Testimony before Canadian House of Commons
37th PARLIAMENT, 3rd SESSION
Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Development of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Jared Genser

My name is Jared Genser, and I'm the president of Freedom Now, a non-profit organization whose mission is to free prisoners of conscience through focused legal, political, and public relations advocacy efforts.

I am particularly pleased to be here today for several reasons. First, I've been following your committee's probe of China's human rights record with great interest--especially following the recent visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Canada and his historic meeting with Prime Minister Martin.

Secondly, Canada is of great importance to the People's Republic of China. For example, on his recent trip to Canada, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China attaches great importance to Canada-China relations and looks forward to working together with the new Canadian leadership “in cultivating a richer and more substantive partnership of all-round cooperation between the two countries”.

Finally, on a more personal note, I feel a great affinity for Canada and the Canadian people, as my wife is actually a Canadian and we spend a great deal of time with her family, who live in Toronto and Montreal.

In my testimony today I plan to discuss my views on the human rights situation in China, using the arbitrary detention of individuals in both China and Tibet as a way to illustrate the broader challenges to all of us who care about improving the human rights situation there.

Almost one month ago, after the defeat of another U.S. resolution on the human rights situation in the PRC at the UN Commission on Human Rights, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan said, “We urge the U.S. side to face reality squarely, draw lessons from this failure, abandon confrontation and tackle its human rights differences with China properly through dialogues and exchanges.”

I'm here today because, sadly, my experience has been that despite their strong rhetoric about the importance of dialogue over confrontation, the PRC is frequently unwilling to engage in these conversations. I personally support engagement with China. I agreed with the decision of the United States, as an illustration, to grant permanent normal trading relations to China. I have promoted increasing both the quantity and quality of international exchanges between China and other countries in the world, and I have a deep respect for China and the Chinese people. Yet it is because the PRC is unwilling to engage in meaningful dialogue on human rights in private that those of us who care about these issues have no choice but to speak about them publicly.

A prime example of the PRC's unwillingness to engage in dialogue can be found in the case of Dr. Yang Jianli, a Chinese national and U.S. permanent resident with doctorates from Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley, who was blacklisted after the 1989 Tiananmen Square tragedy. I've had the privilege of working with Dr. Yang's wife, Christina Fu--a woman of tremendous strength and fortitude--over the past two years since her husband was detained in China.

Yang Jianli heard about labour unrest in northeastern China and wanted to observe it for himself. After the PRC detained him on April 26, 2002, it had the opportunity to press what could have been a routine case against him for illegal entry. Instead, by systematically and harshly violating Yang's human rights and subsequently charging him with espionage, despite no basis in fact for this charge, the PRC transformed his case into an international cause célèbre and an ongoing irritant in U.S.-China relations, as well as European Union-China relations. How could this happen?

During the first year of detention, in violation of both Chinese and international law, Yang Jianli was held incommunicado and in solitary confinement, denied access to counsel, family, and all reading materials, and he was interrogated by PRC authorities over 100 times. In addition, the PRC virtually ignored the entreaties of dozens of U.S. senators and members of Congress, members of the European Parliament, and even Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

On June 4, 2003, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, consisting of representatives from Algeria, France, Hungary, Paraguay, and even Iran, made public its ruling that Yang was being held in violation of international law. The U.S. State Department immediately called for Yang's release, and shortly thereafter a congressional resolution calling for Yang's release passed unanimously in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.

Yang was finally put on trial in China, more than 15 months after being initially detained, on August 4, 2003, in the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court. On December 1, 2003, the time period under Chinese law for the court to issue a verdict expired. He has been held in violation of Chinese law for six months since then, in a Chinese-style political-legal gridlock.

What we do know is that Yang Jianli's ongoing detention in violation of Chinese law is not atypical. In June 2003, the National People's Congress resolved to put an end to the “chronic disease” of illegally prolonged detention.

According to Progress in China's Human Rights Cause (2003), a report issued by the PRC on April 1, 2004, the Chinese government corrected 25,736 cases during the year 2003. In addition, the report touts the strict system for investigating and dealing with extended detention.

Despite the general progress, however, Yang Jianli's case is a high-profile and exceptionally disturbing counter-example. Sadly, there are thousands of Yang Jianlis on trial, few with his high profile perhaps, but many in prison for articulating their aspiration that China provide freedom for its people.

Before commenting further with my recommendations for what can be done, given the context for these hearings taking place, I also want to provide some brief comments about two other high-profile prisoner cases regarding Tibetans.

In May 1995 Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the six-year-old boy identified by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as the 11th Panchen Lama, disappeared. In 1996 the PRC admitted to holding the boy and his family in “protective custody”, thereby admitting to the crime of kidnapping. After repeated attempts to locate and visit the boy, not one international agency or human rights organization has been allowed to meet with the Panchen Lama or his family, and his condition remains uncertain.

Furthermore, in an attempt to establish their pre-eminence in all internal affairs of China, political or otherwise, the atheistic Chinese communist government nominated and selected their own 11th Panchen Lama in November 1995. Their selection, a six-year-old boy named Gyaltsen Norbu, is another young victim in China's plan to control the Tibetan people, their religion, and their nation.

I want also to comment briefly on the case of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, which was already discussed earlier in this hearing. He is the highly respected Buddhist leader in Tibet who, according to Human Rights Watch, has “struggled to develop social, medical, educational and religious institutions for the impoverished nomadic Tibetan communities in Sichuan province. He also worked to preserve the area's fragile ecological balance in the face of unbridled logging and mining activities.” He is also an advocate of the Dalai Lama's philosophy of non-violence.

Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was arrested, along with Lobsang Dhondup, in April 2002 in connection with a series of bombing incidents, in which he was allegedly involved. At closed trials in December 2002, both men were sentenced to death, but Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was given a two-year reprieve. In response to international pressure, a fair and open retrial was promised by the Chinese government. Yet at a secret retrial in January 2003, the death sentences were upheld, and Lobsang Dhondup was immediately executed. Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's two-year reprieve will expire in December 2004.

I would like to mention one approach that the Government of Canada might wish to consider. The United States government passed the Tibetan Policy Act. That act is a formal statement of the United States Congress to say that it's the policy of the United States government to encourage dialogue between the United States and China focusing on the issue of Tibet and also to encourage specific dialogue between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the government of China to resolve through negotiations the conflict there.

What can we conclude about the state of the international human rights dialogue with China when examining the high-profile cases of Yang Jianli, the Panchen Lama, and Tenzin Delek Rinpoche? To put things charitably, we have a very long way to go.

Sadly, these cases are representative of the hundreds of thousands of widespread and ongoing human rights violations committed against individuals in the People's Republic of China. Official government statistics indicated that there were 230,000 people in re-education through labour camps in 2003. The Supreme People's Procuratorate reported that from 1998 through 2002, over 300,000 persons were detained for periods longer than permitted by law. Credible sources estimate that as many as 2,000 persons remain in prison for their activity during the June 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations. The number of individuals serving sentences for the now-repealed crime of counter-revolution is estimated at 500 to 600. Many of these persons were imprisoned for the non-violent expression of their political views.

As I mentioned at the outset, I firmly believe that Canada has an especially important role to play both with China and internationally.

I will now conclude with three suggestions for your consideration as to how to elevate concern about these cases and the broader and more systemic human rights conditions in China that these cases represent.

First, I urge you to raise the human rights situation in China to the highest levels, both within the Canadian government and the PRC directly. In the United States, much as it is here, I know there are numerous bilateral issues with China. There is the case involving North Korea, the war on terror, and the $100 billion trade deficit, to name a few. Nevertheless, it is critical that the Chinese leadership understand that all of us, as freedom-loving people, will continue to care about the extent to which the PRC is abiding by its commitments under its own law and international law. It is also important not to allow the PRC to use the individual release of prisoners as a public relations tool to deflect attention from their record. Indeed, these cases are symptomatic of broader problems. While each case I described needs to be resolved, and resolved immediately, that resolution is only a small step in the direction of real political, judicial, and legal reform.

Secondly, I urge you to engage in dialogue with the private sector to apply pressure on the PRC in business terms. Bilateral trade between Canada and China was over $20 billion in 2002. China, not including Hong Kong, is Canada's third largest national trading partner, after the United States and Japan, and Canada's fourth largest export market, after the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

In my view, this gives your government and private sector substantial leverage with the PRC. In simple terms, as much as the PRC may resent “unwarranted interference in their affairs”, the oppression of their own people has a real business implication. The onslaught of negative news stories about the oppression of democracy in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the oppression of the Tibetan people, and numerous other violations will eventually have an impact on Canadian buying habits. The attention on China's human rights record will only increase in the run-up to the Olympics in Beijing in 2008. China surely does not aspire to be the next Burma, at least in terms of the real economic backlash against its human rights record.

Finally, I would urge Canada to continue its multilateral efforts to apply pressure on the PRC. I chaired Canada's recent election to the UN Commission on Human Rights for the 2005-2007 term. Using the commission and other forums, Canada can exercise its influence to increase both diplomatic and public pressure on the PRC.

While there is clearly a long way to go, we should all take inspiration from the wisdom of Chinese philosopher Confucius, who said: “Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.”

Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions.

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