Ottawa Citizen: Stand up to China, PM urged

The Ottawa Citizen; with files from The Associated Press

A Liberal MP says Prime Minister Jean Chretien faces "embarrassment" in the eyes of the world if a Canadian citizen jailed in China isn't released before an upcoming Team Canada trade mission to Beijing.

Ottawa West-Nepean MP Marlene Catterall is urging her own government to use the trade trip as leverage in the battle to free KunLun Zhang, a former Montreal sculptor being held in a Chinese labour camp for practising the banned meditation rituals of Falun Gong.

In a letter sent to her cross-town Liberal colleague, Ms. Catterall urges Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley to give Mr. Zhang's case his "urgent and personal intervention" in the weeks before Mr. Chretien and the provincial premiers embark on their Feb. 9-18 trip to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

"As the Prime Minister prepares for another trade mission to China, it is unacceptable that the government of China refuses access by Canadian representatives to KunLun Zhang," Ms. Catterall wrote in the Dec. 14 letter. "I am certain that the Chinese government can understand what an embarrassment it would be for our Prime Minister, senior business people and officials to appear on Canadian television with their Chinese counterparts while the government continues the detention and physical punishment of a Canadian citizen."

She adds: "Surely, while making arrangements with China for the trade mission, this is an ideal time to negotiate for Mr. Zhang's release and return to Canada."

Ms. Catterall is the second Liberal MP to put pressure on Mr. Manley to toughen Canada's stance with China over the imprisonment of Mr. Zhang, arrested in July after performing the slow-motion exercises of Falun Gong in a public park.

Montreal MP Irwin Cotler, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer who is representing Mr. Zhang, has also pressed his own government to co-sponsor a UN resolution condemning China's human rights record if Beijing doesn't end its crackdown against Falun Gong practitioners.

MPs from the Canadian Alliance, Bloc Quebecois and NDP have also urged the federal government to cancel the Team Canada trip or otherwise take a harder line with China on the Falun Gong issue.

Introduced in 1992, Falun Gong is a Buddhist-inspired movement combining relaxation exercises and spiritual teachings that emphasize truth, compassion and tolerance. But in July 1999, with an estimated 100 million practitioners in China, Falun Gong was deemed a threat to the authority of the Communist party and banned by Chinese President Jiang Zemin [].

Since then, according to several international human rights organizations, close to 100 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed and tens of thousands sent to forced labour camps in a brutal crackdown by the Chinese government.

Most countries, including Canada, Britain and the United States, have criticized Beijing but stopped short of imposing trade sanctions or passing a formal UN condemnation.

The issue gained attention in Canada when LingDi Zhang, a University of Ottawa student, appealed to the federal government in November for help in freeing her father.

Officials at the Canadian embassy in Beijing have pressed the Chinese government for permission to meet with Mr. Zhang, who lived in Montreal from 1989 to 1996. But China has steadfastly refused the request, insisting that because Mr. Zhang used his Chinese passport to re-enter China, he effectively forfeited his Canadian citizenship and is being dealt with appropriately under Chinese law.

There has been no indication from Foreign Affairs officials that either Canada's policy of "constructive engagement" to improve China's human rights record or the planned Team Canada trade mission would be affected by the Falun Gong crackdown or Mr. Zhang's imprisonment.

Yesterday, LingDi Zhang issued an alert stating that her father has been transferred from Liuchangshang detention centre to the notorious WangCun labour camp in ShanDong province in northeast China.

The WangCun labour camp has been cited by human rights groups as a "hell on Earth" where prisoners are routinely tortured and occasionally killed.

Human rights groups say at least 92 have died in detention in China since the government banned Falun Gong, including four practitioners who were reported dead yesterday by the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Hong Kong.

Also yesterday, a court in Singapore charged 15 Falun Gong supporters who were arrested after staging an unauthorized vigil in memory of fellow practitioners they say died in police custody in China.

The 15 -- nine men and six women -- were led into a Singapore courtroom in handcuffs to hear the formal charges. Most wore a bright yellow

T-shirt that read: "The great law of Fa Lun: truthfulness, benevolence, tolerance."

Falun Gong is legal in Singapore but the 15 were charged with obstructing a police officer and illegal assembly.