A Taiwanese woman who alleged mistreatment by Canadian immigration officials expressed the hope on Thursday that Canada would provide her with a proper explanation of the officials’ actions as well as compensation.
Lee Chun-hua (李春花), a 50-year-old from Taichung who does not speak English, was questioned for five hours at Vancouver International Airport on March 10. She was eventually deported and her visa was revoked.
In an interview on Canada’s CBC Radio, conducted with the help of an interpreter, Lee described the immigration officials’ treatment of her as rude.
Officials asked why she was traveling on a one-way ticket even though she had a return ticket, she said.
Lee said that in response to her complaints Canadian immigration authorities told her that she was denied entry into Canada for three reasons — failing to explain clearly whether the purpose of her trip was to visit relatives or friends, not clearly identifying her occupation and that it was unreasonable that she was carrying cooking pots.
She said it was not accurate for her to identify herself as a housewife because her job as a clinic assistant is part-time. The immigration officials confirmed this with her husband during a call to Taiwan, she said.
She said her conversation with the officials was conducted through an interpreter whom she suspected had not conveyed her responses clearly.
Lee said she was informed through the interpreter that she could return to Taiwan after signing a document agreeing to leave Canada, but the contents of the document were not explained to her. She said she had no choice but to sign, despite not clearly understanding the situation.
She said she hoped the Canadian government would give her a proper explanation for her treatment and compensate her financially. She also wants the Canadian government to reinstate her visa so as not to stain her travel record.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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