Mr. Speaker, Mr. Huseyincan Celil fled China in the mid-1990s and became a Canadian citizen in 2001. In absentia, China sentenced him to death on charges of organizing a political party to work on behalf of the Uighur people.
The Uighur Canadian Association argues that Mr. Celil's role in organizing them was to demand their rights through non-violent means as protected under the UN's universal declaration of human rights. It has appealed to the Canadian government for assistance. That is how I got involved in this case.
On April 10, I posed a question to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in which I laid out the situation: Mr. Celil had been sentenced to death in absentia for defending the human rights of Turkish Muslims in Xinjiang province. Access to Mr. Celil has also been denied to his family and to Canadian consular officials.
I asked the government if it would take all possible legal and diplomatic steps to defend Mr. Celil's human rights and to save him from inevitable torture and possible death. The foreign affairs minister responded that he was concerned and that he would take all necessary measures.
Again on April 25 I asked about this. Mrs. Celil was in Ottawa and wanted to meet with the minister. The minister refused. I raised the question that day and he finally acceded to meet with her.
On June 15 I asked again about this situation. This is where it gets a little complicated. Mr. Celil was in Uzbekistan visiting family. Uzbekistan is part of an organization which is almost like Interpol. It is called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This basically means that it would accede to the extradition request. China in fact requested the extradition of Mr. Celil to China. Prior to the government doing anything, he in fact was extradited to China.
No one knew where he was. The Government of Canada has had no contact whatsoever with him. There has been no consular access. This has been in violation of the Vienna convention as well as the bilateral agreement we have with the Chinese on diplomatic affairs.
Despite the protestations of the government that it has been taking all necessary means and diplomatic measures to try to intervene in the case, the fact of the matter is that there has been absolutely no response whatsoever from the Chinese government or the Chinese embassy with regard to this case. In fact, there has been no meeting between the foreign affairs minister and the Chinese ambassador yet, this after eight months of the minister being in office.
This is an indictment of the shape of relations with China. There is only one way that we are going to have an opportunity to fight for Canadian citizen Huseyincan Celil and that is to re-establish strong relations with China so we can discuss these important diplomatic affairs.
I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could please explain this to Canadians. Why is it that our relations with China now are in a shambles? What is the government going to do to make absolutely sure that this relationship with China is returned to one of strength and mutual respect?