Canada blasted China on Thursday for sentencing a Canadian citizen to life in prison on terrorism and separatism charges in a closed trial, saying the verdict had soured relations between the two countries.
Huseyin Celil, 37, a Chinese-born ethnic Uighur, was sentenced to life in prison for "the crime of splitting the motherland" and involvement in terrorism, China's foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (
Celil was extradited from Uzbekistan to China during a trip in May last year where he vanished into Chinese custody. Canadian diplomats tried to gain access to him in Uzbekistan and are trying to gain access to him in China.
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay told reporters: "The stakes are very high for Mr Celil and certainly this case has had a spillover impact on Canada's relationship with China."
In a statement, he said Ottawa "remains gravely concerned about allegations that Mr Celil has been mistreated while in Chinese custody and possibly subjected to torture," accusing Beijing of a possible "serious breach" of the UN convention against torture.
The verdict comes ahead of a visit to China later this month by MacKay, during which he said he would raise the issue.
"It's been raised at the highest levels including the president of China and I certainly intend to pursue it when I arrive in China next week," he said outside Parliament. "We don't intend to let this case go."
"When it comes to human rights, when it comes to the rights of a Canadian citizen, we will stand tall for that citizen," he said.
MacKay also chided Beijing for "persistently refusing to respond adequately to our concerns with respect to due process" for Celil and for failing to grant Canadian diplomats access to him "in spite of repeated requests."
Dual citizens
"As we believe that China did not live up to the spirit of the 1999 Canada-China consular agreement in this case, we will be conducting a review of this agreement to determine whether it is, in fact, an effective means of safeguarding Chinese-Canadian dual citizens traveling on Canadian passports," he said.
The minister said he registered his "deep disappointment" with the Chinese charge d'affaires in Ottawa and told Celil's wife the Canadian government would continue to "pursue justice" for him.
"We strongly urge the Chinese authorities to respect their commitment to provide Canadian officials with information about Mr Celil and to ensure that he is accorded due process," MacKay said.
Earlier, Liu had said: "The case of Huseyin Celil is an internal affair and Canada has no right to interfere."
The diplomatic row is the latest in a series of bilateral irritants that have included talks between a senior Canadian official and the Dalai Lama, accusations that China is spying on Canadian corporations, Canada's failure to deport a Chinese fugitive who allegedly steered a multibillion-dollar smuggling ring as well as stalled trade negotiations.
Celil fled China a decade ago and arrived in Canada in 2001 as a refugee and became a Canadian citizen. He was arrested in Tashkent on March 27 last year while trying to renew a visitor's visa in the Uzbek capital.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS