Foreign Affairs committee  I think the real obstacle here is that the government is not keen to repatriate the adults. By repatriating an orphan, it doesn't have to repatriate any adults with them. The fear of course is a political backlash from members of various parties in Canada to repatriating any adul

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. It very much would have. As some colleagues said earlier, several governments repatriated in December and then again in January, so it is possible. There are, whether it's the U.S. government and the Kurdish authorities or.... Others are willing to facilitate that activity.

Foreign Affairs committee  The case of the five-year-old orphan who was repatriated in October was really a group effort. There was the special rapporteur, who's with us today, and there were different mandate holders who had written about her case and called for the government to repatriate. Human Rights

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  Prior to COVID, the situation was dire and life-threatening in these camps. There is lack of access to clean water, food, there's no education for the children, the health care system is very severely damaged, open latrines, unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, and tents that ove

Foreign Affairs committee  I would give it a failing grade because there is no sense of urgency on the part of this government to repatriate its nationals. No task force has been established to address this issue. It's unclear whether the Prime Minister or the foreign affairs minister receives regular upda

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairperson and honourable members of Parliament, for inviting me to address this committee. I will focus my remarks on the situation in northeast Syria for three reasons: the scale of the humanitarian needs, compounded by this pandemic; the gravity of t

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There is quite a bit that Canada can be doing on its own, as well as in concert with other countries. On its own, as you rightly mentioned, there is a lot of pressure to return Uighurs to China, back to Xinjiang and the abusive, oppressive policies there. The Chinese government d

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, I would just say that over the past five years there have been a number of violent incidents involving Uighur or suspected Uighur perpetrators, but it's really important to note that the “Strike Hard” campaign's broad mandate to punish and control all of the Muslims in Xinji

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  From our perspective, any opposition to what's happening in Xinjiang is happening outside of China at this moment. Because of the level and severity of surveillance, monitoring, abuses, oppression and mass detention, the Chinese government has closed the door on any possibility o

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think there are certainly members of the organisation of Islamic states that might be able to partner with Canada and different allies to move on this. I would also stress that there are a number of rights-respecting governments that are deeply concerned by what's happening i

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Short of having access to Xinjiang and access to files, it is very difficult to completely confirm the numbers. What we have called on governments to do, including this government, is to work together in a concerted way with other governments that are concerned about the human ri

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think it is inherently a two-tier system at all levels, a very repressive, abusive two-tier system that has instilled an enormous amount of fear among the Uighur community in China and across Xinjiang. I can't really speak to the judicial processes, because again, as my colleag

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think there's a lot more that Canada can be doing right now. Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past few months is that beyond an expression of concern in Geneva at the United Nations Human Rights Council there has been no public statement denouncing the abuses happening i

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We've certainly heard reports, not through out testimonies in Xinjiang but in other reports, of organ harvesting, but I can't really speak to that issue in more detail, because we haven't done the research on it directly.