Evidence of meeting #4 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was china.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Yes. Witnesses are able to submit in writing to this committee. Members can also ask those questions.
We'll be suspending now. Thank you.
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Welcome back, everyone. This is our third panel.
Thank you very much, Dr. Turpie, for your patience. Technology is a bumpy road. We all know that, and we're experiencing that more often than not, especially during this COVID-19 time.
I want to start off on that note. Should any technical challenges arise—for example, in relation to interpretation—or should a problem with your audio arise, please advise the chair immediately. The technical team will try to work with you to resolve those problems.
This is meeting number four of the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Today all three witnesses will be appearing by video conference. This video conference will be made available via the House of Commons website.
I will introduce our next three witnesses, who will make their statements in that same order.
First, from the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, we have Mehmet Tohti, executive director. From Canadians in Support of Refugees in Dire Need, we have Dr. Irene Turpie. Appearing as an individual, we have pharmacist Hasimu Ailixiati. I hope I pronounced that correctly. If I did not, I hope you will let us know—oh, sorry; our pharmacist will not be present. He is not able to make it today.
Mr. Tohti, you have six minutes for your opening statement, please.
2:30 p.m.
Mehmet Tohti Executive Director, Uyghurs Rights Advocacy Project
Thank you, Chair and honourable members, for the invitation.
During my parliamentary testimony on October 2, 2018, I stated that the textbook example of ethnic cleansing, collective punishment and dehumanization of Uighur people had become routine and I raised fear and alarm about what would be next. The alarm I referred to then was genocide against the Uighur people committed by China.
What is new since then? It seems to me that China has completed the phase of full-scale cultural genocide and has entered the extermination level of an entire ethnic group who owned the ancestral homeland known as East Turkestan, which was occupied by China in 1949.
Just imagine sterilizing 80% of Uighur women and holding 80% of Uighur males in either concentration camps or....
Hello?
2:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Uyghurs Rights Advocacy Project
My own voice is coming back.
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
We can hear you very clearly, so if you can overcome that, you can continue.
2:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Uyghurs Rights Advocacy Project
Okay.
They're sterilizing 80% of Uighur women, holding 80% of Uighur males in concentration camps, prisons, or in slavery in mainland Chinese factories, and separating Uighur children from their families. Uighurs will be erased within a span of only one generation.
Arkin Kurban, a man from Montreal, had 76 of his immediate and extended family members disappear. Abdukerim Seyit, a Uighur refugee in Toronto, had more than 30 of his family members locked up in camps, including his 25-year-old daughter. Four of his relatives were killed in the camps. Nuriam Abla is a Uighur Canadian living in Ontario; her oldest sister, Malikim Abla, 63 years old, was killed in a concentration camp with five of her immediate family members in the camps. My mother, 78 years old, and 38 of my relatives disappeared four years ago. Today I received a chilling computer message from an unknown Chinese agent, saying, with f-words, “Your f---ing mother is dead.” The list is long.
I want you to visualize 13 tonnes of human hair. It takes more than 300,000 Uighur women's hair to make 13 tonnes. The Auschwitz memorial museum displayed piles of hair taken from Jewish victims after they were murdered in gas chambers. The Chinese state has just commercialized them by selling every organ of Uighur victims.
I won't go into details. Instead I would like to go to my own proposals.
Continued silence on the Uighur genocide is the tacit approval of genocide itself. The United Nations and government officials around the world are now on notice. The time is over for reasoned concerns raised privately with Chinese officials and within the scope of human rights while conducting business as usual. The scale and depth of evil the CCP is committing should shock the conscience of the civilized world, yet what we know so far is only a drop in the ocean.
I want you to remember that Uighurs are paying the highest price because Uighurs are seen by China as an obstacle to its dream plan of expansionism through the belt and road initiative.
Here are some proposals I would like to make for the least our government can do.
The committee needs to recognize the atrocities committed to Uighurs as a genocide and to lead the world's conscience to stop it. This committee has to issue a strong, actionable proposal to our government on the Uighur genocide. Let Xi Jinping and Beijing know that our government is under pressure from the Canadian public and parliamentarians alike and that we're united. A strong, actionable proposal is necessary to strengthen the hand of our government to safeguard our national interests with China.
Impose Magnitsky sanctions, as others already mentioned. We severely undermine our own credibility by applying this act to some individuals from some countries but set it aside when it comes to China.
Ban all products coming from China that are associated with Uighur forced labour, as the U.S. proposed and did. The onus should be on the companies to prove that their products and supply chains are not related to forced labour.
Demand and pass an organ transplant bill to ban any human organs originating from China, as Israel, Spain and recently Belgium did.
Urge our ministry of immigration to accept the nearly 2,380 Uighur refugee families and stateless children trapped in Turkey or who are vulnerable in other countries, as they face deportation to China at any time.
Remind the Immigration and Refugee Board to accept the claims of Uighur refugees made here in Canada without further delay, as long as their Uighur identity is proven. There is no need to compel those Uighur refugees to tell their horrible stories in pain and in tears before their adjudicators. I have witnessed a number of such hearings at the IRB, and it is painful. For that reason, Sweden decided to accept all Uighurs as refugees collectively. This is the right move, because China is targeting all Uighurs, and all Uighurs are at risk indiscriminately.
CIC is still asking Uighur refugees to provide all official documents from China, which China has been denying, to process their family sponsorship program. For that reason alone, Uighur refugee families are shattered, divided without unification. Can we adjust some technical requirements like this to the actual situation on the ground and make it easier for the Uighur refugees to unite with their families without seeing double penalties?
2:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, Mr. Tohti.
We were able to hear you very well. You'll have an opportunity to elaborate during questions from members.
Now we will move to Dr. Turpie for six minutes.
July 20th, 2020 / 2:35 p.m.
Dr. Irene Turpie Canadians in Support of Refugees in Dire Need
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you. It's a privilege to join you and to be able to speak on behalf of Canadians in Support of Refugees in Dire Need. This is a multidisciplinary, multifaith group.
I'm not going to apologize for repeating things you've already heard today, because I think they're worth repeating.
For some time now, our group in particular, as other groups, has been deeply concerned about the human rights situation in China. For the last six years at least, there have been credible and repeated reports of systematic and widespread repression of the Uighur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwestern China.
Muslim Uighurs have been subjected to a ruthless campaigns of repression, population control, mass detention, forced labour and high-technology surveillance. They have been persecuted for practising their religion, a basic human right. Their children have been taken from them and placed in orphanages, which should be a red flag to us as Canadians.
A million Chinese Community Party officials have been forcibly billeted in Uighur homes. Most mosques have been destroyed and shuttered. The Uighur language has been banned in schools—again, something that we should remember carefully—and between one million people and three million people have been detained in concentration camps—or re-education centres, as they're called—where they are physically mistreated, subjected to psychological abuse and forced to learn Mandarin Chinese.
China's police deploy some of the world's most sophisticated surveillance technologies to control and restrict every aspect of the Uighurs' lives. Crowds are monitored with facial recognition cameras; all communications are intercepted and inspected with artificial intelligence programs; and individuals are classified, accounted for and tracked through DNA databases, fingerprints and voice prints.
However, it's two particularly cruel and crucial elements to this repression that are of particular concern to the CSRDN.
First, we are concerned about the many reports of forced birth control, sterilization, tubal ligation and abortion, which are dramatically changing the demographics of Xinjiang. In the last three weeks, there have been two complementary reports—and you've heard from Mr. Adrian Zenz this morning, and from the Associated Press—documenting these activities. The British Foreign Secretary made a comment in Parliament this weekend about this very thing, as you probably all know.
The results of these policies have been a huge decrease in the Uighur birth rate in three years.
Second, there is predatory practice of organ trafficking that for years has seen China engage in large-scale harvesting of human organs from prisoners to support a lucrative organ transplant program. Over the past year, we at CSRDN have waged a specific campaign against the growing information and the growing fear that China is using Uighur prisoners of conscience for their organs to support a booming trade in organ transplants. We have sent a letter to the United Nations, with the signatures of more than 1,000 physicians from North America on this petition.
Organ transplants, as we know, are often difficult to find in Canada, but they're easily available in China and are advertised internationally, with perfect matches based on DNA analysis available within three weeks of application, yet tracking the source of such organs is difficult and indeed deliberately deceptive. There is highly compelling evidence that the numbers are being falsified.
Last year, as you've already heard, the independent China Tribunal, which is based in London and led by Sir Geoffrey Nice, who previously led the prosecution for crimes against humanity of Slobodan Milosevic, unanimously concluded that China continues to rely heavily on forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience to fuel a billion-dollar-a-year organ transplant business.
We urge Canadian parliamentarians to unequivocally condemn these crimes against humanity and to take action to eliminate any possible Canadian involvement in Chinese organ harvesting. We ask you to act immediately to pass Bill S-204, which is an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act with regard to organ trafficking. This bill, as you know, despite having the unanimous support of both Houses, died at the end of the last Parliament. The bill, while not directly specifying China, would essentially bar Canadians from travelling abroad to purchase or receive organs for transplantation against the donor's will. It would amend our immigration laws to make a permanent resident or foreign national inadmissible to Canada if they participated in unsanctioned and unauthorized organ harvesting.
You have the power to fast-track Bill S-204 now and to strike an immediate, practical blow to China's genocidal treatment of the Uighur people.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you for your statements.
You will also have an opportunity through questions, Dr. Turpie, to continue with some of the testimony that I'm sure you would want to give.
We are going to commence with Mr. Sweet, for seven minutes.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I think it's worthwhile repeating in every session that our concern is mainly for the Uighur people, but we also want to identify the perpetrators as the Chinese Communist Party and not the innocent Chinese citizens, many of whom have immigrated here and made great, positive contributions to Canada. Our main concern is with the regime of Xi Jinping, the CCP, and their totalitarian nature.
Thank you, Dr. Turpie, for putting a number to the amount of Han Chinese operatives from the CCP who are put into homes of Uighurs. It's been mentioned by other witnesses, but I had no idea it was so pervasive as a million. Do you have a source for the number that you mentioned?
2:45 p.m.
Canadians in Support of Refugees in Dire Need
I personally don't have the source, but I can certainly get it for you, Mr. Sweet. I got it from a very reliable source.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
Thank you very much, Dr. Turpie. I appreciate that.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
Okay.
Mehmet Tohti, it's good to see you again, sir. I think of you every time we talk about the tragedy of the two Michaels and Huseyin Celil isn't mentioned, after his 13 or 14 years of incarceration.
We had testimony here earlier, Mr. Tohti, that the organ harvesting of the Uighurs actually predated that of the Falun Gong, and yet we didn't find out about it until long after. Why do you think that was the case?
2:45 p.m.
Executive Director, Uyghurs Rights Advocacy Project
Huseyin Celil's case is troubling, because when you look at the statements from the government officials, and when we talk about the two Michaels, despite Huseyin Celil's case being exactly the same.... If you look at the charges laid by the Chinese government, it is about state secrets or endangering state security. It's a similar pattern of charges laid against all three Canadians, but somehow we have forgotten Huseyin Celil. Actually, that has given a kind of green light for the Chinese government to continue denying consular access. As you know, the Chinese government claims that he is a Chinese citizen, despite the Chinese nationality law telling us otherwise.
Because of the two Michaels' case, we are debating about China in the media and in our political setting, but because of the mistakes we made to save Huseyin Celil, now, consequently, we see the detention of the two Michaels. The two Michaels' case did not just happen overnight. For Canada, somehow just raising the case within the bilateral meeting is seen as enough. They raised the case, like that's fulfilling the job. In fact, we did not go after Huseyin Celil's case and enforce our law, because he's a Canadian citizen, to save him. That is the tragedy in our politics.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
We had two witnesses earlier today speak about the fact that we need to find some way for the Muslim nations of the world to realize we need their voice. We have two large Muslim communities: we have the Rohingya, being persecuted by the Burmese government, which is manipulated by the CCP, and then we have the Uighurs.
Can you give this committee some idea about how we could build bridges to have these other Muslim nations be more vocal? One of the witnesses who mentioned this said that's exactly what the CCP wouldn't want, because their belt and road initiative would be very much hampered if these nations rose up and demanded some justice for the Uighur people.
2:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Uyghurs Rights Advocacy Project
Thank you. It is an excellent question.
I partly disagree with the previous panellist's conclusion. If you look at the reality now, Chinese money is coming from western markets, not only from selling their product, but at the same time from our stock markets and our investments. So we have the upper-hand position to impose or enforce our demands on China, just because China's government has for a long time applied the divide and rule policy to divide western nations from one another, and now we are trying to get back on the bases to tackle against China.
One thing I can suggest the Canadian government should do is.... Recently the U.S. government started an initiative, an alternative to the Chinese belt and road. Canada should withdraw its investment—a very small investment, merely $180 million or $280 million—from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, join the United States, show the alternative to those countries in central Asia and the Muslim world, and show them some future for mutual benefit-based future development. That can be the best option.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
You mentioned that you got a call about your mother. How much is the Uighur community being intimidated here in Canada, in a free nation like Canada, by Chinese Communist Party operatives here on this soil?
2:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Uyghurs Rights Advocacy Project
This case has been reported to our government since early 2000. Just imagine. I left my home country in 1991. Since then, I have not had a chance to visit my mother and my siblings or any of my relatives. I was totally blocked, and my relatives, including my mother, were totally blocked from having access to a passport to come to see me. So the intimidation and threat applied to Uighurs have a long history.
Initially, in 2000, there were website attacks, email or malware, that kind of thing; now, they directly hold your family members hostage. If you look at the records from Global Affairs, I have been raising this issue of hostage diplomacy for 10 years. The Chinese government is taking Uighur families hostage and forcing us to act as the Chinese government wants us to act. So it is quite a long history now.
Just this morning, I received a Twitter message from a Chinese guy, and then he deleted it. He said, “Your effing mother is dead already.” Such vulgar language. So rude.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Thank you very much, Dr. Turpie and Mr. Tohti.
I'd like to follow up a little. First of all, please know our sympathy to you about your mother, but also to so many people who have that fear and suffering. The intimidation and harassment.... You went so far as to say that they're using family members as hostages. First of all, let me just say that we really admire your courage in speaking out.
I know a lot of people would be afraid and are afraid. One thing that was remarked to me when I was talking about this previously to some Canadian students is that they don't know about the Uighurs. If they knew that the products they're consuming are made with forced labour, I think the Canadian public would certainly take action on that. But there is less awareness than there is, for instance, with the Rohingya and others. Is this in part because of the harassment of journalists, CSOs and Uighur activists? If that is the case, what is it that Canada...?
We heard this morning that we could help CSOs in other countries to speak out. What can we do to protect and empower people like you, who are so courageous in being willing to speak out even if it risks their families?
2:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Uyghurs Rights Advocacy Project
Thank you, Anita. Is this a question for me?
2:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Uyghurs Rights Advocacy Project
Canada should, as earlier speakers have mentioned, just look at the overall China policy. Canada should have some mechanism to protect dissidents like me and others because we are speaking up about the atrocities committed by one of the strongest authoritarian regimes. It is not easy, as you said. You have to sacrifice everything just to tell one word of truth, one sentence of truth. That is what we have been doing, all exiled Uighurs and the Tibetans.
There is a need for protection. If you look at the Uighur human rights policy act passed by the United States, there's a provision to protect the American citizens of Uighur origin and their family members, and we don't have that kind of protection.
Oftentimes many politicians and others think that China is a normal country. China is not a normal country. When we deal with other countries around the world, we have a rules-based approach and freedom and democracy, kind of universal values, and we can use those values to approach them, but China is a totally different regime. Deception, cheating and undermining western democracy are the core mission of the Chinese Communist Party, so speaking up against this regime is a great risk.
In this regard, Canada should have at least a legislative provision to protect not only Uighurs, but Tibetans, the pro-democracy China movement and others. This is a huge chunk of the Canadian community.