Pro-democracy alliance issues list of demands, urges Ottawa to stand up to Beijing
Credit to Author: Nick Eagland| Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 01:38:15 +0000
A new alliance of pro-democracy groups supporting human rights in Hong Kong is calling on the Canadian government to take legal action and other measures against the Communist Party of China.
Alliance Canada Hong Kong, made up of 14 groups from across Canada, claims to be working toward legislative change here to support democracy and human rights in Hong Kong. At a media event Tuesday, it shared a list of five demands for politicians and officials in Ottawa, which it said will combat Beijing’s overreach in Hong Kong and locally.
“We condemn the Canadians government’s inactions on Beijing’s human-rights atrocities,” said executive director Cherie Wong after a dramatic introduction during which she removed a helmet, goggles and masks while explaining how protesters in Hong Kong use such equipment to protect themselves from police brutality.
Topping the alliance’s list of demands was a call for the federal government to invoke the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act to hold officials with the Chinese Communist party and Hong Kong government and police accountable.
The act, also known as the Sergei Magnitsky Law, allows the government to take action against foreign nationals who commit or allow gross violations of human rights, as well as public officials and their associates involved in acts of significant corruption.
The alliance is also calling on Ottawa to provide support for people from groups seeking asylum from the Chinese Communist party; combat the party’s interference in Canadian media and politics; investigate foreign influence in Canadian media and politics; and end the export to China of military and police equipment; and technology used for human-rights violations.
The Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Vancouver couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.
“It is no secret that the Chinese Communist party is actively, violently suppressing human rights in China from Hong Kong, to occupied Tibet, occupied East Turkestan,” Wong said.
She also pointed to the party’s influence in B.C., including past reports that Coquitlam school trustees, district officials and teachers were taking spring-break trips paid for by Hanban, an arm of the Chinese government that funds the Confucius Institutes.
The alliance made its announcement on the second day of an extradition hearing in Vancouver for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who U.S. authorities allege committed fraud. Meng’s arrest here in December 2018 touched off an international furor with the Chinese government alleging that her human rights had been violated.
Wong also called on the “progressive community” to speak out against the party’s violence against and suppression of the people of Hong Kong, Tibetans, Uyghurs and its own citizens, adding that conservatives have been more outspoken on those issues.
Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, said “strategic patience” with the Chinese government has led to deterioration, not progress, on rule-of-law and the protections of oppressed groups.
“It is now a moment for governments and for private business — and even for us, human-rights NGOs — we have to restrategize how we’re going to address these challenges that China now poses for 1.4 billion people, for the region and for the world,” said Hom, a human-rights lawyer.
Alliance Canada Hong Kong also released the results of a survey that it said proves 2,100 people living in Canada and 11,100 in Hong Kong are united behind its five demands.
— With files from Keith Fraser and Tiffany Crawford