Canadian MP Irwin Cotler Condemns the Escalating Criminalization of Innocence in China and Its Canadian Connection

For Immediate Release:

OTTAWA: The recent witness testimony and documentary evidence -- both national and international -- demonstrates that the violations of human rights in China have been intensifying -- an escalation of the criminalization of innocence, particularly as regards the violations of the rights of the Falun Gong. These include:

1. The criminalization of the Falun Gong spiritual movement itself, for nothing other than espousing the values of Truth, Compassion and Tolerance, thereby violating their fundamental rights to freedom of conscience and belief, freedom of assembly and association, and freedom of expression and information.
2. The arrest, detention, beating, and imprisonment of thousands upon thousands of Falun Gong practitioners, for nothing other than exercising their rights as guaranteed under Chinese and International law.
3. That the policy and practice of torture -- as documented in a recent Amnesty International Report -- is routine among Falun Gong detainees, even though China has ratified the Torture Convention;
4. The abuse of psychiatry for political purposes, on a scale unseen since the dark days of the Soviet Gulag; and,
5. The particular "Canadian connection" to this criminalization of innocence, including:

• The arrest, detention, beating and imprisonment of ShenLi Lin husband of Canadian citizen JinYu Li, who has been languishing for 18 months in a Chinese labour camp;
• The imprisonment of MingLi Lin, brother of ShenLi Lin --just sentenced to 2 years in a labour camp
• The recent arrest of Ying Zu, a Canadian landed immigrant married to a Canadian citizen -- for nothing other than seeking to visit her gravely ill mother in China.

Four months ago I stated that we have been witnessing the most persistent and pervasive assault on human rights in China since Tiananman Square, of which the treatment of the Falun Gong is a case study of these violations.

The persecution and prosecution of the Falun Gong is a case study of this assault on human rights -- this criminalization of innocence.

For more information please contact:

Irwin Cotler, O.C., M.P.

Tanis Gilbert