The Senate

Pursuant to notice of June 9, 2026, moved:

That the Senate urge the Government of Canada to call for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Gulshan Abbas, arbitrarily detained by the authorities of the People’s Republic of China since 2018, and to seek verifiable information regarding her health and legal status, in coordination with international partners, as well as regarding the systematic repression and arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.

He said: Honourable senators, this motion is about a single woman, but it is also about the integrity and moral courage of this chamber. Tomorrow, June 12, a retired medical doctor named Dr. Gulshan Abbas will mark her sixty-fourth birthday, but there will be no celebration, no family gathering, no phone calls from her children and no warm wishes from her sister.

Instead, tomorrow, Dr. Abbas will spend her birthday exactly as she has spent every single day for nearly the last eight years: locked away in a dark secret prison cell, cut off from the world, stripped of her dignity and denied her basic humanity by the regime in Beijing. The question is: Why? What was her crime? Her crime was not anything she did. Her crime was who her sister is.

Recently, I had the profound honour of attending a book launch for a powerful new memoir entitled Unbroken. There I met Gulshan’s sister Rushan Abbas. Meeting Rushan, hearing her speak and looking into her eyes, you are immediately struck by her incredible resilience, but you also see the heavy, painful burden she carries every single day. In September 2018, Rushan stood up in Washington, D.C., and she did what we too often take for granted in this country: She spoke up; she spoke her truth. She publicly criticized the dictatorship and the Chinese Communist Party’s horrific atrocities and systemic repression against the Uighur people in Xinjiang. Just six days later, back in China, her sister Gulshan disappeared. Gulshan was then subjected to a sham closed-door trial — a kangaroo court. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison on absurd politically motivated charges of terrorism and illegal assembly. She has been cut off from the world ever since. For nearly eight years, colleagues, her family has been left completely in the dark — no access, no communication and no legal representation. They have been denied any knowledge of her exact whereabouts. They have never seen the manufactured evidence used to convict her. Most alarmingly, they have no idea what her current health condition is.

Colleagues, by now we know enough about the Chinese regime to know that this is a textbook case of the ruthless campaign of transnational repression. We know about the Uighur genocide. We know about the mass arbitrary detentions, the family separations, the forced labour, the coercive birth prevention, the high-tech surveillance and the systemic erasure of Uighur culture and religious expression.

We know the facts and the world knows the facts, so we must be honest with ourselves in this chamber. In 2021, when the House of Commons voted to recognize the Uighur genocide, this Senate stood as an outlier among Western democracies. We voted down a motion to recognize that genocide. We chose silence over moral clarity. We chose to play nice with a regime that doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

It pains me to say that this vote remains a stain on the record of this chamber and it’s something, honourable senators, I have referenced many times because I will never be able to get my head around that.

However, history gives us moments of redemption, and I believe this motion presents this chamber with a critical opportunity to right the wrong. This motion doesn’t ask us to change the past but demands that we face the present. It calls on the Government of Canada to do three simple and necessary things.

One, demand the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Gulshan Abbas. Two, insist on verifiable information regarding her current health and legal status.

Three, coordinate with our international partners to confront the systematic repression and mass arbitrary detention of Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.

Colleagues, this motion is entirely consistent with the actions of our closest global allies and with our own parliamentary precedents right here at home and who we are as Canadians.

In October 2024, the European Parliament adopted a powerful resolution calling for Gulshan’s immediate and unconditional release. Just last month, in May 2026, the United States Congress unanimously passed bipartisan resolutions in both the Senate and the House of Representatives explicitly naming and demanding freedom for Dr. Gulshan Abbas. But beyond matching the courage of our allies abroad, this motion is consistent with who we are as Canadians and a continuation of Canada’s broader commitment to human rights.

We have done this before. In 2023, this Parliament voted unanimously to demand the release of pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai. Unfortunately, we are dealing with a regime that is not as affected by these motions in this place. These motions define who we are. We have seen through the history of mankind that these authoritarian dictators have no heart, no moral values and no principles.

Our country has a long, storied tradition of defending prisoners of conscience and opposing arbitrary state detention. Dr. Gulshan Abbas deserves that exact same defence.

Tomorrow, Rushan Abbas will look at the calendar and know her sister is turning 64 in, we assume, a prison cell. She will know that Gulshan has already lost eight years of her life. Eight years is already eight years too many — not one more year; not one more day.

Let us send a clear, unified message to Beijing that Canada’s Senate will no longer be an outlier and tolerant of their misbehaviour. Let us stand firmly, shoulder to shoulder with Rushan and the Uighur community. Let us choose courage over convenience and justice over silence.

Honourable colleagues, I know where you all stand on principles and moral values. There will be some colleagues who will be apologists for this brutal Beijing regime. They will stand in a few months in this very chamber and try to make justifications for the unjustifiable. But we know what this is. We know what we should call it, and we know the actions our government should take to stay consistent with other Western democracies around the world that will always stand up for human rights.

Honourable senators, I urge you all to support this motion and join me in demanding that they release Dr. Gulshan Abbas. It is the right thing to do. It is the Canadian thing to do.

Thank you, colleagues.