Beware Your Dinner Guests

Last week, a delegation of over 600 business and government representatives from Hong Kong and the southern Chinese province of Guangdong wrapped up their North American tour in Vancouver to tout China’s economic potential to would-be Canadian investors.

The delegation, led by Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang and the Governor of Guangdong Province, Huang Huahua, was wined and dined by Canadian officials during the trip. The Canadian government is seeking to expand investment in China, which is currently our second-largest bilateral trade partner.

The Canadian government is also seeking to solidify a deal to gain approved destination status from China by the end of this year—a deal that could bring in 700,000 Chinese tourists per year, many of them from Guangdong province.

The Chinese delegation’s trip was not without controversy. Rights activists and Falun Gong supporters rallied nation-wide in the lead up to the Guangdong Governor Huang Huahua’s arrival, asking the Canadian government to deny him entry to the country in accordance with the Canadian Crimes Against humanity and War Crimes Program.

Huang is said to be actively involved in carrying out Beijing’s orders to eradicate the Falun Gong spiritual discipline through the torture and brainwashing of Falun Gong practitioners.

Falun Gong—also known as Falun Dafa—is an ancient spiritual discipline from China that combines meditation movements with moral teachings rooted in Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. The Chinese government banned Falun Gong in July, 1999, after a survey found that there were more Falun Gong adherents than Communist Party members in the officially atheist Mainland China.

Since 1999, at least 97 torture-deaths of practitioners in police custody have been confirmed.

“Before he became governor, [Huang] was in fact in charge of the Guangdong campaign against Falun Gong,” says Clive Ansley, a lawyer representing Falun Gong practitioners.

“He is a notorious criminal in China. He is responsible for a great many murders and instances of torture in Guangdong Province.”

The Canadian government did not heed calls to bar entry to Huang.

David Matas, a Winnipeg-based human rights lawyer who was involved in the campaign to deny Huang entry, says that the Canadian government should have acted on calls to keep Huang out of the country.

“The reason they didn’t may have had to do with the fact that he’s a government official and they don’t want to get into a tiff with the government of China,” he says.

“They’re more concerned about diplomatic relations with China than they are about stopping the crimes that this fellow is committing.”

Leading up to the delegation’s visit, Calgary resident Kevin Duan appeared at an Edmonton press conference to recount the 15 months of incarceration, torture, and brainwashing he endured in Guangdong province for refusing to recant his belief in Falun Gong.

Just a few hours later, his mother, still living in Guangdong province, was taken into police custody and interrogated for four hours. She was reportedly pressed to answer questions about her son. She has since gone into hiding to avoid further harassment.

Last Friday, as Governor Huang took a ferry ride to Victoria, British Columbia, he was served by Falun Gong practitioners with Writ and a Statement of Claim issued out of the Supreme Court of British Columbia on behalf of Kevin Duan for the torture he endured in China.

“The purpose of the lawsuit is not for revenge or to penalize somebody but to send a message that this persecution and the killing and torturing have to stop,” says Lucy Zhou, a volunteer spokesperson for Falun Gong in Ottawa.

“If China wants to remain in the international community the Chinese Communist regime has to realize that torture and killing is not acceptable and is not lawful. People who commit these kinds of crimes have to face consequences.”

Huang now has two weeks to file a statement of defense with the Supreme Court of British Columbia. If he fails to do so, a default judgment against him may be possible.

With additional reporting by Joan Delaney in Victoria