China

Amnesty International Letter to the Prime Minister of Canada on the occasion of his upcoming visit to China.
From Amnesty International Canada
2005





The Right Honourable Paul Martin
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A2

January 12, 2005

Dear Prime Minister,

We are writing with recommendations with respect to your upcoming trip to China. Amnesty International urges that you use the opportunity of this visit to adopt a more resolute approach to Canada’s relationship with China, with human rights firmly and concretely at its centre.

Amnesty International has been concerned in the past that the Canadian government’s attention to China’s human rights record has been overshadowed by an interest in forging closer trade and investment ties with China. We have therefore welcomed recent indications that your government may be willing to champion human rights more proactively in ongoing dealings and engagement with the Chinese government. Minister of Industry David Emerson has signalled the importance of a strong human rights component to Canada’s relationship with China. Officials with the Department of Foreign Affairs have been receptive to requests that there be a comprehensive dialogue with Canadian civil society groups about the government’s approach to addressing China’s human rights situation.

The time is right. Your recent trip to Libya demonstrates that human rights issues can be pressed alongside business matters. It is our hope that you will build on that example and arrive in China prepared and willing to convey a strong message that respect for human rights is of vital importance to Canada in its relationship with China. Additionally, we urge that you promote a number of critical recommendations as to steps China should take to demonstrate a genuine commitment to improving human rights in the country.

Trade and Human Rights
Despite substantial economic growth, the fundamental human rights of countless women, men and young people are curtailed, undermined and ignored in virtually every corner of the country. Governments, including Canada, have asserted that human rights will inevitably improve as China’s economic ties with other countries deepen and Chinese businesses have more commercial interaction with counterparts from abroad. But human rights cannot be left to chance and market forces. The measures needed to improve China’s human rights record must receive specific and sustained attention: from the Chinese government, from other countries in their bilateral dealings with China, and from multilateral bodies.

The imperative for doing so does not by any means rest only with the particular government officials who carry responsibility for foreign affairs or human rights. It is imperative as well that Canada press an agenda of human rights reform in the course of its business dealings with China. The time to do so is, in our view, opportune. Canadian government and business leaders have often suggested that their ability to take advantage of commercial interaction to influence China’s human rights record is limited, arguing that if Canada presses too forcefully China will simply do business with some other country. However it has recently become clear that China has considerable interest in investing heavily in Canada’s natural resource sector, with reports of possible acquisition of companies such as Noranda and of possible substantial investment in the Alberta oil sands. Canada may well have new leverage with China on the economic front, leverage that can be used to advance human rights.

Prime Minister, your visit to China is a crucial moment to make it clear that for Canada it is not about trade or human rights, rather it is a matter of trade and human rights. We urge you to talk firmly and clearly about human rights, including the recommendations outlined in this letter, whenever you talk about trade. We equally urge you to talk firmly and clearly about trade whenever you talk about human rights. Please urge other government officials and business leaders travelling with you to follow your lead.

We expect that during your time in China there will be discussion of strengthening business ties between Canada and China. Business leaders traveling with you will likely finalize contracts. Amnesty International has urged companies to ensure that they conduct business in China in a manner that promotes and safeguards human rights. We have highlighted concerns that in their pursuit of lucrative trade with China, foreign corporations may be indirectly contributing to human rights violations or at the very least failing to give adequate consideration to the human rights implications of their investments. We have, for instance, documented several foreign companies, including Nortel Networks, which have reportedly provided technology that has been used to censor and control the use of the Internet in China. Many people have been detained in China simply because they have sought to use the Internet as a peaceful means of expression and communication.
Prime Minister, it is critically important that you convey a strong message to the Canadian business community that the government expects Canadians to carry out business in China and elsewhere in ways that avoid any direct or indirect contribution to human rights abuses.

China and the International Human Rights System
In recent years China has enjoyed a more prominent role internationally, both politically and economically, with its accession to the WTO, the hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games and its important natural resource acquisitions around the globe. With this role come responsibilities, including observance of international human rights standards. Unfortunately China has been slow in living up to these responsibilities.

Prime Minister, please urge that the Chinese government accord the very highest priority to meeting its international human rights obligations, and convey strongly that Canada expects no less.

As an example we would like to underline that independent trade unions are not permitted in China. The All China Federation of Trade Unions is not independent, and is subject to the control of the Communist Party. Protection of workers’ rights would be considerably enhanced if China were to remove its reservation on Article 8.1 (a) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, relating to the right to form or join independent trade unions. In addition China has not ratified ILO conventions on freedom of association and the rights to collective bargaining. Prime Minister, we request that you urge China to take these two important steps.

Assessment of the human rights situation in China is made difficult, not just by government repression and heavy controls on the media and use of the Internet, but also by lack of access to the country by appropriate international bodies. This has been made abundantly clear during the SARS and HIV/AIDS crises.

Amnesty International has made repeated, unsuccessful requests to conduct a mission to China. Though the UN Special Rapporteur for Education and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention have recently been in China, crucial visits by other important theme mechanism officials such as the Special Rapporteur on Torture have been repeatedly postponed.

Prime Minister, we urge you to ask the Chinese government to grant better access to China for international non-governmental organizations and the UN human rights system’s thematic mechanisms, as a concrete measure of its stated commitment to improving respect for and protection of human rights.

Human Rights Defenders
In December 2004 Amnesty International published a report on China, “Human Rights Defenders at Risk”. A copy of the report is enclosed. It can also be viewed on-line. The report describes the work of a growing number of individuals in China who act peacefully to defend a wide range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, and the risks they face in carrying out their activities. Serious risks include arbitrary detention, torture and imprisonment. At the very least human rights defenders face threats, harassment and intimidation. Broadly defined provisions in the law allow Chinese authorities to detain and imprison human rights defenders on charges such as “subversion”, “separatism”, or “stealing state secrets”, often for politically motivated reasons.

Chinese human rights defenders known to Amnesty International include:

Li Dan, detained, harassed, routinely obstructed by local officials in his efforts to ensure the right to health of HIV/AIDS sufferers and help for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS;

Zheng Enchong, lawyer, serving a 3-year sentence aimed at preventing him from defending families forcibly evicted from their homes in Shanghai;

Liu Fenggang, imprisoned for passing information abroad about serious human rights abuses against Christians;

Yao Fuxin, worker, Xiao Yunliang, retired worker, sentenced to seven and four years respectively for peacefully defending workers’ rights;

Abdulghani Memetemin, Uighur teacher and journalist, detained for reporting on human rights violations against the ethnic Uighur community, sentenced to nine years for “providing state secrets to a foreign organization”;

The Tiananmen Mothers, detained, harassed or otherwise physically restricted throughout their long campaign for accountability and redress in connection with the Tiananmen crackdown of 4 June 1989.

Amnesty International welcomes the recent inclusion in the Chinese constitution of the phrase “the State respects and protects human rights”. However human rights defenders will not be able to carry out their legitimate activities without fear of reprisal until problems such as inadequate legal safeguards, vaguely defined laws, abuse of power by officials and political interference in the judicial system are fully addressed by the government.

Prime Minister, please urge Chinese authorities to explicitly guarantee the protection of human rights defenders, by implementing measures such as those recommended by Amnesty International. Please encourage Chinese officials to engage in a dialogue with human rights defenders with a view to addressing their legitimately held concerns. We also request that you raise the cases of the human rights defenders mentioned above and ask for the immediate and unconditional release of all human rights defenders imprisoned on account of their peaceful and legitimate human rights activities.
Cases of Concern

Across China, untold numbers of individuals will be experiencing serious human rights violations at the very time you arrive in the country – unjustly imprisoned, at risk of torture, facing possible execution. We hope that you will use this trip as an opportunity to advocate on behalf of many of those individuals. You will hear from several organizations in Canada with suggestions about cases of concern, all of which are deserving of your attention. In addition to the human rights defenders cases highlighted above, Amnesty International is bringing to your attention four further cases that have been of particular concern within Canada and which we hope you will raise with senior Chinese officials.

Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche’s case has resonated in the Tibetan community and beyond. This Buddhist monk and community leader was sentenced to death for “terrorism”, despite severe irregularities in trial procedures as well as evidence that he may have been tortured, had inadequate legal representation and been targeted by local authorities for having led a peaceful protest against excessive logging by local companies. After a two-year suspension of sentence, which has recently expired, there is now an unconfirmed report that his death sentence may not be carried out. Prime Minister, please seek official confirmation that Tenzin Rinpoche will not be executed and press for a review of his trial.

Two cases of concern to Amnesty International are also of special concern to a Chinese human rights defender now living in Canada. Like Wang Jinbo and Dr. Wang Bingzhang, he has described being beaten by other inmates at the instigation of Chinese prison officials and is extremely worried about their health and safety. Wang Jinbo’s health has reportedly deteriorated, not only from the beatings, but from a series of hunger strikes to protest them. He is serving a four-year prison sentence for e-mailing articles overseas which call for a re-evaluation of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. Prime Minister, because he has been detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression, Amnesty International asks that you call for the immediate and unconditional release of this prisoner of conscience.

Dr. Wang Bingzhang was detained in northern Vietnam and removed to China where he was given a life sentence on “terrorism” charges after an unfair trial. He has recently suffered a stroke while on a hunger strike protesting his ill-treatment in prison and is reportedly not receiving the care he requires. Dr. Wang Bingzhang attended McGill University in Montreal. His elderly parents and other family members reside in Canada. Prime Minister, we urge you to ask Chinese authorities to agree to retry Dr. Wang Bingzhang in proceedings that conform to international fair trial standards. We also ask that you seek assurances that the treatment and medical care of both Dr. Wang Bingzhang and Wang Jinbo is in accordance with international standards.

Finally, a dedicated Amnesty International community group based in Edmonton has been writing petitions, postcards and letters on behalf of Qin Yongmin since his arrest late in 1998. He is serving a 12-year sentence in connection with the formation of an independent human rights group in China. His health is also of concern. Amnesty International considers Qin Yongmin to be a prisoner of conscience. Prime Minister, in support of the fine efforts of Amnesty International members in Edmonton and many other Canadians concerned about this case we urge you to call for Qin Yongmin’s immediate and unconditional release.

Prime Minister, your trip offers an opportunity for a new approach to Canada’s human rights relationship with China, an approach that demonstrates international leadership and which encourages other nations to follow suit. It is time for a strong commitment to human rights to be the hallmark of Canada’s dealings with China, regardless of the issue. Canada’s voice should not be muted when trade is being pursued. Canada should put human rights first.

Sincerely,

Alex Neve
Secretary General
Amnesty International Canada
English branch

Michel Frenette
Directeur General
Amnistie internationale
Section canadienne francophone