Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Feb. 6th, 2024

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

If Canadian citizens of Hong Kong origin are facing transnational repression in Canada because they're showing their support for Jimmy Lai, all the more reason for the Canadian government to act on Jimmy Lai's case.

Ms. Gallagher, in your opening remarks, you talked about your own legal team receiving threats. What were those threats?

[Caoilfhionn Gallagher]

Thank you for the question.

I really support what's just been said by Ms. Leung about how serious this is.

Sébastien and we, as the legal team, have faced a range of threats. When Sébastien dared to address the United Nations last year, he was interrupted by China. A formal statement was then put out about him and our team from the Hong Kong authorities. The Chinese state media has called me a "notorious anti-China element" a range of times.

One thing that is most worrying is that I and my colleagues—in fact particularly the women on my team, rather than Jonathan—have been placed under intimidatory surveillance, both in the U.K. and internationally. It's happened to us at the United Nations building in Geneva. It was investigated by the security services in Geneva. It was concluded that state agents were following us around. It's very intimidating.

I've repeatedly received rape threats, death threats and threats of dismemberment to me and my children. It always happens on key days in relation to this case. On days when I'm about to give evidence or give testimony, for example, I wake up to repeated attempts to hack my bank accounts and my emails, threats to me and to my family, and state media criticizing me. Quite often we also get formal statements.

Now, this is not about me or others. Primarily, we are concerned about Jimmy Lai, who is a 76-year-old man in prison for being a journalist and for being a pro-democracy campaigner.

Every time I get those abusive threats to me, to my family or to members of my team, or any time they target Sébastien in the way that they have, it really makes us think that this is how much they are out to get Jimmy Lai. For anyone who speaks out for him—a son speaking out for his father or a lawyer doing their job in bringing an appeal to the United Nations—if they're willing to put that amount of resource into targeting us, it gives you a real sense of just how much they want to ensure that Jimmy Lai is silenced.

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

I didn't get a chance to thank all the witnesses, especially Mr. Lai, for being here today.

That was my last turn. Thank you so much for being with us on this important study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

I'd like to invite Gord Johns to take the floor for five minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to go back to Ms. Kwong.

You talked about the failures of the international community.

Can you talk about what needs to happen at the international committee—what Canada can do—to help move things in terms of the failure there? Can you elaborate?

[Chung Ching Kwong]

There were promises made to Hong Kong, at least in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which is a treaty that's lodged at the United Nations and should be safeguarded by the Vienna Conventions—the law of the treaty—but the U.K. hasn't even raised an objection to it. None of the countries that are involved in that international law mechanism have ever done anything about the breach of the treaty.

There are a lot of things that could be done—as Katherine, Caoilfhionn and Luke have said—but one thing that hasn't been mentioned is this: I urge Canada to seek to find a solution with other allies, with the U.K., American and other governments, to Beijing's unilateral rejection of dual nationality, an invasive imposition of Chinese citizenship on anyone they believe to be Chinese, even on those who have already renounced their Chinese citizenship or children of those who were born outside of China. They have been claiming that people are not subject to consular access because they were, first and foremost, Chinese before they were Canadian or British citizens. This has been causing quite some problem in Hong Kong. I'm sure the Canadian government has encountered similar issues, not only in the context of Hong Kong but also in the context of prisoners in China who were denied consular access. We can't just roll over and allow Beijing to deny consular access and rights.

At the same time, I completely agree with everything that has been mentioned on the panel. There are so many things to be done—sanctions and so on—but talking about political prisoners and the situation in Hong Kong and China at all times, whenever there's bilateral or multilateral engagement, that should be a topic on the table. The Chinese government and the Hong Kong SAR government have been known to quit negotiations or conversations because these things were on the table, but that's exactly why you should insist on having those conversations: You can't just refuse to talk about different things just because you don't like it or you did something wrong.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Lai, would you like to add to that, given that you're advocating so strongly, obviously, for the release of your father, and you're dealing with multiple governments around the world? Maybe you can speak about some of the courageous moves some governments have taken and what we can do to advocate for you here in Canada.

[Sébastien Lai]

Sorry. Was that question addressed to me? My feed's cut for some reason. I haven't been able to hear for the last three to five minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Can you hear me now?

[Sébastien Lai]

It's just very grainy. I'm very sorry about that. I don't know why this is happening, either. It just suddenly.... I'm so sorry.

[Caoilfhionn Gallagher]

We can answer.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Sure, if it's quick, because I do have a very short question for Ms. Leung as well.

[Caoilfhionn Gallagher]

I am going to offer, as we're in touch with him directly on text, that perhaps my colleague can send him a message with the question, if you'd like us to do that. We're happy to add something, but if you want to use your time to direct.... Okay.

I suppose the first thing to say is we think that Jimmy Lai's name should be on every Canadian ambassador's lips around the world whenever they're engaging with China. Now, that's an important thing to do because it's vital that it's not only when there's a discussion specifically about human rights, but at any time that you have the Chinese delegation in Davos or the Chinese delegation that you had for China's UPR in Geneva, Canada stands up for Jimmy Lai and for the issues that we've all been discussing today on every occasion.

It's also important that happens when trade is on the table because we know that one issue China and Hong Kong really care about is the idea of Hong Kong's continuing as an investment hub, a place where business can be done safely. It is vitally important that the message gets through to them, from Canada and from other like-minded states, that as long as they have Jimmy Lai—a Nelson Mandela type of figure—behind bars and they use the national security law in this way, they will not achieve that policy aim they want of Hong Kong's being an international investment hub, and of businesses continuing and returning. That's a key point we must get across.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Chair, do I have a minute, just—

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Ms. Leung, can you underscore the importance of sanctions and Canada taking action?

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Give a quick answer, please.

[Katherine Leung]

We've used sanctions against other human rights violators. We should do the same for Hong Kong.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

We have time for one more round of four minutes per member.

Ms. Vandenbeld, you have the floor for four minutes.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I don't know whether you can hear us, Mr. Sébastien Lai, but I want to thank you. Also, through you, thank your father. Thanks for your incredible courage and perseverance, and for your testimony here today.

That goes for all the witnesses here today. Thank you very much for your testimony and courage.

I would like to pick up on something you said, Ms. Gallagher, that struck me: authoritarians learning from each other and using tactics.

You talked about weaponizing the law and prosecutorial harassment. It reminds me a bit about the kinds of things Maria Ressa in the Philippines is facing, and others around the world.

Could you tell us a bit about how you are seeing these kinds of patterns, where in one authoritarian state they use certain things, then others learn and transmit that back?

[Caoilfhionn Gallagher]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for raising Maria Ressa. Maria Ressa is my client. She's a Nobel Peace Prize winner in the Philippines who has been targeted for speaking truth to power. Her case has many overlaps with Jimmy Lai's. What we see in those two cases is not just the targeting of one individual journalist but also the attempt to shut down entire media ecosystems or networks—Apple Daily in the case of Hong Kong and Rappler in the Philippines. We've seen that same tactic employed against José Rubén Zamora in Guatemala, the founder and owner of elPeriódico. Again, like Apple Daily, it's an anti-corruption, pro-democracy and pro-human rights newspaper. Similarly, we've seen it with Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman in Pakistan, the owner and founder of Geo TV.

This is now a trend we're seeing: “lawfare” being used. One of the tactics I'm increasingly seeing is using regulatory and fraud laws against journalists or media owners. The reason they're used is that many people, when they see a defamation law being used, for example, against a piece of public interest journalism, know there's something wrong with that. They instinctively recognize there's something wrong with that. When they hear Maria Ressa being called, completely fraudulently, a tax evader, or Jimmy Lai being called a fraudster, some people may think there's no smoke without fire. It's a tactic now being used because it damages not only the message but also the messenger. What I would say about that is, this is now a tactic that UN experts, NGOs—such as CPJ and RSF—and lawyers like us who work in this field have been seeing for some years.

What we haven't yet seen is an organized response. Canada has shown real leadership on media freedom issues through the Media Freedom Coalition and elsewhere. We think it's time to recognize that the enemies of press freedom are organized. We have to get organized, too. It is high time for us to recognize the tactics and trends that are being used and work out proactive ways to tackle them.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I'm glad you mentioned the Media Freedom Coalition because, as you said, Canada has been leading on that.

Is there a way we can break those tactics and expose them? I think the testimony today is one way we can expose those kinds of tactics being used against journalists to silence free media.

[Caoilfhionn Gallagher]

I'm a great believer in the phrase “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. I think highlighting this is a tactic in itself and is very important. I'm very grateful to the subcommittee for doing that today. You, yourselves, can use your parliamentary power to highlight this in a press release or in other ways: S.O. 31s, resolutions, motions and so on.

I think the Media Freedom Coalition is a good opportunity. That is a place where you should see these tactics being highlighted. One of the difficulties, however, is that things move very slowly in the Media Freedom Coalition, in part because there's such a wide range of states. You see that in some ways with the statement that came out over Christmas. It's good to have 24 states signing, but you end up with the lowest common denominator. More controversial or robust language is removed in order to ensure you get a large number of people signing on.

There are other ways to do that and I'd be very happy to talk in more detail about how to do it. These are now routine trends. We have to get organized and deal with them.

One very practical thing Canada can do is.... We're repeatedly seeing, in these cases—this happened in Jimmy Lai's case at an earlier stage—trial monitoring focused only on, for example, the defamation case or the national security law case. We have to go to states and say, “Why are you not going to the protest cases? Why are you not going to the bogus fraud case?” It took work for us to do that. Routinely, people are still just going to the emblematic case using traditional legal tools and not to the others. That has to change.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Madam Vandenbeld.

Mr. Genuis, you have the floor for four minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Gallagher, it sounds like we should have you back at some point to tell us more about some of the other important cases you're working on. I think that would be quite worthwhile.

However, I want to zero in, in my final time here, on specific recommendations for the Government of Canada with respect to action on the Jimmy Lai case. We've heard from a number of you. I think there's a clear desire that there be a statement from the government, from Minister Joly, calling for the release of Jimmy Lai. I think we've heard that loud and clear.

We've heard recommendations about sanctions on Mr. Lai's persecutors. I think that's an important take-away as well.

One thing that hasn't come up—but I know, Ms. Leung, you've done some work on this—is immigration measures. The reality right now is that we've had instances of people in Hong Kong, who have been involved in the democracy movement, who have faced bogus charges related to that; and they've had trouble coming to Canada, because of criminality provisions in our immigration laws that don't take into consideration the context of some of these charges. I'm going to ask you to comment on your work in that regard in a minute.

Addressing foreign interference and transnational repression is clearly a part of this picture. It has a chilling effect beyond Hong Kong's borders. Then, also, we heard a bit, but I'd like to hear more about specific international legal mechanisms that can be triggered as a result of the violations of international law that Hong Kong authorities have been involved in, particularly their disregard of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, but there may be other international law issues and mechanisms we can trigger.

Ms. Leung, maybe just in 30 seconds you can comment on your work on the immigration piece, and then I'll come to the legal team on international mechanisms.