Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on April 21st, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Arnold Viersen]

We'll now have five minutes for MP McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again to the witnesses.

I'm very interested in the last question. I think the chair asked for a bit of a brief answer, but I'd like to explore this a bit further.

I just returned from Taiwan. I saw there what the Taiwanese are having to deal with in regard to misinformation and disinformation campaigns and the cyber-attacks they are receiving, with up to one million per day happening. We also know that there is the suppression of human rights with regard to the Uyghurs and Hong Kong. All of those things are part of this bigger picture of how we are seeing the PRC become increasingly belligerent.

I am one of the members who, like Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, has been banned from visiting China. I'd like to hear from all of the witnesses more information about how the PRC is hiding the human rights abuses that it is perpetrating, how it is silencing Tibetans and how it is using online tools to suppress information.

I'd like to start with our guest from Tibet Watch. We haven't had the opportunity to hear from her quite as much.

Ms. Choekyi, could I start with you?

[Tenzin Choekyi]

Thank you for this very important question. It's all by design how they hide, deliberately and intentionally, by all means, using technology and having people monitor online chat groups.

We have received reports of Tibetans who opposed Lhakar—happy White Wednesday—which is a decentralized movement of celebrating Tibetan identity on the soul day of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. We have people getting arrested for simple messages like that online.

There are people monitoring online communication. We have huge cash rewards for people who report to the police knowledge about Tibetans who have contact with Tibetans living outside, and cash rewards for monitoring people crossing the border areas. As a result of this, after 2008, there is just a trickle of Tibetan refugees being able to escape to Nepal.

There are also CCP members in the monasteries. Monasteries are learning centres where the whole pursuit of education is liberation from suffering, not just for one's self but for the benefit of all sentient beings. However, since 2012, there have been monastic management committees in monasteries where Chinese Communist Party members, who are atheist, are there permanently to monitor, oversee and supervise all of the activities of the monks. We have case studies of how there are police stations constructed right next to a monastery in Shuanghu county, for example.

Chat groups are monitored. Online communication is monitored. Online posts on individual social accounts are monitored, and livestreaming is monitored. We have information on Tibetan musicians stopping themselves from speaking in Tibetan, because their livestream will be shut down.

I also have evidence of a Tibetan mother and child talking to each other on a livestream. This little boy, who was just scribbling figures repetitively, like any child would, innocently asked his mom, “Mom, if I speak in Tibetan on Douyin,” which is a video-sharing platform, “they say they will shut down our account, so I don't know whether I should speak in Tibetan or Chinese.” The mom has no answer. The mom only says, “I know. I will ask, okay?” The kid replies, “Okay, Mom.” This is an online video-sharing platform. The mother has no answer. She has 26,000 followers, but that's how it is.

Tibetans are not able to escape. Tibetans have an endless list of thoughts in their minds, and this list is always getting longer and longer. It's about what to say, what to think, what not to say, what not to think and to always love the CCP. In 2021, when the CCP celebrated its 100th founding anniversary, children in the Tibet Autonomous Region, as they call it, were made to perform this song called “I love CCP”. All of these children are dressed in Tibetan attire, but they were singing “I love CCP”.

There is the closure of chat groups and the monitoring of whatever space there is online, as well as informers on street corners, in monasteries and in rural villages. Order is everywhere. It is a police state.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I would like to ask the other witnesses questions, but I think I'm out of time.

Is that correct, Mr. Viersen?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Arnold Viersen]

Yes, we are at the end of the time here.

I want to thank the witnesses for appearing today and sharing their testimony. We will be putting all of this in a report. The information you've given us is very valuable. We look forward to our report that will be coming forward, hopefully fairly soon.

You could also submit any information that you've mentioned here today or that you think we need to know. You can submit it to the clerk. Please do that rather quickly, as we're hoping to get that report out as soon as possible.

With that, we will be suspending this meeting.

Members of Parliament, please resume on the in camera link that you have been sent. I'll suspend the meeting, and I'll see you back in the in camera portion after a half-hour.

[Proceedings continue in camera]