PMO release

Sigh… what can I say? Sometimes I really don’t understand my fellow Canadians. Why are Canadians always one step behind the rest of the world? Is it because our country is too cold so our people don’t travel outside of North America to see the rest of the world?

With an obvious shift of western media obsession on the “China threat” theory and the retrieve of the once mainstream China-bashing rhetoric, I can only hope that over time, Canadians will slowly come to understand the modern China better-informedly.

Canadians Urge for Focus on Human Rights as Prime Minister Visits China

Angus Reid release – Two-thirds of respondents think Canada should not seek free trade agreements with countries that have dubious human rights records.

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrives in China for a four-day visit, a large majority of Canadians believe the federal government should concentrate on human rights when it comes to bilateral ties, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.

In the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,006 Canadian adults, 63% of respondents believe Canada should put more emphasis on human rights and minority rights, regardless of the economic implications.

Just over a third of respondents (37%) believe Canada’s long-term policy with China should focus on the trading relationship, regardless of the human rights situation in China.

While those concerned primarily with human rights in China continue to outnumber the proponents of trade, this month’s survey does show a 13-point shift towards trade since an Angus Reid poll conducted in April 2007, when the trial and sentence of Chinese Canadian Huseyin Celil dominated the airwaves.

Two-thirds of Canadians (68%) believe Canada should not seek free trade agreements with developing countries that have dubious human rights records. The level of agreement with this notion has dropped by five points since July 2007, when Canada was discussing a free trade agreement with Colombia.

The prospect of a free trade deal with China is not an overwhelmingly popular idea for Canadians, with 42% perceiving this possibility as a threat to the Canadian economy from foreign imports, and 37% believing it would be an opportunity for economic growth through increased Canadian exports.

Albertans are more likely to perceive free trade with China as an opportunity (52%) while Quebecers (48%) are more likely to regard it as a threat.

Analysis

While trade with China has become a more important issue in the past two years, a majority of Canadians continue to advocate for an emphasis on human rights. China, at this point, is seen as more of a threat in the field of international commerce, a perception that is very different from the perceived benefits a free trade deal with India would bring to Canada.

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Canada rejects UN human rights recommendations

CanWest — Canada told the United Nations on Tuesday that more than half of the 68 recommendations other countries say will improve Canadian human rights standards cannot be fully accepted.

In an address to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Canada rejected outright 14 of the recommendations, and partially rejected another 22.

In Ottawa, human rights activist groups expressed “disappointment” at Canada’s response to the council’s first pier review of Canada, which took place earlier this year.

The rejected or partially rejected recommendations touch on a range of issues, including racial discrimination, aboriginal rights, fighting poverty, and seeking clemency for Canadians facing the death penalty overseas.

The so-called Universal Periodic Review is the way the council, launched in 2006 to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission, assesses the respective human rights records of all 192 UN member states.

Many of the recommendations Canada rejected came from countries that themselves have questionable human rights records.

Canada rejected, for example, a recommendation from Egypt that called for the training of judges and prosecutors on the nature of hate crimes based on race.

On the economic front, Canada rejected related recommendations from Russia and Ghana to launch a national poverty-elimination program. Canada said provinces and territories have jurisdiction in this area.

On the question of the death penalty, Canada rejected calls by Denmark and the Netherlands to seek clemency for Canadians facing capital punishment in all cases, including where Canada considers the “rule of law” reigns.

In a statement, Amnesty International said Canada “has shown little commitment to take new steps to address serious human rights concerns in the country.”

In Geneva, the 47-member council adopted Canada’s response into the international record.

Canada rejects rights council call for clemency for all

Van Sun – Despite its recent defeat on the issue in the Federal Court of Canada, the Conservative government has rebuffed the UN Human Rights Council and reasserted its “case-by-case” approach to seeking clemency for Canadians facing execution in foreign countries.

The decision was denounced Monday by Liberal MP Dan McTeague, the party’s consular affairs critic, as the latest reflection of the government’s “bloodthirsty, revenge-seeking” ideology on crime and punishment.

In March, the UN council issued its period review of Canada’s human rights record and recommended — at the urging of delegates from Denmark and the Netherlands — that this country “consider reinstating the policy of seeking clemency for all Canadian citizens sentenced to death in other countries.”

In its response to the UN review, a six-page report posted Friday on the Department of Canadian Heritage website, the government rejects the call to change its policy.

“Canada does not accept recommendation 30,” states the report, referring to the UN council’s push for automatic clemency requests. “The government of Canada continues to consider whether to seek clemency for Canadians facing the death penalty abroad as these cases arise. Canadian citizens detained abroad continue to receive consular assistance.”

In March, the government’s controversial case-by-case policy was dealt a blow by the Federal Court of Canada, which ruled against the Conservative cabinet’s October 2007 decision to abruptly halt efforts to secure clemency for Alberta-born killer Ronald Smith from Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

Smith, who is on death row for the 1982 murders of two Montana men, had been backed by Canadian diplomats for years in an effort to have his death sentence commuted.

Smith sued the government in November 2007 for reversing the policy. In March, Federal Court Justice Robert Barnes declared the government’s handling of the Smith case “unlawful” and ordered it to resume clemency efforts in Montana.

“I am ordering the government to continue to apply the former policy of supporting clemency on behalf of Canadians facing the death penalty in any foreign state,” Barnes said.

The judge also criticized the government for making inconsistent statements about its policy on the clemency issue.

The government declined to appeal and said it would comply with the Federal Court order to restart clemency efforts for Smith, although it isn’t clear yet whether that effort has begun.

But statements made at the time of the ruling indicated the government intended to maintain its “case-by-case” approach to seeking clemency for Canadians abroad.

Smith is currently the only Canadian on death row in the U.S., but several other Canadians — including Montrealer Mohamed Kohail in Saudi Arabia — are under threat of a death sentence in other countries.

Critics, including McTeague and Amnesty International, have argued that the tacit approval of certain executions — implied by the government’s case-by-case approach on seeking clemency — makes it harder for diplomats to secure clemency in other cases.

“This is (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper trying to do indirectly what he cannot do directly,” argued McTeague. “They want to pick and choose — it’s the rule of thumb, not the rule of law. These guys are doing this by the seat of their pants.”

Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International-Canada, said: “The Federal Court has rebuked the government for changing its policy on clemency. At the United Nations, two close friends and allies of Canada — Denmark and the Netherlands — have called on Canada to return to its policy of consistently seeking clemency in all cases. Yet the government continues to refuse to do so and clings to an approach of deciding on an individual basis whether to seek clemency.”

He pressed the government to “do what the Federal Court has ordered and other governments have recommended and seek clemency on behalf of all Canadians facing execution abroad, no matter the country.”

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In an interview with Ming Pao, International Trade Minister Stockwell Day gave an identical answer despite asked repeatedly on what’s our government stance on Tibet. (NOTE: I’m only translating a few lines here. For the full story in Chinese, please check the Ming Pao article).

“These are sovereign issues for China to deal with,” Day said.

He refused to comment further. It’s a little surprising. I expected Day would try to be “balance” and would comment a little bit like “but we are also concerned about human rights situation in Tibet” etc etc. But he didn’t. Instead, he sounded like Canada admits the Tibet issue is an internal affairs of China and Canada does not want to get involved.

Stockwell Day is planning to visit China in April. He told the reporter that he’s been planning the trip since last November and the trip “very important” to him.

The question was raised to Day in response to a series of declassified documents released by the Canadian Tibet Committee in January 2009 that in the 1950s and 1960s, Canada had disputed China’s claims on Tibet. The declassified documents showed that then Progressive Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker and then-secretary of state for external affairs Lester B. Pearson were of the opinion that Tibet was an independent country.

“The question is, should Canada consider Tibet to be an independent state, a vassal of China, or an integral portion of China?” the memo states. “It is submitted that the Chinese claim to sovereignty over Tibet is not well founded.”

The legal opinion considers claims of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, but finds these assertions of historic Tibetan vassalage to “have been a mere fiction.”

“In fact, it appears that during the past 40 years Tibet has controlled its own internal and external affairs,” the opinion reads. “Viewing the situation thus, I am of the opinion that Tibet is, from the point of view of international law, qualified for recognition as an independent state.”

It’s getting more obvious that the Tories are trying hard to mend the relations with China recently, in several high profile comments made by high profile cabinet ministers. For instance, foreign minister Lawrence Cannon told CTV in Feb 2009 that Ottawa “has been extremely active” in purusing trade opportunities with China. Although he was frank to admit that China HAS NOT INVITED Stephen Harper for a state visit.

Cannon even said doing business with China is “the top foreign policy goal by the Conservative government”. This government has denied that Canada-China relations has gone cold at all.

In fact, Canada really has some serious catching up in terms of trade, especially during the current economic downturns. Though Canada has seen great leap in trades with China in the last few years, Canada’s share with the rest of the world remains neglectible, at only around 1.5% and ranks in the mid teens. The number hasn’t changed much between 2004 and 2007.

Amid such background, the Conservative think-tank Fraser Institute released a report earlier that Canada needs to work harder on Canada-China relations.

What a change a little more than a year has made! In June 2007, when Harper met Chinese president Hu Jintao at the G8 summit in Germany, this was then:

Canada turned up the pressure on China over human rights on Friday, telling President Hu Jintao that it would pursue Beijing’s “problems with the lack of democracy,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.

Harper also told reporters he had brought up the case of Huseyin Celil, a Canadian-Chinese citizen and Uighur activist who was jailed for life in April for “terrorist activities.” China has repeatedly told Canada not to broach the matter.

On the other hand, ChinaNews.com reports Hu Jintao telling Harper that China and Canada should “respect each other on an equal level.”

Harper is one of the most vocal critics of China’s human rights record among western leaders, shrugging off complaints from businesses who say his attacks could hit commercial ties.

“Despite problems with the lack of democracy and human rights that still exist … the development of China over the last 25 years (has) in general been good and important for the world,” he said after meeting Hu at a summit in Germany.

“That cannot stop the government from aggressively and appropriately raising very legitimate concerns that we have, not just about general democracy and human rights in China but obviously specific cases such as the Celil case which I raised very directly.”

“Given what’s happened in this case we think it’s inevitable it will continue to be a factor in Canadian policy and therefore a factor in our relations,” said Harper.

“It is essential that we can have such discussions, not just positive discussions but sometimes discussions that are more difficult. I think these discussions will continue.”

Hu Jintao said it’s for the mutual interests that the two Pacific countries continue to build “mutual trust ” and “pragmatic cooperation”.

Hu said it’s normal for China and Canada to have different views on things, as they are two very different countries. He said China is serious about China-Canada relation. China hopes to work with the Canadian government to strengthen cooperation on political, economic, cultural and international affairs, so that the two countries can straight out differences in a constructive way. China also hopes to further develop a “strategic partnership” with Canada.

Harper said he had told Hu that as China “grows in importance and wealth, it will face increasing pressure from the world community on issues on democratic development and human rights.”

China’s record would also come under closer scrutiny when foreigners flocked to the country for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2010 World Fair in Shanghai, he added.

“When you open your country to the world that way and ask every television camera in the world to come in, I would think it would be in your own self interest to make that image as positive as it could be,” he said.

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But I guess this government finally realizes the importance of being collaborative with, not combative against China; the importance of engaging China, not isolating it. While the Tory government remains more interested in diversifying trades with EU, India and Latin America, its reluctance to shake hands with China has definitely softened in recent months, though the following statement reveals this government still has a lot to learn about China’s real situation.

February 9, 2009

Statement of Canada

China

Thank you Mr. President

Canada applauds China‘s success in improving living standards in the last 30 years of reform and opening up policy.

Canada hopes that China’s National Action Plan on Human Rights will lead to an early ratification of the ICCPR.

Canada recommends China accelerate legislative and judicial reforms, particularly on death penalty and administrative detention, to be in compliance with the ICCPR.

Canada welcomes Chinese measures to reduce immediate death sentences, reserving them for “exceptionally grave” crimes, and reinstating Supreme People‘s Court authority to review death sentences. Canada recommends China reduce the number of crimes carrying the death penalty and regularly publish detailed statistics on death penalty use.

Canada recommends China abolish all forms of administrative detention, including “Re-Education Through Labour”. Canada recommends China eliminate abuse of psychiatric committal.

Canada recommends China provide those held on state security charges with all fundamental legal safeguards, including access to counsel, public trial and sentencing, and eligibility for sentence reduction and parole.

Canada is deeply concerned about reports of arbitrary detention of ethnic minorities members, including Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongols, as well as religious believers, including Falun Gong practitioners, without information about their charges, their location and wellbeing.

We recommend China respond positively to outstanding requests made by several UN Special Procedures, including the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, to visit China, and to facilitate an early visit by the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

We look forward to continuing our cooperation with China in the field of human rights.

Canada thanks China for its presentation and support for the UPR process.

Here’s the link to Universal Periodic Review on China by UN’s Human Rights Council.

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There was one incident happened in my office a couple of years back that a new employee tried to preach rupture to colleagues. When he approached me, I straightforwardly told him not to talk God to me as I don’t appreciate the religion very much (I was kind enough not to say I’m disgusted). I said I would never talk to him again if he kept preaching to me. But I’ve seen him preaching very hard to a number of female employees who were too nice to tell him to f_ _ _ off. I almost wanted to file a complaint to the CEO about his behaviour, as I found it unacceptable to preach any religion in an office environment.

CP – A man who claimed his religious freedom was curtailed when he wasn’t allowed to preach while working at a seafood plant has had his human-rights complaint against the company dismissed.

Seann Friesen, who began working at Sidney’s Fisher Bay Seafood in January 2006 as a cleaner on the night shift, filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal after he was fired in 2007 for refusing a request from management to refrain from preaching about his Christian beliefs during working hours.

Plant officials testified that they made the request only after other employees complained and threatened to quit over his conduct. The tribunal was told that complaints about Friesen’s preaching began about a month after he started work, and that they became more and more numerous as time went by.

I particularly found it amusing about this kind of thinking:

“Mr. Friesen responded that it was more important to shine the Lord’s light than clean a fish plant,” tribunal member Marlene Tyshynski said in her written judgment of the case.

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(caption for photo above: A Palestinian woman reacts outside Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. Israeli mortar shells exploded Tuesday near a U.N. school in Gaza sheltering hundreds of people displaced by Israel’s onslaught against Hamas militants, killing at least 30 Palestinians, tearing bodies apart and staining streets with blood. (AP))

AP – Israeli mortar shells exploded today near a UN school in Gaza that was sheltering hundreds of people displaced by Israel’s onslaught against Hamas militants, killing at least 30 Palestinians, tearing bodies apart and staining streets with blood.

Israel’s military said its shelling – the deadliest single episode since Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza Saturday – was a response to mortar fire from within the school and said Hamas militants were using civilians as cover.

Two residents of the area who spoke by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school, where 350 people had gathered to get away from the shelling. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Majed Hamdan, an AP photographer, rushed to the scene shortly after the attacks. At the hospital, he said, many children were among the dead.

“I saw women and men – parents – slapping their faces in grief, screaming, some of them collapsed to the floor. They knew their children were dead,” he said. “In the morgue, most of the killed appeared to be children. In the hospital, there wasn’t enough space for the wounded.”

He said there appeared to be marks on the pavement of five separate explosions in area of the school.

An Israeli defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to make the information public, said it appeared that the military used 120mm shells, among the largest mortar rounds.

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I always have a problem with those who believe Canada is influential in international affairs. We might want to, but please get real and don’t overblow our ego. (remember how ridiculous and naive we behaved when Harper sent a representative to North Korea — among his first international relation efforts as a rookie PM in office for only a month or two — to try mitigating a solution that the world’s most powerful countries haven’t been able to do in decades? Harper et al never disclose the outcome of that mission but we can all guess.)

And I think Chretien made a very good point here: “You want me to the tell the president of a country of 1.3 billion people you should do this and do that, but I don’t dare to say what to do to the premier of Saskatchewan? You have to put things in perspective.”

G&M — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has short-sightedly risked relations with China by failing to attend the Olympic games and going overboard in honouring Tibet’s Dalai Lama, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said Monday.

Speaking to a Canadian Bar Association gathering, Mr. Chrétien said the missteps are indicative of a government that naively fails to understand that the Chinese government has made enormous strides in recent years – and that China has a long “collective memory” when it comes to international slights.

Canadian trade missions that once attracted thousands of people have been reduced to crowds of three hundred – most of them Canadians, Mr. Chrétien told a CBA breakfast meeting.

“But the last meeting I went to, there was 300 people – and most of them were Canadian,” he said. “You know, they have a collective memory there that is very important.”

Mr. Chrétien said that Canada has to keep in mind that it is too small a global player to hector the Chinese or try to hurt them with boycotts.

“We have to live with reality,” he said. “It’s 1.3-billion people, and I’m telling you that they are moving fast. You think that Canada is very important in the world? I remember when I was going to China … the press saying: ‘ Mr. Chrétien, you have to tell the president of China to do this and do that.’

“Oh really?” Mr. Chrétien continued. “You want me to the tell the president of a country of 1.3 billion people you should do this and do that, but I don’t dare to say what to do to the premier of Saskatchewan? You have to put things in perspective.”

Speaking to reporters afterward Mr. Chrétien continued his fusillade: “We are at the bottom of the ladder in terms of having any influence with China,” he said. “Ask any businessman who has been to China, and he will tell you the same thing.”

Mr. Chrétien said that were he still prime minister, he “would not have hesitated for a second” to attend an Olympic games that obviously mean so much to Chinese national pride.

He also took issue with a CBA lawyer who asked him about whether China is likely to “remain resistant to any change” on its human rights record in the wake of the Olympic games.

“To make a broad statement is easy,” he said. “Of course, Tibet is a problem. But Tibet has been a province for them for a long, long time. To make the Dalai Lama an honourary citizen of Canada was not a compliment to China.”

The Dalai Lama may be a well-received religious icon in Canada, he said, “but for them, the Dalai Lama is not a religious leader…

“I have to tell you that when you say resistant to change, you should have been with me in 1994 when [I] visited China. Go to China today and you’ll see there has been a hell of a lot of change,” Mr. Chrétien said. “They have improved.”

He specifically defended his own record as prime minister, saying that he made 14 trips to China and was “the first Western leader to make a speech about human rights in public in China – at the University of Beijing. Some people who say I never mentioned human rights – they are completely wrong.”

But China is not Canada, he said: “You have to engage them. You have to live with the reality they have. If you gave the freedom of movement we give in Canada today, there would be 20 million people arriving in Shanghai within a year. How do you deal with 20 million refugees coming into one city? It’s a very realistic problem.”

“There is always consequences in what you do,” Mr. Chrétien added. “If you think that attacking them would be positive, what do you gain? It is the second biggest economy in the world – and in 50 years, it will be the biggest economy. Suddenly, you break the bridge. It would be so easy to be there (at the Olympics).”

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Should We Give China a Break?

From the lip-syncing imbroglio, to reports on tween gymnasts and Han Chinese kids posing as ethnic minorities, to coverage that’s focused on human rights, pollution and China’s challenge to West, one could argue that Beijing is getting kicked in the teeth on a daily basis by the Western press.

Are we being too tough?

Some people, like Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia, think it’s a legitimate question to ask. Others in the fraternity of journalists say “we’re just doing our job.” A few more think we’re pathetic and should be tougher on the Red Chinese.

My view of it, as usual, is a muddle. On the factual stuff, what’s happening in and around the Games, I say let ‘em have it. I’ve spent years reporting in China, wrote lots of tough stories, got tossed out after the June 4th crackdown in 1989, had my share of run-ins with the local authorities, and saw the thuggishness of the one-party state up close and personal. I have no problem with tough pieces.

But as to the big-think on the meaning of the Beijing Olympics, my basic take is this: the Games are to the punditocracy what a hanging curveball is to an aging home-run hitter. Slamming China is the simplest way out and if you whiff, well, at least that’s better than trying to beat out a grounder. Context, nuance, background, depth of reporting, all that kind of stuff really messes up the prevailing narrative which is this – China is a systemic challenge to our way of life and these Olympics prove it.

Let’s take two recent pieces from pundits. To be fair, I chose a piece from the New York Times and from the Post.

The Times piece is an Aug. 11 column by David Brooks — Harmony and the Dream – in which he says that the world can be divided up into two types of societies – individualist and collectivist. America is individualist and China is collectivist. Brooks then goes on to say that individualist countries tend to put rights and privacy first while “people in collective societies tend to value harmony and duty.” So with that Brooks has handily explained why China is a one-party state and we’re a democracy. It really is that simple. I guess.

Then Brooks goes on: The Olympics, and particularly the opening ceremony, is a sign of the rise of a collectivist society “to rival the West.”

“It was part of China’s assertion that development doesn’t come only through Western, liberal means, but also through Eastern and collective ones,” Brooks states. He then broadens this theory to say: “If Asia’s success reopens the debate between individualism and collectivism (which seemed closed after the cold war), then it’s unlikely that the forces of individualism will sweep the field or even gain an edge.” Takeaway? China is a challenge. Not just because it’s big and bad but because they think different over there and the Olympic Ceremony proves it.

I wonder if Brooks has ever seen American marching bands, or line dancing, or visited a high school where the coolest kids are always part of a group – say, the football or basketball teams. I would argue that in many way Americans bow more to the group than the Chinese, which explains why the Chinese party-state has been so intent on forcing comformity.

Even more, I wonder if Brooks has ever driven in China (look out for grandma!), or sharpened his elbows in the scrum that forms each time you try to get off an airplane, or tried to get Chinese co-workers to band together. Let’s just say in the decade that I’ve lived in China (over the course of 30 years), I haven’t seen or heard much collectivist impulse except when it was rammed down the throats of ordinary Chinese.

And as to Brooks’ point about China’s rise being attributed somehow to collectivist impulses. Wait a second. The most dynamic sector of China’s economy is the private one. It’s a nation of entrepreneurs. It’s a culture of entrepreneurs. Look at Hong Kong, or Sydney, or Main Street Flushing and now Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu. That’s Chinese and it’s “individualist” up the wazoo.

Harold Meyerson’s piece Aug. 13 – The Drums of Change – got my goat for a different reason. First, comparing the Russian attack on Georgia with the Chinese opening ceremony he opined that it’s the Chinese we really have to fear. A 4-hour extravaganza over an invasion. Hmmm.

Meyerson noted that during the parade of athletes China’s flag bearer, Yao Ming, was accompanied by a 9-year-old boy who dug two classmates out of the rubble of the Sichuan earthquake. When asked by NBC why he did it, the boy said “he was a hall monitor and that it was his job to take care of his schoolmates,” Meyerson wrote, adding “that answer may tell us more than we want to know.”

The boy “was a responsible little part of a well-ordered hierarchy,” said Meyerson.From that he concludes that the answer “works brilliantly as an advertisement for an authoritarian power bent on convincing the world that its social and political model is as benign as any democracy’s.”

What am I missing here? How is a sense of responsibility, instilled in any leader, no matter how small, in any society (ever hear of a class president?), taken as a sign of totalitarian brainwashing or a propaganda campaign? Don’t we hear this kind of sentiment in the voices of Americans who go down into mines or back into fires to save their comrades? “I’m the fire chief, I couldn’t leave my men behind.” And so what if it’s a 9-year-old? Bully for him. If anything, China’s system discourages the type of initiative evidenced by pint-sized hero. Maybe that’s the reason he was marching next to Yao.

Meyerson ends his piece with the following line: “A nation that can assemble 2,000 perfectly synchronized drummers has clearly staked its claim as the world’s assembly line.” That’s definitely food for thought.

I guess.

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(thanks chinktalk for the link)

Critic slams Harper gov’t on human rights reports

The Conservative government has decided to treat parts of ambassadors’ reports about human rights in other countries as secret documents, something one critic calls “shocking.”

University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran told CTV’s Canada AM on Tuesday that if this stands, Canada will be the only major nation to do so.

“The Americans publish every single report of every country they study on a website every single year,” he said.

“So do the British. And until now, Canada has been somewhere in the middle,” Attaran said.

Government officials would prepare human rights reports, and citizens could request them by making access to information requests, he said.

“The Harper government has turned them into secrets, and started censoring bits of them, and now it seems they will disappear altogether,” he said.

Attaran said he thinks the motive is to prevent embarrassment to its allies.

For example, a 2007 report on Afghanistan, leaked to the Globe and Mail, “said the Afghan government tortured. Well, that embarrassed the Harper government quite a bit,” he said.

The government had released a version of the document that removed much of the most damaging information about Afghanistan.

Earlier this year, a leaked document said Israel and the United States tortured, he said.

“I think what is really going on is (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper does not want our allies to be shown up by our reporting of their problems,” Attaran said.

But U.S., United Nations and British reports don’t pull punches about human rights abuses, he said.

“Those are exactly the same sorts of things that the Harper government cut out about Afghanistan and now wants to do across the board.”

Attaran is a frequent critic of the Harper government on issues like the torture of Afghan detainees.

He has launched a lawsuit against the federal government to get the full Afghan human rights report disclosed. He said he expects his case to be heard by a court this fall.

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Look at the different reactions of our politicians on the two cases. First of all, on Khadr:

From the Globe and Mail: Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he will not seek to bring alleged Canadian terrorist Omar Khadr home from Guatanamo Bay prison despite the unsealing of documents that reveal Canadian officials knew that he was deprived of sleep and forced to change cells every three hours to “make him more amenable and willing to talk.”

Mr. Harper’s government has long insisted that it sought and received assurances from the U.S. that Mr. Khadr was being treated humanely, but the documents dating from 2003 and 2004 – when Mr. Khadr was 17 years old – indicate Canadian officials knew of his conditions and mistreatment.

On Thursday, Mr. Harper said Mr. Khadr is accused of serious crimes, and there’s no real alternative to the special military hearings he faces – and he has no intention of asking for him to be sent to Canada.

Regardless of the fact that:

Given that the Canadian Federal Court has found the practice to be in violation of international law, the revelation that Mr. Khadr was subjected to the program directly contradicts repeated assurances from Ottawa that the Canadian was treated humanely.

Harper further said:

He argued that the special U.S. military trial that Mr. Khadr faces – in which he does not have the same standard of legal representation and rights he would in an ordinary criminal trial – is the ONLY WAY he could be brought to answer the charges against him (my emphasis).

BUT look at what he said about Celil in 2006:

“I think the government of Canada, when a Canadian citizen is ill-treated and when the rights of a Canadian citizen need to be defended, I think it’s always the obligation of the government of Canada to vocally and publicly stand up for that Canadian citizen.

“That is what we will continue to do.”

What about Celil?

Celil is an active member of the violent Eastern Turkstan Islamic Movement, a designated terrorist organization according to the UN. (The organization was allegedly linked to Al Queda and the Taliban and is outlawed by the US.) Celil was also wanted by the Interpol before he became a Canadian citizen.

The Globe and Mail has reported (thanks to the link by Mutant Palm):

According to the court documents, Celil joined the East Turkistan Liberation Organization (ETLO), a listed terrorist group active in central Asia, in November 1997 and was appointed as a senior instructor in Kyrgyzstan.

While there, Celil allegedly recruited several people to the ETLO and sent them to terrorist training camps in the Pakistan-controled Kashmir, the documents said.

Celil was also active in another listed terrorist organization, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), for which he helped raise funds, recruit members and organize training, the documents said.

The documents said that in 1997, Celil met ETIM’s former head Hasan Mahsum, who was shot dead by the Pakistan army in 2003, and worked directly under Mahsum’s command.

Celil was a key member pushing for the alliance of the ETIM and ETLO in 1998, the documents said.

The government said “East Turkistan” terrorists had close links with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and were responsible for a series of murder, bombs, hijacking and arson in Xinjiang.

The documents said Huseyin Celil, with the intention of overthrowing the people’s republic and the socialist system, in 1997 provided 80,000 yuan (US$10,256) for the establishment of a new terrorist group, named “Hizbollah”, in the southern Guangdong Province.

The money was used for to purchase guns and provide terrorist training, the documents said.

Suddenly, alleged terrorist Omar Khadr is less a Canadian than another alleged terrorist Huseyin Celil.

Ironically, what China has been doing to Celil might be mimicking the US:

Wade Huntley, an UBC expert on East Asian affairs, said the dispute indicates that China and Canada haven’t solved the problem of dual citizenship.

Huntley believed China is mimicking the US. “The Americans have locked up many people of many nationalities in Guantanamo Bay and they refuse them consular services.”

Huntley said China is using the same principle as the US in dealing with this case, and barring Canada to involve.

Last week, a Chinese radio phone-in show in Vancouver talked about the Khadr issue. The ultra-right hosts stood unanimously – as always – with the Tories against the suggestion that Canada should seek returning of Khadr. “If this guy was a member of a terrorist group, had committed terrorist acts that directly or indirectly killed thousands in 9/11, then he should be kept in Guantanamo,” one caller said.

This caller is absolutely right. If the government he supports believes that Khadr has committed terrorist acts against the Americans and had to be tried there, then why couldn’t this government acknowledge that Celil had committed terrorist acts in China and had to be tried there? Don’t give me b.s. about the-US-is-a law-abiding-country-and-China-isn’t kind of crap. Both the US and Canadian supreme courts have decided that serious human rights abuses have been carrying out in Guantanamo. The Canadian government doesn’t have evidence to prove otherwise.

The Toronto Star had an editorial in 2006 when it discussed the Celil case, which had accurately predicted the hypocritical behaviour of the Harper government:

Still, it would be interesting to know what Harper would have done had Uzbekistan extradited alleged terrorist Celil not to China but to the U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo Bay. Which of his principles would have held then?

I’m sure the Tories will be under the heat again when the DVDs of Khadr’s CSIS interview is made public this week, can’t wait to see the public reaction.

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