I just wanted to make clear what our focus and expertise is.
In Vietnam in recent years the repression of government critics and activists has worsened significantly. With severe restrictions now on freedom of expression, association, and assembly, numerous peaceful dissidents, including bloggers and songwriters, among others, have been sentenced to long prison terms after unfair trials. Members of ethnic and religious groups in the country are targeted for human rights violations, and there are now more than 500 people on death row in Vietnam.
One of those imprisoned is a well-known and popular blogger who goes by the name Nguyen Van Hai. I want to take a moment to talk about his case because there is a Canadian connection. His daughter is a Canadian citizen living in Vancouver. Coincidentally, I heard from her this morning and we shared the latest concerns about his plight.
Her father Nguyen Van Hai is a founding member of what's known as the independent Free Journalists Club of Vietnam. He's been sentenced to a 12-year prison term, which is to be followed by a further five-year term of house arrest upon his release, all of that after a trial that lasted only a couple of hours, a trial at which his family was harassed and detained to prevent them from even attending, and a trial that was unfair in every way possible.
His prison conditions have been harsh and intolerable and there is mounting concern about his health. In her note to me this morning, she shared just briefly a few updates. She noted that he's now jailed in an isolated area, and as she described it, “cannot step out of his cell”. He is like a caged animal. Food is brought to him and he cannot eat with any of the other prisoners because they are worried that information about his plight will get out of the prison. But very notably in the note today his daughter stressed to me, as if she knew I was going to be in front of this committee, that in her family's view, business links and global economic pressure offer the best means to get her father out of prison.
Mexico faces serious challenges to the rule of law and respect for human rights. The alarming security situation in many parts of the country and the consequences of militarized combat, organized crime, and drug cartels have increased insecurity and violence dramatically in many regions, leaving many communities unprotected and at risk from all sides of these conflicts. Enforced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention continue. Human rights defenders and journalists, who often try to support victims and expose abuses, face increasing attacks. Women, indigenous peoples, and migrants face discrimination and violence.
In Colombia, despite peace talks, human rights violations and abuses continue, especially against indigenous, Afro-descendant, and peasant farmer communities; women; human rights defenders; and land claimants. There is a particularly dire crisis facing indigenous peoples in the country, starkly confirmed and documented in a ruling from the country's own Constitutional Court that has found that one-third of Colombia's indigenous nations are at risk of extermination. The factors that lie behind this human rights crisis are many, including relentless targeting by all sides during decades of armed conflict, and more recently, the impact of a massive influx of foreign mining companies, including many from Canada, into indigenous territories.
As for China, authorities in China maintain a stranglehold on political activists, human rights defenders, and online activists, subjecting them to harassment, intimidation, arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearance. Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians who practice their religion outside officially sanctioned channels, as well as Falun Gong practitioners are tortured, harassed, arbitrarily detained, and imprisoned. Harsh crackdowns continue against Uighurs and Tibetans.
Again, there are Canadian connections. A Canadian citizen, Huseyin Celil, of Uighur origin, is serving a life prison term after a deeply unfair trial. Canadian entreaties to Chinese officials on his behalf have been rebuffed and ignored.
Brothers, sisters, and children of Chinese democracy activist and political prisoner Wang Bingzhang, all of whom are Canadian citizens, continue to press for his release. His daughter Ti-Anna Wang, a Canadian citizen, had travelled to Geneva last week to press her father's case at the UN Human Rights Council, and in doing so, in open session at the council, was openly photographed—including photographs of her laptop screen—in a very intimidating fashion by agents clearly linked with the Chinese government.
That is, to say the least, obviously the briefest of overviews of human rights concerns in just four countries in the region.
I want to highlight that Amnesty International takes no view on the degree or nature of trade and investment that Canada should pursue with any of those four countries, or any of the list of current or potential TPP partners. But we do consider it essential that Canadian trade, investment, policy, and agreements, including the TPP, very deliberately pay serious attention to human rights.
Trade and investment and the business activities that are fostered and generated by trade and investment, if pursued responsibly and sustainably, can obviously be of great benefit to human rights protection, helping to improve livelihoods, to open up opportunities for employment and empowerment for marginalized groups within society, to lead to greater access to education and skills development, and many other benefits.
Trade and investment and business activities can also, however, be of great harm on the human rights front when pursued irresponsibly or recklessly. That is particularly so when there are no standards or there are weak standards in place to hold companies accountable for the human rights consequences of their activities.
We obviously want to ensure that Canada's trade, investment, and business presence and activities maximize the former—human rights promotion—and minimizes, ideally avoids, the latter—human rights violations. With that in mind, therefore, allow me to make a three-part recommendation as to a crucial policy step that we believe Canada should take before and as we move forward in finalizing new agreements and arrangements in the trans-Pacific region and elsewhere.
First is to clearly enunciate that regard for internationally protected human rights is to be a pillar of Canada's strategies for pursuing increased and freer trade and investment in the trans-Pacific region and worldwide. We very much regretted the fact that the new global markets action plan, released last fall, did not do so. The action plan, in fact, has no reference to human rights, let alone any measures or mechanisms that would help advance human rights protection.
Second, in negotiating Canadian membership in the TPP or any other deal, ensure that there is explicit reference to the relevance and applicability of binding international human rights treaties both in the agreement itself and in domestic legislation implementing the agreement.
Third, establish in law a requirement that the TPP, and all trade and investment agreements, will be subject to comprehensive, independent human rights impact assessments both before coming into force and at regular intervals thereafter. Such assessments must be released publicly. There must be an expectation and requirement that shortcomings identified through the assessment will be addressed and that progress to alleviating those shortcomings will also be reported publicly.
In that regard, let me wrap up with a few words about both the potential and the disappointment of the approach taken to assessing and reporting on the human rights impact of the free trade deal between Canada and Colombia, one of the countries thought to have active interest in becoming part of the TPP—