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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS