be held incommunicado until February this year, when he made a one-day court appearance in the city of Urumchi.
The Chinese initially maintained that because Celil was on an international terrorist watch list, consular agreements didn’t apply–and so China didn’t have to deal with Canadian diplomats regarding his arrest. When it became apparent that this was too weak a pretext to maintain, the Chinese then said they didn’t recognize Celil’s Canadian citizenship, and on that basis have consistently denied him Canadian consular services. But even this latest explanation shows how rickety the rule of law is in China. Tohti is emphatic on this point: “Chinese nationality law is very clear and cut, without giving any room for other interpretations. Chinese nationality law, Article 3, says China does not accept dual citizenship. And Article 9 says if anyone becomes a foreign national, becomes a citizen of any other country except China, he or she will lose Chinese citizenship automatically,” he says. In other words, Celil cannot legally be a Chinese subject.
According to Tohti, when Celil became a Canadian citizen in 2005, he contacted the Chinese consul general’s office in Toronto to find out if there were any formalities he had to undertake to cut all ties with China. The officials there apparently informed him of Chinese law negating his Chinese citizenship. Tohti thinks this was a mistake on Celil’s part because that may have been the moment he appeared on the Communist party’s radar.
China’s human rights abuses against the Turkistan have been widely publicized and internationally condemned, but the plight of the Uyghurs in East Turkistan has largely gone unnoticed. The Uyghurs are not ethnically Chinese. They are a Muslim, mainly Sufi, Turkic-language minority of about 10 million. For years, the Communists treated them as subhuman, denying them basic human rights and treating the region as a buffer-zone wasteland between China and the Soviet Union, a place where they would conduct multiple above-ground nuclear tests without any regard for the population.
Then, as China began to develop and became more energy dependent, it turned out that East Turkistan was oil rich. It also borders with Kazakhstan, which has large oil deposits as well. (Any pipeline from Kazakhstan to China–and the Chinese have been inking oil deals with Kazakhstan–will traverse East Turkistan.) To say that this occupied territory is strategically important to China is an understatement; it is rapidly becoming the heart for the lifeblood of China’s rapidly expanding economy. But Beijing has a problem with this heartland: namely, their long and ongoing conflict with the people who live there.
Throughout their occupation, ethnic Chinese, particularly Han Chinese, have been sent to live in the region to replace and rule over the Uyghurs. In 1997, riots started breaking out in response. These were ruthlessly suppressed by the ruling Communists and were quickly followed by mass executions and a clampdown on religious practice. By 1998, the Chinese began what they called “patriotic education” of the Uyghurs.
Enter, or rather exit, Huseyin Celil. He escaped East Turkistan in 1999. (Canadian newspapers keep repeating that he escaped from prison, but Kamila Telendibayeva, Celil’s wife, says this simply isn’t true; he escaped from East Turkistan without a passport, not from prison.) He managed to get to Turkey, and in May 1999 applied at a United Nations office for refugee status. After two years, in October 2001, he was accepted into Canada as a refugee and eventually settled in Burlington, Ont.
The timeline belies the transparent nonsense of China’s case against Celil. For the first six months of his detention, Beijing said Celil was being detained in relation to two terrorist events: a kidnapping in March 2000, and an assassination of a Chinese diplomat in 2002, both in Kyrgyzstan. But it is well documented that he was living under the protection of the UN in Turkey in 2000, and then in Canada in 2002. Neither event was mentioned at Celil’s trial. Still, he was convicted of a terror charge and sentenced.
Anwar Yusuf Turani is the prime minister of the East Turkistan government-in-exile based in Washington, D.C. He says he isn’t surprised by what China has done. “They’ve been doing it for a long time, arresting people in East Turkistan, labelling them separatists or religious extremists or terrorists. China is very good at labelling people without any proof,” Turani says.
Celil’s plight illustrates how Beijing has used the war on terror to justify continued oppression of the Uyghurs. As lawyer Chris MacLeod points out, the Chinese alleged that Celil gave money to Hizb’allah while he was in East Turkistan. “They didn’t say where he got this money or who he gave it to, but Hizb’allah is a name recognized in the West,” MacLeod says, implying the Chinese are just throwing around disinformation to justify what they’ve done. In 2002, the U.S. government put an organization known as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement on its Treasury Department terrorism watch list, as did the UN, despite the fact that not much is really known about the group. It was largely viewed as a concession to China for their support in the international war on terror. This allows them to pretend to be on the right side. At an April 26 press briefing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said, “We believe the case is China’s internal affair and in essence relates to anti-terrorism. It has no connection with Canada. We hope the Canadian side will not interfere with China’s internal affairs under this pretext.”
Turani believes the Chinese are playing a game with the international community, and Canada in particular, by kidnapping Celil and then imprisoning him for life. “Eventually they are going to exchange Celil for something they want from Canada,” Turani says. China did a similar thing, he says, when in 1999 they imprisoned Rabiya Kadir, a once successful Uyghur businesswoman, after she refused to speak out against her scholar husband, then living in the U.S., who had been critical of China. After six years in jail, she was freed in March 2005 and allowed to go to the U.S., after the American government exerted pressure on Beijing. Many China watchers interpreted her release as a public relations manoeuvre rather than a change of heart by the CCP. “They wanted to show the world, ‘See how generous we are: we treat the people humanely, we don’t have absolute dictatorship,’” Turani says.
If this is what China intends to do with Celil, then the CCP has done it at the expense of exposing yet again their bogus legal system. Also, it’s a safe bet that, before the Celil case, only foreign policy wonks and human rights activists knew anything about the Uyghurs. Celil’s trumped-up conviction has put a spotlight on that obscure ethnic minority, and has created a permanent irritant in Canada-Chinese relations. Just ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, that can’t be good for a CCP desperately trying to whitewash its image.
THE MEDDLERS:
Throughout Huseyin Celil’s ordeal, numerous Chinese officials have repeated the claim that the matter is entirely a domestic affair and Canada shouldn’t be meddling. Anyone who knows anything about Communist China would find this hypocrisy laughable. China is always meddling in the domestic affairs of other nations.
A good example was put before the Canadian public at the beginning of April, when it was revealed that Zhang Jiyan, the wife of a diplomat at the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, had defected to Canada in early March. She brought with her a document that showed how the embassy had tried to subvert the CRTC application of a New York-based Chinese-language television station, New Tang Dynasty Television, to broadcast in Canada. NTDTV is linked with the Falun Gong and is known to be critical of the Chinese Communist party.
There are numerous other examples. Two years ago, Chen Yonglin, a defector in Australia, identified a network of more than a thousand Chinese operatives in Canada, mostly keeping tabs on ethnic Chinese here. Then there are the connections with Canada’s Power Corp., which has a stake in CITIC, one of the largest Chinese conglomerates, while Power Corp. has had direct links to past Canadian prime ministers going back to Trudeau. And who can forget the infamous Johnny Chung case in the U.S., where China funnelled money to the Democratic party in order to influence the 1996 election?
[This article appeared in the May 21, 2007 issue of the Western Standard.]
http://kevinsteel.org/2007/05/21/the-uyghur-pawn/
Beijing is always watching
Beijing is always watching
Chinese-Canadians say spies have been monitoring and intimidating them
CHARLIE GILLIS | May 14, 2007 |
For Mehmet Tohti, it was the Canadian equivalent of the midnight knock on the door. The phone rang in his Mississauga apartment shortly before bedtime, and on the other end of the line was his mother Turmisa, who lives in the northern Chinese city of Karghilik. The sound of her voice was itself a surprise: Tohti, a Uyghur activist who escaped China in the late 1980s, hadn't seen his mother in 16 years, and the two had rarely spoken by phone. But they hardly had time to exchange greetings before she handed the receiver to a man who -- dispensing with all pleasantries, himself -- began scolding Tohti about his political activities.
Continued Below
The official, who identified himself only as a member of China's infamous Overseas Affairs Commission, had a laundry list of instructions. Tohti was to cease efforts to draw sympathy in Canada to the Uyghurs -- the oppressed, largely Muslim population of Xinjiang province that has become a thorn in Beijing's side; he was to stop spreading allegations of cultural genocide against the People's Republic; most importantly, he was not to attend an upcoming conference in Germany where Uyghur groups from around the world planned to form an international congress. "We have your mother here, and your brother, too," he added cryptically, noting that police had driven the pair some 260 km to a regional police headquarters in Kashgar to help deliver Beijing's message. "We can do whatever we want."
Indeed. In the three years since that night, the 43-year-old Tohti has had enough brushes with China's long-armed security apparatus to conclude Beijing's agents are still doing much as they please -- not just in China, but in Canada, too. The incidents have ranged from more such phone calls, he says, to one unsettling encounter last October, in which three Chinese men spent a night watching his suburban home through the windows of a black SUV. The men hung around until about 1:30 a.m., says Tohti, and for days afterward he couldn't sleep. After complaining about the incident to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, as well as the Department of Foreign Affairs, he moved into a condominium with 24-hour surveillance. "I no longer feel secure in Canada," he told federal officials.
He's not alone. The Taiwanese community, Tibetan Canadians and Falun Gong practitioners have all reported incidents of spying or intimidation to federal authorities in the past five years. And while Ottawa has reportedly issued stern warnings to the Chinese embassy, nothing seems to work. With the 2008 Summer Games in the offing, some critics believe Beijing is actually ramping up covert activities against Canadian-based dissident groups to help mute criticism of its human rights record during the Olympics.
Those anxieties rose further in March when Jiyan Zhang, an accountant who worked at the embassy and the wife of a Chinese diplomat, told reporters that staff there had formed a special unit to collect information on groups like the Uyghurs, Tibetans and Falun Gong. Zhang, herself a practitioner of Falun Gong, also smuggled out a document suggesting that the embassy had mobilized a letter-writing campaign to the CRTC in hopes of scuttling the licence application of a Chinese-language TV station it considered anti-Communist. Her husband has been sent home to China in disgrace, but Zhang, who's now claimed refugee status, has kept up her offensive. "I just hope to show that the Chinese embassy was doing bad things," she told the Ottawa Citizen. "I wanted to reveal their lies."
Not everyone, however, is feeling so brave when it comes to tweaking Beijing. Several Chinese expatriates who last week recounted harrowing tales of threats and intimidation asked not to be identified in Maclean's for fear of reprisals against relatives they left behind. Others worried about their own safety -- though there are no known incidents of violence by Beijing's agents on Canadian soil. Nearly all agreed that Canadians need to be better informed about the espionage going on inside their own borders.
Uyghurs, in particular, have been feeling vulnerable in recent months. The surprise arrest of Huseyin Celil, the Burlington, Ont., imam who was sentenced to life in a Chinese prison last month, reminded many how closely Beijing follows their movements. Friends of Celil point out that the 37-year-old participated in several Uyghur demonstrations in front of the Chinese consulate in Toronto, where consular staff photographed or videotaped him each time. Then, in June 2006, he was arrested at China's behest during a visit with his in-laws in Uzbekistan -- a capture so smoothly executed that Celil's advocates believe it must have orginated on Canadian soil. "I've maintained all along that the reason Huseyin came on the radar of the Chinese authorities was because of activities here," says Chris MacLeod, Celil's Canadian lawyer. "Obviously, they monitored him and they knew he was travelling. They certainly don't want other Uyghurs speaking publicly about the cause. I guess this is their way of sending a message."
Since then, members of the 450-strong Uyghur community have meditated nervously on their own stories of intrigue -- some of them as obvious as the surveillance of Celil, some of them much more subtle. Sixty-five-year-old Salim(not his real name)recalls a September 2004 phone call from the embassy's visa office inviting him to Ottawa to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the Communist revolution. None of his fellow Uyghurs received the same call, he says, and given his family's long history of defiance toward Beijing, it was easy to impute sinister motives. "They put my son in prison for life," says Salim, whom fellow Uyghurs regard as an elder statesman of sorts. "They've had an arrest warrant out for me since 1997. Why would I want to celebrate anything to do with China?"
Salim's mind raced. Did they plan to arrest him during a party on embassy property? Would they poison him? He now suspects Chinese officials merely hoped to use his presence at the party to blunt criticism they're prejudiced toward Uyghurs. In any case, they had quite cleverly demonstrated they knew where he lived, and they didn't seem to hear his polite refusals: the official called him back three times and a few days later a written copy of the invitation appeared in his mailbox. "I don't mind telling you I was afraid," says Salim.
Efforts to silence those who use the Internet to mobilize dissent against China have been equally crafty, and effective. Kayum Masimov, a Montreal-based organizer for the Uyghur Association of Canada, began receiving emails in 2004 that were so ingeniously disguised as messages from other Uyghurs in Canada that at first he never suspected trouble. Then, after a friend opened an attachment to one, Masimov's hard drive quickly filled with digital dreck. "I've already lost one laptop over this," says the 33-year-old. "Now, if I get a message from someone I know, I phone and ask if they sent it." Proving a connection to the embassy here is probably impossible, Masimov concedes, but he's not the only one who's been hit.
The tactic is known as a "virus assault," and it's become a daily hazard for Chinese dissident groups working in Canada. The messages feature content and senders too unique to have come from garden-variety troublemakers, and are so disruptive to communication that some groups now speak only in person, or by phone. Dermod Travis, executive director of the Montreal-based Canada Tibet Committee, submitted two infected emails his group received last fall to a private company for analysis, and has since been advised that the messages originated in China. The emails were tailored to look as though they were sent by Tibetan activists, he says; one even contained bogus registration forms for an upcoming international conference. The question is how the saboteurs obtained his group's address list. "This goes beyond the generic stuff you see in standard viruses," says Travis. "It would require some effort on the part of someone here in Canada."
All this said, it has taken Canada's spy agency an uncommonly long time to point a finger at Beijing, or any other meddlesome government. For years, CSIS has stuck to its policy of not naming countries it investigates, while victims who report incidents often never hear back from the agents who take down their stories. As late as last week, spokeswoman Barb Campion was sticking to the script, saying CSIS does investigate reports of foreign interference but avoiding specific mention of China.(As for leaving complainants hanging, Campion cited operational reasons: "Individuals come to us all the time, but much of what we find is going to be classified and we're not going to be able to share it.")
CSIS director Jim Judd was a bit more forthcoming before a Senate committee on Monday, acknowledging that Chinese operatives account for nearly half the service's domestic counter-intelligence work. "It's surprising, sometimes, the number of hyperactive tourists we get here and where they come from," he said, referring to the use of visitors as spies. But he provided little detail about the breadth and scope of China's activities, and even less in the way of reassurance. "As one of my foreign counterparts said once, in this business you spend most of your time worrying about what you don't know," he said. "That would certainly apply here as well."
The disclosure sent a buzz across Parliament Hill -- and presumably through the Chinese embassy(repeated calls by Maclean's to the mission went unanswered, as did calls last week to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay). But to those paying close attention, Judd was merely corroborating numerous anecdotal reports of Beijing stretching its tentacles throughout Canada's expatriate Chinese community. In June 2005, for instance, a former Chinese security official who sought asylum in Australia alleged that the Chinese government had roughly 1,000 spies operating in this country -- many of them monitoring Chinese students and scientists who are here on visas. Less than a month later, Guangsheng Han, a 52-year-old former security official, came forward in Ottawa to say Beijing was cultivating informants here to keep watch on dissidents. "They're very interested in what happens in the ethnic Chinese community in Canada," he told Canadian Press. "They pay a lot of attention."
Uyghur activists, meanwhile, proudly wield a 1996 directive leaked last year from the Chinese Communist Party, which appears to show that China's strategy of interference and infiltration is at least 10 years old. The memo, known as Document No. 7, instructs officials in foreign missions to "establish home bases in the regions or cities with high Chinese or overseas Chinese populations" and to "collect information on related developments." "Be especially vigilant against and prevent by all means the outside separatist forces from making the [Uyghur] problem international," it says.
None of this should come as a surprise to those who follow China on the world stage, says Yuen Pau Woo, president of the Vancouver-based Asia Pacific Foundation. "All countries have an interest in monitoring the activities of overseas nationals," he notes, "as well as activities that affect the homeland." And while the relatively large size of Canada's 1.6-million strong Chinese community make it an attractive espionage target, it is by no means unique in having Chinese spies on its soil. The good news, says Woo, is that China is quickly learning the value of charm and spin. "They're becoming more sophisticated," he says. "They're starting to use the tools of soft power."
Perhaps. But those who feel the eyes of Beijing upon them today say that China has a long way to go. The case of Celil is an extreme example of how determined Communist authorities are to silence their critics, they note, and while the kinds of tactics they appear to have at their disposal are by no means an option for Ottawa, nipping them in the bud will almost certainly require equal resolve. The first step, of course, is admitting we have a problem.
To comment, email letters@macleans.ca
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070514_105173_105173
Chinese-Canadians say spies have been monitoring and intimidating them
CHARLIE GILLIS | May 14, 2007 |
For Mehmet Tohti, it was the Canadian equivalent of the midnight knock on the door. The phone rang in his Mississauga apartment shortly before bedtime, and on the other end of the line was his mother Turmisa, who lives in the northern Chinese city of Karghilik. The sound of her voice was itself a surprise: Tohti, a Uyghur activist who escaped China in the late 1980s, hadn't seen his mother in 16 years, and the two had rarely spoken by phone. But they hardly had time to exchange greetings before she handed the receiver to a man who -- dispensing with all pleasantries, himself -- began scolding Tohti about his political activities.
Continued Below
The official, who identified himself only as a member of China's infamous Overseas Affairs Commission, had a laundry list of instructions. Tohti was to cease efforts to draw sympathy in Canada to the Uyghurs -- the oppressed, largely Muslim population of Xinjiang province that has become a thorn in Beijing's side; he was to stop spreading allegations of cultural genocide against the People's Republic; most importantly, he was not to attend an upcoming conference in Germany where Uyghur groups from around the world planned to form an international congress. "We have your mother here, and your brother, too," he added cryptically, noting that police had driven the pair some 260 km to a regional police headquarters in Kashgar to help deliver Beijing's message. "We can do whatever we want."
Indeed. In the three years since that night, the 43-year-old Tohti has had enough brushes with China's long-armed security apparatus to conclude Beijing's agents are still doing much as they please -- not just in China, but in Canada, too. The incidents have ranged from more such phone calls, he says, to one unsettling encounter last October, in which three Chinese men spent a night watching his suburban home through the windows of a black SUV. The men hung around until about 1:30 a.m., says Tohti, and for days afterward he couldn't sleep. After complaining about the incident to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, as well as the Department of Foreign Affairs, he moved into a condominium with 24-hour surveillance. "I no longer feel secure in Canada," he told federal officials.
He's not alone. The Taiwanese community, Tibetan Canadians and Falun Gong practitioners have all reported incidents of spying or intimidation to federal authorities in the past five years. And while Ottawa has reportedly issued stern warnings to the Chinese embassy, nothing seems to work. With the 2008 Summer Games in the offing, some critics believe Beijing is actually ramping up covert activities against Canadian-based dissident groups to help mute criticism of its human rights record during the Olympics.
Those anxieties rose further in March when Jiyan Zhang, an accountant who worked at the embassy and the wife of a Chinese diplomat, told reporters that staff there had formed a special unit to collect information on groups like the Uyghurs, Tibetans and Falun Gong. Zhang, herself a practitioner of Falun Gong, also smuggled out a document suggesting that the embassy had mobilized a letter-writing campaign to the CRTC in hopes of scuttling the licence application of a Chinese-language TV station it considered anti-Communist. Her husband has been sent home to China in disgrace, but Zhang, who's now claimed refugee status, has kept up her offensive. "I just hope to show that the Chinese embassy was doing bad things," she told the Ottawa Citizen. "I wanted to reveal their lies."
Not everyone, however, is feeling so brave when it comes to tweaking Beijing. Several Chinese expatriates who last week recounted harrowing tales of threats and intimidation asked not to be identified in Maclean's for fear of reprisals against relatives they left behind. Others worried about their own safety -- though there are no known incidents of violence by Beijing's agents on Canadian soil. Nearly all agreed that Canadians need to be better informed about the espionage going on inside their own borders.
Uyghurs, in particular, have been feeling vulnerable in recent months. The surprise arrest of Huseyin Celil, the Burlington, Ont., imam who was sentenced to life in a Chinese prison last month, reminded many how closely Beijing follows their movements. Friends of Celil point out that the 37-year-old participated in several Uyghur demonstrations in front of the Chinese consulate in Toronto, where consular staff photographed or videotaped him each time. Then, in June 2006, he was arrested at China's behest during a visit with his in-laws in Uzbekistan -- a capture so smoothly executed that Celil's advocates believe it must have orginated on Canadian soil. "I've maintained all along that the reason Huseyin came on the radar of the Chinese authorities was because of activities here," says Chris MacLeod, Celil's Canadian lawyer. "Obviously, they monitored him and they knew he was travelling. They certainly don't want other Uyghurs speaking publicly about the cause. I guess this is their way of sending a message."
Since then, members of the 450-strong Uyghur community have meditated nervously on their own stories of intrigue -- some of them as obvious as the surveillance of Celil, some of them much more subtle. Sixty-five-year-old Salim(not his real name)recalls a September 2004 phone call from the embassy's visa office inviting him to Ottawa to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the Communist revolution. None of his fellow Uyghurs received the same call, he says, and given his family's long history of defiance toward Beijing, it was easy to impute sinister motives. "They put my son in prison for life," says Salim, whom fellow Uyghurs regard as an elder statesman of sorts. "They've had an arrest warrant out for me since 1997. Why would I want to celebrate anything to do with China?"
Salim's mind raced. Did they plan to arrest him during a party on embassy property? Would they poison him? He now suspects Chinese officials merely hoped to use his presence at the party to blunt criticism they're prejudiced toward Uyghurs. In any case, they had quite cleverly demonstrated they knew where he lived, and they didn't seem to hear his polite refusals: the official called him back three times and a few days later a written copy of the invitation appeared in his mailbox. "I don't mind telling you I was afraid," says Salim.
Efforts to silence those who use the Internet to mobilize dissent against China have been equally crafty, and effective. Kayum Masimov, a Montreal-based organizer for the Uyghur Association of Canada, began receiving emails in 2004 that were so ingeniously disguised as messages from other Uyghurs in Canada that at first he never suspected trouble. Then, after a friend opened an attachment to one, Masimov's hard drive quickly filled with digital dreck. "I've already lost one laptop over this," says the 33-year-old. "Now, if I get a message from someone I know, I phone and ask if they sent it." Proving a connection to the embassy here is probably impossible, Masimov concedes, but he's not the only one who's been hit.
The tactic is known as a "virus assault," and it's become a daily hazard for Chinese dissident groups working in Canada. The messages feature content and senders too unique to have come from garden-variety troublemakers, and are so disruptive to communication that some groups now speak only in person, or by phone. Dermod Travis, executive director of the Montreal-based Canada Tibet Committee, submitted two infected emails his group received last fall to a private company for analysis, and has since been advised that the messages originated in China. The emails were tailored to look as though they were sent by Tibetan activists, he says; one even contained bogus registration forms for an upcoming international conference. The question is how the saboteurs obtained his group's address list. "This goes beyond the generic stuff you see in standard viruses," says Travis. "It would require some effort on the part of someone here in Canada."
All this said, it has taken Canada's spy agency an uncommonly long time to point a finger at Beijing, or any other meddlesome government. For years, CSIS has stuck to its policy of not naming countries it investigates, while victims who report incidents often never hear back from the agents who take down their stories. As late as last week, spokeswoman Barb Campion was sticking to the script, saying CSIS does investigate reports of foreign interference but avoiding specific mention of China.(As for leaving complainants hanging, Campion cited operational reasons: "Individuals come to us all the time, but much of what we find is going to be classified and we're not going to be able to share it.")
CSIS director Jim Judd was a bit more forthcoming before a Senate committee on Monday, acknowledging that Chinese operatives account for nearly half the service's domestic counter-intelligence work. "It's surprising, sometimes, the number of hyperactive tourists we get here and where they come from," he said, referring to the use of visitors as spies. But he provided little detail about the breadth and scope of China's activities, and even less in the way of reassurance. "As one of my foreign counterparts said once, in this business you spend most of your time worrying about what you don't know," he said. "That would certainly apply here as well."
The disclosure sent a buzz across Parliament Hill -- and presumably through the Chinese embassy(repeated calls by Maclean's to the mission went unanswered, as did calls last week to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay). But to those paying close attention, Judd was merely corroborating numerous anecdotal reports of Beijing stretching its tentacles throughout Canada's expatriate Chinese community. In June 2005, for instance, a former Chinese security official who sought asylum in Australia alleged that the Chinese government had roughly 1,000 spies operating in this country -- many of them monitoring Chinese students and scientists who are here on visas. Less than a month later, Guangsheng Han, a 52-year-old former security official, came forward in Ottawa to say Beijing was cultivating informants here to keep watch on dissidents. "They're very interested in what happens in the ethnic Chinese community in Canada," he told Canadian Press. "They pay a lot of attention."
Uyghur activists, meanwhile, proudly wield a 1996 directive leaked last year from the Chinese Communist Party, which appears to show that China's strategy of interference and infiltration is at least 10 years old. The memo, known as Document No. 7, instructs officials in foreign missions to "establish home bases in the regions or cities with high Chinese or overseas Chinese populations" and to "collect information on related developments." "Be especially vigilant against and prevent by all means the outside separatist forces from making the [Uyghur] problem international," it says.
None of this should come as a surprise to those who follow China on the world stage, says Yuen Pau Woo, president of the Vancouver-based Asia Pacific Foundation. "All countries have an interest in monitoring the activities of overseas nationals," he notes, "as well as activities that affect the homeland." And while the relatively large size of Canada's 1.6-million strong Chinese community make it an attractive espionage target, it is by no means unique in having Chinese spies on its soil. The good news, says Woo, is that China is quickly learning the value of charm and spin. "They're becoming more sophisticated," he says. "They're starting to use the tools of soft power."
Perhaps. But those who feel the eyes of Beijing upon them today say that China has a long way to go. The case of Celil is an extreme example of how determined Communist authorities are to silence their critics, they note, and while the kinds of tactics they appear to have at their disposal are by no means an option for Ottawa, nipping them in the bud will almost certainly require equal resolve. The first step, of course, is admitting we have a problem.
To comment, email letters@macleans.ca
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070514_105173_105173
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