Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on July 20th, 2020

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Zenz.

Mr. Jazexhi, earlier, you talked about Chinese imperialism in Asia. Could you clarify what that Chinese imperialism in Asia means?

[Dr. Olsi Jazexhi]

What is happening nowadays on our planet is that we are having the clash of Chinese imperialism, on the one hand, and the legacy of the Anglo-American empires from the past, on the other hand. Now China is a growing empire, an ambitious empire that is expanding.

During our visit in Xinjiang, throughout all the institutions we visited, the whole party, state and people were working toward Xi Jinping's great plan of one belt and one road. In every institution and museum we were in, the Chinese were propagating their ambitious project to send their one belt and one road project from Morocco up to Istanbul and even to Europe. The Chinese are building a new economic empire throughout Asia and Africa, and most probably their ambition is even Europe, because of their cheap product.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Jazexhi.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Ms. McPherson, you have five minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you so much.

I have a few questions. I want to follow up on some of the questions around birth control and sterilization, knowing that this is a key component of genocide and it aligns with the universal declaration of genocide. I want to talk a little bit about some of the gendered impacts.

I'm a big proponent of Canada having a feminist foreign affairs policy. I know that Dr. Zenz has done quite a lot of work on this, and I'll quote: “where women had exceeded the birth quota by two or more children, [they] must 'both adopt birth control measures with long-term effectiveness and be subjected to vocational skills education and training'”.

Could you talk a little bit about whether those policies target just the women who have not aligned to the birth quota, or whether fathers are also sent for vocational skills education and training for the same reason?

[Adrian Zenz]

I believe the evidence we have points to the fact that if a family is in violation of birth control policies, the punishment is often levied on the husbands. A lot of those who are targeted for internment are the males. I believe one reason is to increase control over Uighur society, which is very patriarchal. You have more control over entire families, and the women, if the males are out of the way, and also if the males are the ones who are broken, beaten into submission and then placed into coercive labour.

The women, however, are targeted with birth prevention measures, the insertion of IUDs. The sterilization is female. We can tell that from budget documents. The women do quarterly IUD checks, bimonthly pregnancy checks, monthly visits. The women are subjected to these intrusive visits. Han Chinese cadres, often males, are staying with them, spending time with them, which also raises real questions about the potential for abuse in these contexts.

The males are taken out of the way. However, there are females who are put into internment camps. There are examples of females who have been put into camps for violating these policies.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

In the examples where the females and the males are both put into the camps and are both taken away, I think you talked a little bit about children being put into orphanages. Could you talk a little bit about what that looks like and what the scope of that issue is?

[Adrian Zenz]

The scope is.... In most instances, you have one parent taken away and one parent still at home, although they're put in full-time labour. One very problematic scenario is where the husbands are in camps or in faraway labour placements, and the women are in factories, local satellite factories that have nurseries, and there are preschools, so even babies are cared for by the government, at least in the daytime.

You have an increasing percentage where both of them are in internment and the children are virtual orphans, being cared for either by relatives or by the government. There are documents that show they're placed in orphanages, welfare homes. This is quite big, but the even more common scenario is where all children, even where all parents are at home or whatever the situation is, are moved towards boarding school, and longer and longer boarding school. From preschools up, but especially primary.... Primary schools are being moved into middle school compounds, because these are big compounds. They have dormitories, facilities. They're kept all week long, and maybe they can come home one day a week. In some instances, however, it's every other week.

With the securitization of the entire society, we also need to look beyond the internment campaign and see the long-term impact of the long-term practice of separating families and children, even when there's no internment or parents have been released. It's huge. That's a very long-term, intergenerational scheme of separation.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you so much.

I think I know the answer to this, but are there any avenues that are available to contest the decisions that are being made on sterilization or birth control?

[Adrian Zenz]

By foreign governments? Really, what is the United Nations there for? On what planet do we live?

I'm starting to give up on what to say and to think on this. This is ridiculous. It's been going on since 2017. My research report on the camps came out in 2018. In 2019, there were the China Cables, etc., and now this. What are we waiting for?

China is a big country, yes, but governments are barely even speaking up. They're not even being really blunt in what they say. This is their first step to take, and then you look at other possibilities, such as sanctions and United Nations—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

This will conclude our first panel.

I want to thank the witnesses, on behalf of the committee, for the compelling testimony they've provided here. I also want to thank all the members for all the excellent questions, the analysts and the interpreters who are with us here today, and all the staff who are keeping up—it takes a lot of technology and know-how to keep us going—and all those watching.

I want to thank our clerk, Erica Pereira, for organizing all of this and keeping us on track.

With that, we are going to suspend for 15 minutes, till our second panel. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I call this meeting to order.

I want to thank everybody. We just heard from an excellent first panel, and I'm sure this one will be no different.

Welcome to meeting number four of the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Today's witnessers are mainly appearing by video conference, and proceedings will be made available for all our viewers via the House of Commons website.

Should any technical challenges arise, for example with interpretation or your audio, please advise the chair immediately, and the technical team will work to resolve them.

Now I would like to welcome our witnesses. Our first witness is going to be Rayhan Asat, president of the American Turkic International Lawyers Association. Then we will have Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, and then the Honourable Irwin Cotler, founding chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

With that, I thank the witnesses. Each witness is going to have six minutes for an opening statement, and we will start with Rayhan Asat.

[Rayhan Asat, President, American Turkic International Lawyers Association]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

I appear before you today as an attorney, an advocate, a sister and a member of the Uighur community.

The year 2020 marks four years into the Uighur human rights crisis, a crippling genocide, and yet here we are. I hope we will emerge from this hearing with an understanding that we no longer have the luxury of time to raise awareness. We need action.

A little over four years ago, I was about to graduate from Harvard law and start my career as a lawyer in D.C. I had big hopes and dreams for my future. Never had I ever thought that I would spend the next four years of my life searching for my brother and wondering if he was alive.

My brother, Ekpar Asat, is the founder of a multi-faceted media platform, Bagdax, and is a philanthropist. Above all, he is my anchor and best friend. In 2016, he came to the U.S. along with eight Han Chinese in a State Department sponsorship which many people benefited from for decades.

After returning from the State Department's trip, he was thrown into the infamous internment or concentration camp and later reportedly in prison. It was another hopeful future cut short. My brother was praised by the local government as a bridge builder and a positive force for his contribution to society, but since he is Uighur, he suffers the same fate as millions of others. My brother's case should dispel any illusions we have over whether this is about making model Chinese citizens out of Uighur people.

The feelings of loss are still raw and painful. I learned how to cope with this; however, his absence is evermore felt. The words written by Michael Kovrig from his small prison cell speak to me on a personal level: “Rest assured I remain resolute and resilient. You must be relentless.” I can't help but think my brother is asking for the same. I am therefore relentless and so should you be.

Shining a light on the truth can be a matter of life and death when it comes to China. As I'm speaking out today at this time, I am terrified whether my brother will be subjected to torture, waterboarding or electrocution, as these are common patterns of cruel treatment detainees have to endure in these internment camps.

What's most agonizing is that my brother's forced labour has perhaps entered into global commerce and tainted the global supply chain. Our corporations are unknowingly or knowingly profiting off of Uighur forced labour, and we as consumers are complicit in using these products. According to the New York Times, masks produced by forced Uighur labour have now even reached North American shores.

The road to basic human dignity for the Uighur people for the world to see us has been long and torturous. The world may finally be waking up to the mass atrocities that are happening in Xinjiang due to recent highly public events that shock the conscience.

One is an authoritative report documenting the systematic mass forced sterilization of Uighur women. The second is video footage of hundreds of blindfolded, shackled and shaved Uighur men being led onto trains in Xinjiang. Some may not even realize that this footage is from nearly a year ago. The methods of eradication have surely increased since. The third is the seizure of 13 tonnes of human hair suspected of being forcibly removed from Uighur prisoners. As a Uighur western-educated woman, when I'm confronted with such abhorrent practices, it truly breaks my heart. It could have been me had I not left home over a decade ago.

The Chinese government is carrying out a multipronged, technologically advanced, systematic program of destroying Uighur people as a whole. Last week in Foreign Policy, I published an article with human rights lawyer Yonah Diamond from Canada's leading human rights NGO, the Wallenberg Centre. It lays out the overwhelming evidence amounting to genocide under the UN genocide convention, including the mass sterilization of women and detention of men, widespread torture and detention and state-sanctioned abduction of Uighur children.

It should be noted that Han Chinese men are even assigned to monitor Uighur women in their bedrooms while men are held in internment camps.

Beijing's campaign is now having the desired effect. Birth rates in Xinjiang are plummeting and forced sterilizations are skyrocketing. Women unable to bear and men unable to leave; they need us and it will be too late if we don't take urgent action.

I therefore kindly ask the Canadian government to formally declare that what is happening to the Uighur people is genocide. Calling it a genocide would catalyze other countries to join in a concerted effort to end the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang. It would also prompt consumers to reject the over 80 international brands that profit from genocide.

I further ask the Canadian government to impose Magnitsky sanctions on the architects of the genocide and assemble and lead a coalition of countries at the United Nations Human Rights Council to pass a resolution so the UN can dispatch a fact-finding mission to Xinjiang to further document and preserve evidence of genocide.

I hope that in all your bilateral meetings you'll please speak up for my brothers and sisters.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you for your opening statement, Ms. Asat.

Now we're going to move to Mr. Neve for his six-minute opening statement.

[Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

This subcommittee's study of the staggering human rights crisis faced by Uighurs in China's western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region is welcome and urgently needed.

The crisis is,of course, not new. China's unrelenting repression of the Uighur people goes back for decades. For decades, however, governments, including Canada, failed to make it clear to China that this was unacceptable and had to stop. This is symptomatic of the failure by the international community to put human rights at the heart of our relationships with China, consistently prioritizing trade and investment prospects to the detriment of concerted human rights advocacy and diplomacy.

The scale of the suffering is unimaginable. Since 2017, authorities in Xinjiang have been engaged in a massive campaign of intrusive surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture, political indoctrination and forced cultural assimilation, targeting the region's Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim people. Well over a million people have been held in so-called “transformation through education” or 2vocational training centres” where they have endured a litany of human rights violations.

Consider these headlines from six Amnesty International urgent actions over just the past eight weeks, which are reflective of the unrelenting nature of the repression: “70-year-old editor Qurban Mamut held incommunicado”; “Uighur businessman Abuduaini Kadier imprisoned in secret trial”; “Grave health concerns for missing Uighur Gulshan Abbas”; “Mahira Yakub, a Uighur indicted for money transfer to her parents”; “Uighur Ekpar Asat jailed for 15 years in secret trial”; and “Uighur academic Iminjan Seydin reappears in a state broadcast after three years of incommunicado detention”.

The crackdown has been decried by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and exposed by investigative journalists. Faced with undeniable evidence of mass internment, arbitrary punishment and torture, the Chinese government eventually acknowledged the camps, but absurdly claimed that they are voluntary vocational training centres. The true scope and nature of what has been taking place in Xinjiang is not yet fully known because the Chinese government steadfastly resists calls to admit independent monitors into the region.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has pressed for “full access to carry out an independent assessment of the continuing reports pointing to wide patterns of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions” in Xinjiang. Over the past year, including just three weeks ago, Canada has joined in three unprecedented statements at the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly, with more than 20 other countries, echoing that call for unhindered access and independent investigations. The Chinese government has ignored all of those interventions.

Around the world, Uighurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic Muslims are desperate for information about family members in Xinjiang. Many have been reluctant to speak, fearing retaliation. Amnesty has collected hundreds of accounts documenting how Chinese authorities in 22 countries have systematically harassed them.

As a member of the Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China, which was established more than 20 years ago, Amnesty International released a report in May, following a similar report in 2017, documenting an intensifying campaign of interference, threats and violence against Uighur and other human rights defenders in Canada who actively draw attention to China's atrocious human rights record. None of the coalition's recommendations for action to the Canadian government have yet to be implemented.

There are important ways that Canada must and can make a difference in individual cases. Three Uighur men, Ayub Mohammed, Salahadin Abdulahad, and Khalil Mamut have endured more than 20 years of human rights abuse, first in Xinjiang and then five years of unlawful imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay, and now, despite exoneration by the U.S. government, forcible exile in Albania and Bermuda, where they have been waiting for more than five years, protracted years, while the Canadian government delays their applications to be reunited with their wives and children who are Canadian citizens. This failure to bring their human rights nightmare to an end is unconscionable.

You will hear today from Kamila Talendibaevai and her family's lawyer, Chris MacLeod. In 2006, Kamila's husband, Uighur Canadian Huseyin Celil, was arbitrarily arrested, subject to unlawful deportation, tantamount to rendition, from Uzbekistan, and now remains unjustly imprisoned in China. For 14 years this Canadian citizen has not been allowed even one consular visit by Chinese officials. Kamila has had no contact with Huseyin's family in China for the past four years. She knows nothing of his fate and is particularly fearful about his health

It is of course important that the Canadian government is pressing hard for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. It is crucial to press equally hard for freedom for other Canadians unjustly imprisoned, including Huseyin Celil, who has missed 14 years of his four young sons growing up.

Let me end with six quick recommendations.

First, the Canadian government should implement a whole-of government human rights strategy for our relationship with China, ensuring that human rights concerns, including the Uighur crisis, are prioritized consistently in all of our dealings with the Chinese government and Chinese business interests.

Second, develop a comprehensive response to the Uighur crisis including bilateral and multilateral efforts to press China to immediately release all persons held in “de-extremification” and “transformation through education” facilities and repeal all measures that restrict the exercise of human rights by Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. Take advantage of all avenues for exerting pressure, such as the possible imposition of individual sanctions under Canadian law and ensure that throughout their supply chains Canadian businesses do not contribute to or benefit from human rights violations that may be associated with forced labour in Xinjiang.

Third, work with the international community to increase pressure on the Chinese government to allow independent and unrestricted access to Xinjiang for fact-finding missions by international observers.

Fourth, take immediate steps to counter the harassment and intimidation of Uighur and other human rights defenders working on Chinese human rights concerns in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Neve.

[Alex Neve]

There are two other recommendations with respect to reunification, and the Huseyin Celil case.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to hear those.

Now from the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, we have the founding chair, the Honourable Irwin Cotler, for six minutes.

[Irwin Cotler, Founding Chair, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights]

I want to join my remarks to those of Rayhan and Alex and commend each of them for their tireless advocacy and commitment.

We meet at an important moment of remembrance and reminder of bearing witness, as this hearing is doing, and of taking action as both Rayhan and Alex have called for.

We meet on the 21st anniversary of the launch of the eradication campaign against the Falun Gong. For 21 years now, the Falun Gong have been subjected to persecution and prosecution, to extrajudicial executions, torture and the like for nothing other than espousing ancient Chinese values of truth, compassion and tolerance.

We also meet in the aftermath of the imposition of draconian national security legislation on the people of Hong Kong, a watershed moment in the assault on global rules based on the international order, and which has implications as well for any international advocacy, either on behalf of the Falun Gong or the Uighurs, which could be criminalized under this legislation even if it is undertaken in Canada.

We meet on the occasion of the brutal mass suppression of the Uighurs, involving as has been said in your hearings today, the mass incarceration of 1.8 million Muslims in detention camps.

Rayhan has compellingly described mass surveillance with respect to slave labour, torture and abuse, the massive population control and suppression techniques involving massive sterilization, forced abortions, coercive injections, the forced separation of over half a million Uighur children from their families and the massive assault on their religion, culture, identity, traditions and their memory. The case of Ekpar Asat, as Rayhan has shown, is a looking glass, a case study of the disappeared and these massive human rights violations.

What can we do?

One, we need not only to unmask and expose these crimes against humanity, but to act upon them, to secure justice for the victims and accountability of the human rights violators.

Two, we need to invoke and implement the responsibility to protect. We are meeting on the 15th anniversary of the unanimous adoption by the UN of this doctrine. Canada is one of the architects. We now have to implement this doctrine with respect to the pain and plight of the Uighurs.

Three, we need to impose Magnitsky sanctions. The evidence here is clear and compelling. Join the U.S. and the U.K., which have already begun on this path and join the call of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China of which I am one of the co-chairs, along with Garnett Genuis from Canada. It now has over 600 parliamentarians calling as well for the invocation of such Magnitsky sanctions.

Four, explore interstate remedies before the International Court of Justice.

Five, Parliament should take the lead in finding that these mass atrocities effectively constitute acts of genocide. We were the first Parliament to define what was happening to the Rohingya as a genocide. We should become the first Parliament to define what is happening to the Uighurs as a genocide.

Six, we need to call out the illegal and forced harvesting and pillaging of organs of the Uighurs along with the Falun Gong, which Chinese Human Rights Defenders recently called out as crimes against humanity, if not acts of genocide. We need to utilize UN special procedures and remedies for purposes of justice and accountability.

Finally, we need to take up the cause of Huseyin Celil and seek his release. As Alex mentioned, he has been languishing for 15 years in a Chinese prison. We need to take up the case of Ekpar Asat, Rayhan's brother who has disappeared, as a looking glass into these mass atrocities. Both serve as a remembrance and a reminder of the call to action that we have to undertake along with the international community.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Cotler.

This opens up the opportunity to go to the members for questions.

We will start with Mr. Genuis for seven minutes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That again was powerful testimony from all the witnesses. It seems that so far, we have unanimous support among the witnesses we've heard from around recognizing what's happening as a genocide. I'll start there.

Professor Cotler, some would say that it's not the role of national parliaments to recognize genocide, that it's the role of international bodies. What is your response to that?

[Irwin Cotler]

My response is that genocide obliges us all—internationally, domestically, governments, parliaments, civil societies, and here the Canadian Parliament has a distinguishable role—to call out genocide. It's a responsibility under the genocide convention to both prevent and punish acts of genocide.

It would be first and foremost a responsibility for Parliament to define these acts targeting the Uighurs as constitutive of acts of genocide, as the witness testimony has so eloquently and compellingly conveyed before this committee, and therefore to undertake the responsibility, having so defined it, to take the necessary action. We did so with regard to the Rohingya, as I mentioned. I might add that the decision was taken after we had hearings before this foreign affairs subcommittee, when I was a member of this foreign affairs subcommittee, which documented then the atrocities that were targeting the Rohingya at the time. Subsequently, this led to Canada becoming the first parliament to define what was happening to the Rohingya as a genocide. This too led to the initiatives taken at both the International Court of Justice, which I hope Canada will join, in that case with the Gambia, and with respect to the initiatives at the International Criminal Court.

There's a responsibility here to call it out and to act upon it.