Chinese diplomat accused of trying to shut down Montreal event in third incident of campus interference

A diplomat from China's consulate in Montreal contacted a number of people demanding that an exiled Uyghur leader not speak to students at Concordia

Concordia University's downtown campus in Montreal.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press/Fil

OTTAWA — A Chinese diplomat in Montreal tried to shut down an event at Concordia University featuring an exiled Muslim minority leader this week, says an organizer, marking China’s third recent attempt to influence activities on Canadian campuses.

Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia, said a diplomat from China’s consulate in Montreal contacted him and others demanding that an exiled Uyghur leader not appear in front of Canadian students.

Matthews received an email from consul Wang Wenzhang on Monday, the day before the event. The French-language email, which he shared with the National Post, said the vice consul general, Xing Wenjian, wanted an “urgent meeting” with him that afternoon or Tuesday morning to “communicate our points of view.” Matthews said he decided not to respond. Neither the consulate nor the embassy in Ottawa responded to a request for comment.

The event featuring Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, went ahead as planned Tuesday, with a few dozen people in attendance including students, journalists and representatives from human rights groups such as Amnesty International. But Matthews soon learned that the diplomat made similar approaches to the City of Montreal, in what he understood was an attempt to seek municipal authorities’ help to shut down the event. The city did not respond to a request for comment.

• Tibetan-Canadian student politician, Uyghur rights activists come under attack by Chinese students in Canada
• Student groups call for Ottawa to investigate alleged interference by Chinese officials on Canadian campuses
• How China uses shadowy United Front as ‘magic weapon’ to try to extend its influence in Canada

Human rights organizations are reporting that between one and two million Uyghur Muslims in China have been detained in camps where they are forced to renounce their religious beliefs, watch propaganda, eat pork and pledge their allegiance to the Chinese state. The Chinese government says its activities are a crackdown on terrorism. But Matthews said it is really a form of “cultural genocide,” intended to erase their identities.

“I think it demonstrates an incredible amount of confidence, bordering on arrogance, that they feel they can do this and get away with it,” terrorism expert Phil Gurski said of the attempt to silence Dolkun Isa in Montreal. “I think it also points to just how diabolical this issue is about the Chinese. I mean look, they’ve been lying to us for months that these are re-education camps.”

Gurski, a former CSIS analyst, now president of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting, is in touch with members of the Uyghur minority who live in Canada and are facing harassment, and who tell him this is all “par for the course.”

For diplomats to be involved in trying to shutter debate should give Global Affairs Canada grounds to raise the issue with China, Gurski said. But given Canada’s arrest of a top Chinese tech executive on a U.S. warrant, China’s ban on Canadian canola and its detention of Canadian citizens, he said, “I’d be surprised if this government goes that far. But it’s tough.”

Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, in 2008. 

“Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression is a fundamental right. We expect foreign representatives’ interactions in domestic affairs in Canada to be appropriate,” said Adam Austen, a spokesman for Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland.

 Freeland

“The government of Canada is deeply concerned about the situation facing Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Canada is gravely concerned about the lack of transparency and due process in the case of Uyghurs detained and being put to death, in what the Chinese call ‘re-education camps,’ calling into question China’s lack of commitment to the rule of law.”

Two other recent incidents on Ontario university campuses raised alarm bells as possible examples of China’s influence campaign, although the Chinese embassy has denied any involvement.

Toronto police are investigating the possibility of criminal threats in thousands of messages a Tibetan-Canadian received after being elected as a University of Toronto student president. An online petition with 11,000 signatures demanded Chemi Lhamo’s removal, and she said Chinese authorities were involved.

At Hamilton’s McMaster University, several Chinese student groups protested a talk about human rights abuses facing the Uyghur minority, with other student groups writing to the federal government asking it to investigate possible state involvement. A statement at the time from the Chinese Embassy praised the protesters for being “patriotic,” but denied they were involved or behind anything.

That the Concordia incident appears to be part of a growing pattern is “kind of scary,” said Gurski. “If something is not done, if there’s no reprimand, they’re going to think they’re getting away with it, which means they’re going to continue doing it. Today it’s the Uyghurs. Tomorrow it’s Tibet. The next day it’s Taiwan, or Hong Kong, or Macao.”

“It’s something we should be worried about,” Matthews said, “that some authoritarian governments are not just trying to oppress freedom of thought and freedom of speech and academic inquiry in their own countries, but they’re now doing it in Western countries, which I think is a dangerous sign.”

Britain's Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson arrives at 10 Downing Street in London on Dec. 04, 2018. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

Britain’s Defense Secretary Has ‘Deep Concerns’ Over Huawei Role in 5G Network

EPOCH TIMES

December 27, 2018 

LONDON—Britain’s defense secretary has said he has “grave” and “very deep concerns” about Chinese technology company Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s new 5G mobile network.

Gavin Williamson told The Times of London that Beijing sometimes acts “in a malign way” and said that a widespread review of security related to Huawei would be warranted.

Huawei is a major supplier of broadband gear and mobile networks in the UK, meaning its products are used in critical national infrastructure. The company has supplied broadband equipment to BT, the UK’s largest telecom provider, and mobile networks to Vodafone.

Williamson’s statements come as the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan have all banned Huawei from involvement in their 5G upgrades.

Companies in France and Germany also have raised concerns about Huawei, with France’s Orange saying it wouldn’t hire the company to build out its 5G network, while Germany’s Deutsche Telekom announced that it was “reassessing [its] procurement strategy,” following the recent scrutiny of Huawei.

“I have grave, very deep concerns about Huawei providing the 5G network in Britain. It’s something we’d have to look at very closely,” Williamson told The Times.

“We’ve got to look at what partners, such as Australia and the United States, are doing to ensure that they have the maximum security of that 5G network. We’ve got to recognize the fact, as has been recently exposed, that the Chinese state does sometimes act in a malign way,” Williamson said.

A sign that reads “5G park” inside the Huawei global headquarters in Shenzhen, China, on Dec. 18, 2018. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images)

Huawei has repeatedly maintained that it’s a private company not under the control of the Chinese regime and isn’t subject to Chinese security laws overseas.

However, it is well-documented that Chinese companies are linked to the communist regime. Many firms are required by law to establish Communist Party branches that can take part in decision-making to ensure that the company’s activities are in line with the Party’s policies.

Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, has expressed how important 5G is to the company.

“The war of 5G is related to Huawei’s future fate,” Chinese media reported Ren as saying during a November company meeting. “We must win the competition for 5G networks, and we will not hesitate to pay the full price in order to achieve victory.”

The company has attempted to mitigate concerns about its security by offering $2 billion to make changes in its hardware and software required by Britain’s security agencies.

However, earlier this month, European Union technology commissioner Andrus Ansip raised concerns about the Chinese communist regime’s rule that technology companies cooperate with its intelligence services.

“This is about mandatory backdoors,” Ansip told Euractiv. “It is not a good sign when companies have to open their systems to kind of secret services.”

Ansip added that “ordinary people” have reason “to be afraid” of Chinese companies like Huawei.

Andrus Ansip, European Commissioner for the Digital Single Market, in Brussels on March 25, 2015. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

Alex Younger, the head of Britain’s MI6 spy service, said in a rare public speech Dec. 3 that the UK would need to decide how comfortable it is having Huawei involved in critical communications equipment.

“We need to decide the extent to which we are going to be comfortable with Chinese ownership of these technologies and these platforms in an environment where some of our allies have taken a quite definite position,” Younger said.

BT has since said it won’t be using Huawei’s hardware in its 5G network, and has also begun removing the Chinese company’s equipment from the “core” of its 3G and 4G mobile networks. It also will remove any Huawei gear found in a new communications system being developed for the UK’s emergency services, though BT didn’t say why.

Last month, relations between Huawei and UK authorities reportedly soured when a top British official walked out of a meeting over the company’s apparent failure to fix security holes in its products, according to a source quoted by Reuters.

Pompeo Meets Uyghurs, Demands Beijing End Mass Detention

 EPOCH TIMES

March 28, 2019 

   

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has renewed calls for the Chinese regime to end its detention of more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities after meeting with a survivor and relatives of prisoners on March 27.

“We call on the Chinese government to release immediately these individuals’ family members and all others arbitrarily detained in the camps,” the State Department said in a statement about Pompeo’s meeting.

Pompeo met with four Uyghurs including survivor Mihrigul Tursun, a woman who has spoken publicly about her experiences of being tortured and abused at an internment camp in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province.

In November 2018, Tursun testified before a U.S. congressional committee that she was given unknown drugs and electrocuted while tied to a chair during her detainment in one of China’s so-called “vocational re-education centers.”

Pompeo also met with three other Uyghurs, whose relatives have either been detained or criminally sentenced in China.

The United Nations estimates that the communist regime is holding more than 1 million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of internment camps, where prisoners undergo political indoctrination and are forced to renounce their faith. Beijing has used the pretext of “extremist threats” to justify such measures.

Peter Irwin, program manager at the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), said Pompeo’s meeting shows that the U.S. government places great importance on the Uyghur issue, in an email to The Epoch Times.

“It must also be said that the Uyghur issue, and human rights more broadly, must remain a central element to engagement with China and not be overtaken by issues of trade or geopolitics,” Irwin added.

Pompeo, at a March 26 press briefing, described the Chinese regime’s treatment of Uyghurs as “historic human rights abuse.”  

“We’re working to convince the Chinese that this practice is abhorrent and ought to be stopped,” he told reporters.

Irwin added that WUC will continue to work with supportive governments to bring to light the plight of Uyghurs in China.

“It is critical that a broad coalition of states join together to condemn China’s abuse of Uyghurs to show that no international community will stand by while crimes against humanity are being perpetrated as we speak,” he said.

Suppression

Uyghur and Kazakhstan national Gulbakhar Jalilova, 54, a former detainee, told The Epoch Times in December 2018 that detained Uyghurs were psychologically and physically tortured, poisoned, and even killed by injection of unknown drugs.

Another former Uyghur detainee, a Kazakhstan national aged 54, who spoketo The Epoch Times in 2018 on condition of anonymity, said young girls were being raped inside these camps and were given pills to stop them from becoming pregnant.

Beyond the camps, Uyghurs also face harassment from local Chinese authorities. Radio Free Asia reported in February that Uyghurs were forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, both of which are strictly forbidden in Islam.

In addition, more than 10 million Uyghur and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang are subject to intense monitoring via a dense network of surveillance systems and security checkpoints.

In November 2018, Reuters reported that the Trump administration was considering sanctions against Chinese officials and companies with ties to the regime in the region.

Around the same time, bipartisan legislation was introduced in both the Senate and the House calling for a stronger U.S. response to the regime’s suppression, including an export ban on U.S. technology that could be used in surveillance in the region, and sanctions against culpable Chinese officials.

In early March, State Department official Michael Kozak, in a briefing presenting the department’s annual human rights report, said that abuses like those currently being committed against China’s Muslim minority had not been seen “since the 1930s.”

Setting sun. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Sunburns, Starvation Used as Torture Methods by Prison in China

March 29, 2019

  

A prison in Sichuan Province, China, is being used as a torture facility to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on prisoners, particularly on adherents of Falun Gong, according to the Chinese language website Minghui.org.

According to Minghui.org, a website that documents the persecution of Falun Gong in China, there are specific forms of torture used specifically on Falun Gong practitioners. The torture includes facing a wall for a certain amount of time, forcing individuals to sit facing the hot summer sun for hours, and wearing only a single-layer of clothing outdoors in the middle of winter.

The torture victims have also been forced to wear motorcycle helmets that are sprayed full of tear gas. The report also said that prisoners have time limits set on their meals, often being allowed only 15 seconds to consume their share.

These forms of torture are used on believers of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, in an attempt to make them renounce their faith. The practitioners follow the self-improvement system that is based on the universal values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has attempted to destroy Falun Gong for nearly 20 years. The report said that the persecution methods employed by the prisons were designed to first break the mind’s will and then torture the body.

Falun Gong practitioners commemorate the deaths adherents who were persecuted to death by the Chinese regime, during a march down Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C. on June 20, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Prison Persecution

The prison in Sichuan is called “Jiazhou Prison” but according to the report, the facility is kept secret and the entrance of the building is labelled as “Chenma Group Ltd.” About 200 Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned there, with roughly 3,500 other inmates and surrounded by 500 prison guards, according to Minghui.org.

The prison uses forced labor for its own production means. Some prisoners work 10 hours a day without pay to produce locally consumed hard liquor. Others are forced to make hardware that is used in phones, computers, and televisions.

Falun Gong adherents are put under surveillance 24 hours a day, and constantly followed by guards or inmates.

Torture of Falun Gong

One form of torture that Falun Gong practitioners are subjected to is called “three points, one line” in which an individual is forced to stand for hours facing a wall with their nose, knees, and toes always making contact with the wall. It is one of the first forms of persecution that Falun Gong practitioners go through when they arrive at the prison.

Torture method of facing the wall. (Minghui.org)

The torture is followed by interrogation—the prisoners are ordered to give details about their name, place of residence and other personal information. They are forced to strip naked and then their heads are shaved. Afterwards, they have to continue facing the wall, or be prodded and inspected while naked, followed by squatting and standing while facing prison officials. They are then forced to sit cross-legged for several hours.

Another form of torture is eating meals within a set time, allowing the individual to consume their food for only a few seconds. The time allotted is set by the mood of the head guard, and often won’t go longer than 15 seconds.

After prisoners are allowed to eat, they are forced to stand against a wall in the “three points, one line” position. This form of torture can last for months.

Falun Gong practitioners go through a torture method called “Sunflower.” They are made to stand outside under the blistering heat of the summer sun, facing a metal pole in the “three points, one line” position. They are not allowed to close their eyes. As the sun moves through the sky, the practitioners must follow its direction and continue facing it.

Torture method: Standing under the scorching sun. (Illustration by Minghui.org)

Others are forced to sit on cement squares, which becomes scalding hot under the sun’s heat. These individuals must put their bare back to the sun’s rays for hours at a time.

Victims of this torture end up not only with severe sun burns but also with massive blisters, described to be as large as an egg. Their bodies swell, and pus drips from their blisters. Others pass out. Those who pass out are given a tincture that is supposed to prevent heat stroke. But when they awake, the torture continues.

In the winter, Falun Gong practitioners are made to sit outside cross-legged from seven in the morning until ten at night. They are only allowed to wear a single, thin layer of clothing. Victims suffer from frost bite and chill burns.

Another kind of torture involves forcing victims to wear helmets with windshields, similar to a motorcycle helmet. The hands are bound and mouth is gagged, and after the helmet is strapped on, the guards spray tear gas onto one’s face, and close the wind shield. The tear gas causes severe damage to one’s eyes, including swelling and dimmed vision. Guards also mock the victims.

Other forms of torture that Falun Gong practitioners suffer include beatings, shocking with electric batons, sleep deprivation, and long hours of forced labor.

Beaten by several prison guards/inmates with electric batons. (Minghui.org)

The final objective of the torture methods is to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith by signing a document called the “Four Certificates.”

Falun Gong practitioners are forced to sign a document with their fingerprint to show that they have renounced their faith . (Minghui.org)

Falun Gong adherents have endured these cruel forms of torture since the persecution started in 1999. The CCP continues its persecution against individuals of faith, as belief in the divine is considered a threat to the ideology of communism.

Chinese restaurant which sparked outrage for its 'racist' menu serving 'chirri and garrik prawn dumpring' closes down

• Chinese restaurant which sparked outrage 
• for its 'racist' menu serving 'chirri and 
• garrik prawn dumpring' closes down
• 
  

March 27 2019

An Asian-fusion restaurant that sparked controversy over its menu that appeared to mock Chinese pronunciation of English words has been forced to close.

Bamboozle, in Christchurch, on New Zealand's south island, shut up shop on Saturday after facing 'overwhelming' challenges.

The restaurant made headlines last year over its 'racist' menu.

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An Asian-fusion restaurant that sparked controversy over its menu that appeared to mock Chinese pronunciation of English words has been forced to close

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Dishes included 'chirri an garrik prawn dumpring', 'suk sum teet' and 'luff'u long time phat Thai'

Dishes included 'chirri an garrik prawn dumpring', 'suk sum teet' and 'luff'u long time phat Thai'. 

A braised pork shoulder in roti dish was called a 'rital phatt ee'.

The restaurant's menu had been operating for two years before the controversy erupted.

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A Stuff review, by Alistair Paulin, sparked a fury after he highlighted the issues with the menu.

In the review he said the restaurant was pandering to the humour of young teenage boys.

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Bamboozle, in Christchurch, on New Zealand's south island, shut up shop on Saturday after facing 'overwhelming' challenges

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Owner Phillip Kraal previously told NZME: 'Pretty much every one of our customers enjoys the written menu as part of their overall experience and often express disappointment when items are removed with seasonal menu changes'

Owner Phillip Kraal previously told NZME: 'Pretty much every one of our customers enjoys the written menu as part of their overall experience and often express disappointment when items are removed with seasonal menu changes'.   

Kraal has not commented on whether the controversy over the menu had led to the restaurants down fall. 

In a Facebook post he  told his followers the challenges facing the restaurant were 'simply overwhelming', Stuff reported.