‘Forgotten in a dark, cruel place’

The two Michaels are not the only Canadians held as political prisoners by China

Through Huseyn Celil’s 14 long years of imprisonment in China, Kamila Talendibaeva has been unable to exchange so much as a word with her husband.

But at least Celil’s relatives could visit him every six months or so and report back to the Toronto-area resident.

Then, about three years ago, they, too, disappeared, probably into the vast system of reeducation camps Beijing set up for its Uyghur minority. With them, the wife’s last life line to her spouse, a Canadian citizen like her, also vanished.

Now Celil, a Uyghur activist jailed on dubious terrorism allegations, is an increasingly dim memory for their four sons, aged 14 to 20.

The plight of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, two Canadians detained by China in the wake of the arrest of a Huawei executive in Vancouver, has drawn increasing public and political attention.

But largely forgotten in recent months are a group of Canadians, or people with strong blood ties to Canada, jailed for political and religious “crimes” long before the Huawei affair erupted, earlier reminders of Beijing’s routine trampling of human rights.

Their plight was underscored this week when one of them, Canadian citizen Sun Qian, was sentenced to eight years in prison, essentially for following the banned Falun Gong movement.

Another is Wang Bingzhang, a prominent pro-democracy activist whose wife, children, siblings and parents are all Canadian citizens. He’s been languishing in a Chinese prison for a stunning 17 years.

Their family members and other advocates implore the federal government to do more to help them, saying the standard playbook of quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy has resoundingly failed to sway Beijing.

When Sun was first arrested in 2017, and accused of using “heretical religious organizations” to disrupt the law — a typical ploy to suppress Falun Gong practitioners — her lawyer, Xie Yanyi, says he tried repeatedly to secure a meeting with then-canadian ambassador John Mccallum. It never happened.

Those three may not be alone. Cherie Wong of the Alliance Canada Hong Kong says there are 123 Canadians detained in China, some undoubtedly for political reasons in a country that brooks little dissent.

Sylvain Leclerc, a Global Affairs Canada spokesman, said Canada remains “deeply concerned” about Celil and takes every opportunity to press to get consular access to him. It also is closely monitoring Sun’s case, had officials at her sentencing Tuesday, and has “raised her case directly with Chinese counterparts.”

The government also condemns Wang’s imprisonment and that of all human-rights defenders in China, said Leclerc.

Celil grew up in the Xinjiang region that is the homeland of China’s mostly Muslim Uyghur minority, and came to Canada with his wife as a refugee in the early 2000s.

They were visiting her relatives in Uzbekistan in 2006 when that country’s government arrested Celil and handed him over to China, which eventually convicted him of terrorist activities. No evidence has ever come to light that supports those charges, his wife says.

Nor has China allowed consular visits by this country’s diplomats, refusing to recognize his Canadian citizenship.

Relatives who used to visit Celil sometimes had grim news, reporting the inmate received sub-standard food, was often kept in isolation and could not get access to needed medication, says Talendibaeva.

She managed earlier this year to talk to Dominic Barton, Canada’s current ambassador to China, who assured her that every effort is being made to advocate for Celil. Yet, she feels Ottawa has fallen largely short on the file.

Sun became a Canadian citizen around 2007, and split her time between Vancouver and Beijing, where she and her husband owned a successful biochemical company.

She has said she was badly mistreated in detention, forced to wear arm and leg shackles for long periods, pepper sprayed repeatedly for no reason and subject to anti-falun Gong brainwashing. Now she faces a further eight years behind bars, a sentence her lawyer says is likely another pressure tactic by Beijing in response to Canada’s arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei CFO, on a U.S. extradition request.

“She is almost forgotten in a very dark, cruel place,” says Falun Gong Canadian spokeswoman Grace Wollensack.