A week ahead of Justin Trudeau\u2019s first official visit to China as prime minister, several human rights advocates are pleading with him to address the issue of two Canadians still behind bars in China.<\/p>\n
BY MARYAM SHAH, TORONTO SUN
FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 2016 08:59 PM EDT<\/p>\n
TORONTO – A week ahead of Justin Trudeau\u2019s first official visit to China as prime minister, several human rights advocates are pleading with him to address the issue of two Canadians still behind bars in China.<\/p>\n
Uyghur rights activist Huseyin Celil has been imprisoned since 2006, and Christian aid worker Kevin Garratt was arrested around two years ago.<\/p>\n
China Rights Network, a Toronto-based coalition, has written a letter to Trudeau urging him to \u201cmake it a major goal of your visit to bring these two men back to Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are asking Mr. Trudeau to publicly and forcefully say \u2018Free our children\u2019 and let them come home, then we can talk about resetting a relationship,\u201d spokesman Michael Stainton said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Trudeau\u2019s visit to China will run from Aug. 30 to Sept. 6, and will include stops in four cities.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring his visit, the prime minister will seek to promote greater dialogue between Canada and China,\u201d according to his website. \u201cThe Canadian delegation will also work closely with Chinese leaders to bolster our shared prosperity and grow the Canadian middle class.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Rev. Majed El Shafie, founder of human rights group One Free World International, insists Trudeau has to do more: \u201cWe have to talk about the human rights violations taking place in China, we have to talk about security of our citizens, security of our people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Activist Sheng Xue, who moved to Canada after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, also spoke out about alleged ongoing harassment, targeting her online.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen our prime minister is going to China to make close relationship with the Chinese dictatorship, we want to ask him do you have any way to protect your own people and to make them live in Canada as human beings, to have dignity and safety? Please, answer me,\u201d Xue said.<\/p>\n
Celil was an imam in Hamilton and a father to four children, according to Mehmet Tohti, who spoke on behalf of the Uyghur community at the press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of his children is handicapped,\u201d Tohti said. \u201cThey are suffering since ten and a half years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garratt\u2019s son Simeon recently told The Canadian Press that he hopes the case for his father, who was jailed on espionage charges, will somehow move forward following Trudeau\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I really have no reason above and beyond (that) to think that something drastic is going to happen,\u201d he said in that interview.<\/p>\n
Global Affairs spokesman Austin Jean said the cases of both men are \u201cvery important\u201d and consular officials are providing them assistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the interests of the individuals, we are not sharing further details at this time,\u201d Jean said.<\/p>\n
Promoting and protecting human rights is \u201cintegral\u201d to Canadian foreign policy and a \u201chigh priority in our relationship with China.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada takes every appropriate opportunity to express its concerns to the Chinese government using bilateral and multilateral channels,\u201d Jean said. \u201cThe Government of Canada will continue to call on the Government of China to respect the human rights of its citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 With files from Canadian Press and Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A week ahead of Justin Trudeau\u2019s first official visit to China as prime minister, several human rights advocates are pleading with him to address the issue of two Canadians still behind bars in China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2911"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}