The Senate
Motion to Call Upon the Government to Impose Sanctions Against Chinese Officials in Relation to the Human Rights Abuses and Systematic Persecution of Uighur Muslims in China--Debate Continued
June 1, 2021
Honourable senators, I’d like to remind you that I was speaking about the persecution of the Uighurs in China.
At the hospital, Golbahar met many women and girls dressed in yellow vests, a sign that they were death row inmates. When Golbahar spoke, we could feel the suffering and trauma in her voice, but Golbahar was lucky because she was let go. She’s now a free woman living in France.
The most conservative estimate of the number of Uighurs in Chinese prison camps is 1 million. One million people are being tortured right now as we speak, only because of their faith — the Muslim faith. In 2018, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development studied the human rights situation of the Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims. The subcommittee produced a report, and I will read a short excerpt:
. . . an entire religion is criminalized. Witnesses described prohibitions on a wide array of religious practices or expressions of Islam through anti-terror legislation. This includes a prohibition on facial hair and religious clothing. Individuals with names bearing religious significance have been forced to change their names. Qurans, religious literature and prayer mats kept at home are confiscated. Keeping Islamic dietary practices is prohibited. Halal signs are now illegal, and restaurants must stay open during Ramadan. It is also prohibited to teach Islam to children. Individuals have been detained for praying five times a day and for circulating religious text among family.
But religious identity is not the only facet of the Uighur identity. Their language, culture and traditions are all under attack. They are no longer taught in schools, and if caught talking to your children in Uighur, you would be imprisoned in the notorious Chinese camps.
Uighur professors, athletes and politicians are specifically targeted. Farida Deif from the Human Rights Watch said:
To be clear, the scale and scope of abuses in Xinjiang are unlike anything Human Rights Watch has seen in China in decades. Not just the numbers of people held, but the abuses — the systematic abuses region-wide — are unprecedented. In addition, the impact goes beyond China to Uighurs globally, including Uighur Canadians here at home. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before.
As is always the case, the women in these situations suffer an additional type of torture — sexual abuse. The few women who were released and were able to flee to countries where they can feel safe recounted their stories of rape and other forms of sexual violence. The most common story goes like this: The Chinese men would go in the cells and pick the woman they wanted. The female officer would then strip the woman naked and handcuff them with their wrists above their head. The woman would be escorted to what they call the black room, which has no surveillance cameras. Chinese men would then rape her, sometimes several men, sometimes several times a night.
A woman who miraculously remained alive was released from the so-called re-education camps and said to the BBC, “Perhaps this is the most unforgettable scar on me forever.”
Senators, let me explain that I chose the most common story of rape. I did not choose to relate in this chamber the many accounts of electric sticks and other forms of torture used as part of sexual violence. It is indeed, as Farida Deif said, unlike anything we have seen before. This, in addition to sterilization, indoctrination and the attempt at erasing Uighur, should not pass. We cannot let it stand.
In late February, the other place voted 266 to 0 to declare China’s treatment of its Uighur minority population as a genocide. I truly commend this motion, and I know it took too long and a lot of hard work to mobilize for this motion. However, I cannot in clear conscience say that this is enough.
The surprise is that this is enough. I understand that the world, including Canada, will undoubtedly continue to work with China on trade, climate change and other matters, but it is crucial to continue to remember what the Chinese government does. We must not falter in our pursuit of justice and rights, especially when it comes to vulnerable people.
I must ask why our government is hesitant in its response to this genocide. Our closest allies, the U.S. and the U.K., have taken strong and clear steps, while Canadian members of cabinet even abstain from voting on a mere non-binding motion.
Words are never enough. In the face of these horrific acts of torture, rape, sterilization and genocide, a lot more needs to be done. Honourable senators, Canada played a pivotal role in introducing Responsibility to Protect. Canada led the way that when there is an atrocity, we have to stand up to protect the most vulnerable. Canada has to follow what it led, and I ask you all to support this motion and stand up for the most vulnerable in this world.
Honourable senators, I rise to speak in support of this motion and to thank Senator Leo Housakos for giving us the opportunity as senators to think for ourselves on this issue — one of the most pressing and crucial human rights questions of our time.
You will know that this motion gives us the opportunity to join with our parliamentary colleagues in the other place, as the wording is identical and provides for the added impact that follows when both houses of Canada’s Parliament speak jointly and clearly together. I also want to thank the Canadian parliamentarians who, for years, have been examining and speaking out on the persecution of Uighurs and other minorities by the state of China.
On February 24, 2021, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights issued a joint statement commending the Canadian House of Commons for taking a strong moral stand in recognizing China’s ongoing genocide against the Uighurs.
We know that we do not have the authority to order the Government of Canada around, but it is most certainly within the scope of our parliamentary duties to urge the Government of Canada to address the atrocities being committed against the Uighurs and ensure that China is held to account.
Let’s go back to the October 21, 2020, finding by the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights that nearly 2 million Uighurs and other Turkish ethnic groups are being detained in what witnesses have referred to as “concentration camps” and the largest mass detention of a minority community since the Holocaust during World War II.
You heard just now Senator Jaffer’s eloquent summary of the testimony we heard from Golbahar when she spoke to us about her personal and horrifying experiences as a prisoner. We have evidence of atrocities that have taken place based on witness testimonies such as Golbahar’s, including efforts to eradicate cultural and religious identity, widespread sexual abuse and other forms of gender-based violence, the existence of concentration and forced labour camps, as well as forced and coerced sterilization and abortion to reduce the Uighur population. Golbahar told us of the prettiest Uighur women being hauled out of their cells in the night, some returning battered and sexually violated, some never returning.
This motion gives us, as senators, the chance to join Canadian parliamentarians from across party lines who have joined together to pass the motion sponsored by MP Michael Chong, for which he has been sanctioned by China for declaring that the atrocities committed by China against the Uighurs amount to nothing less than genocide.
Support for this motion also gives the Canadian government support for advancing the important work being done by Parliament by taking the necessary steps to hold the Chinese state to account, should the government so decide. We would simply be offering our advice and opinions to the government for its consideration.
As former justice minister and current special envoy for Canada, the Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, Irwin Cotler says, this move provides an important opportunity for the Canadian government to follow up on the initiative of Parliament and to make it possible for the Canadian government to take next steps in consideration of all that it must consider for moving forward.
The implementation of targeted Magnitsky human rights sanctions against the architects of the genocide, and an increase in humanitarian aid and asylum for Uighurs, are also on the agenda, but they are not covered explicitly by this motion.
Colleagues, let me close with a personal account. Just before COVID hit last year, I was contacted by Dr. Fozia Alvi, a family physician in Calgary. I met Dr. Alvi in the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh the previous year where she was providing voluntary medical care. She continues to do so through a charity she and her family established that mobilizes doctors from all over the world to give of their free time, even if it’s a week or two weeks, to help out in the Rohingya camps and other places where people are living in crisis. Dr. Alvi asked me to come to Calgary to join with her and other doctors there who were going to be standing with members of Falun Gong and, in particular, a large number — relative to the population in Alberta — of Uighurs, many of whom did not live in Calgary but were finding their way to Calgary for a media conference to address what was learned from relatives and from people they know who are Uighurs, in a range of situations where they are living under Chinese rule.
It was my great honour to moderate that media conference. Afterward, I was able to sit with the Uighur Canadians who came, some of them through a blinding snowstorm that took them more than seven hours to be able to arrive in time for the media conference. If I had any doubts prior to that meeting, I left Calgary knowing that this was a genocide that the world had to wake up to.
Let me close by inviting every one of us to think through this on our own, as independent senators, hopefully to conclude that this motion is well worth supporting.
Thank you. Meegwetch.
Would the honourable senator take a question?
Senator McPhedran, you have time remaining. Would you take a question from Senator Housakos?
I would be very pleased to try to answer a question.
Senator McPhedran, thank you for your support for the motion, and thank you to Senator Jaffer as well for her kind and strong support for the motion. Both of you are colleagues who always stand up for human rights, unequivocally.
Senator, why do you think it’s taking so long for our institution to adopt such an obvious, strong stance in support of human rights in regard to applying Magnitsky sanctions against those culprits who are infringing upon basic human rights, or for passing motions such as Motion No. 79 with regard to recognizing as a genocide what’s happening to the unfortunate Uighur people? Why is it that our institution has been so slow, unlike the House of Commons and other institutions of the Westminster system, and other democratic institutions, which have been so quick to express strong values in favour of the Uighur people? Why is it taking us so long, honourable senator, to get this through our institution and speak loud and clear on behalf of Canadian values?
Thank you for the question, Senator Housakos.
I must tell you that, relative to your experience and that of many others in this chamber, I consider myself a newcomer. This is undoubtedly one of the most intriguing and challenging institutions I’ve ever been a part of. I don’t begin to understand a lot of what happens here.
My own sense is that we really haven’t had the opportunity to speak to your motion; that this evening is a very welcome time for us to be able to respond. The kind of delay you’re speaking about with such understandable frustration applies to almost everything we’re trying to do in the context of a very dangerous time — a time when we must be respectful of the safety of all of those who work to support us who don’t have the option, as we do right now, of being in our homes and participating fully in the Senate. I can’t draw any clear conclusions on this, but I certainly do share your frustration.
Senator Housakos, did you have another question?
No. I’d like the institution to call a question on this motion.
I’m sorry, I see Senator Duncan —
Senator Duncan, did you wish to move the question or the adjournment?
I wish to move the adjournment of the debate.
