Canadian detained in Beijing

Chinese police boarded a plane in Beijing and refused to allow a Canadian woman, daughter of a jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist, to transit through Beijing airport en route from South Korea to Toronto.

Last week, Chinese authorities had denied Ti-Anna Wang entry into China to visit her father despite having issued her a visa, and forced her, her husband and baby daughter to board a flight to South Korea.

On Wednesday, as she and her family attempted to return to Canada on a flight from Seoul to Toronto via Beijing, Chinese police were waiting for the plane at the gate, she said in an email forwarded to the Star by lawyer Irwin Cotler.

Cotler, head of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre, has long argued for her father Wang Bingzhang’s release, and he condemned China’s treatment of the man’s daughter as another example of China’s new hardline approach and “hostage diplomacy” since Canada’s extradition arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive wanted in the U.S. on fraud charges.

Wang, a Canadian citizen, said as her flight from Seoul reached the terminal gate at Beijing International Airport “there was an announcement saying that all passengers had to stay seated under an order from the ministry of justice.

“Then five to six police officers got on the plane and came to find me in my seat. They asked for ID, and then I was escorted off, detained with daughter and separated from my husband for almost two hours.

“I was told that I had to go back to Korea and that I was not allowed on the flight to Toronto,” her email reads.