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Canada Criticized for Silence on China Human Rights Abuses
Pettigrew Criticized for Silence on China at UN
TORONTO—The Chinese language Voice of America reported this week that a number of Canadian NGO’s were disgruntled by Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew’s silence on China in his opening address Monday to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The VOA report cited reactions from Canadian Tibetan and Uighur communities who felt Pettigrew had neglected the severity of the ongoing human rights abuses against broad sections of the Chinese society. Pettigrew, who was invited to join several other Foreign Ministers in the high-level portion of the UN’s annual human rights meeting, acknowledged the commission’s politicization in recent years that many say has damaged its credibility. He called for improvements in both the UNCHR and the Conference on Disarmament. However, in failing to mention China in his address, Pettigrew drew criticism for contributing to one of the commission’s continuing failures—holding China accountable on human rights. "The ongoing failure of the Commission on Human Rights to tackle the serious human rights violations in China is shameful,” Amnesty International Canada’ s Secretary General, Alex Neve, told The Epoch Times Wednesday. “Canada's unwillingness to support, let alone spearhead an attempt to bring a resolution before the Commission is a disappointment, which is compounded by the absence of any reference to China's dismal human rights record in Minister Pettigrew's speech to the Commission on its opening day.” The VOA report quoted opposition MP Jason Kenney as saying that the government has been swayed by trade interests to keep quiet about China’s human rights. “Canada should facilitate its trade with China and, at the same time, help China to improve its human rights situation. Only doing both of them simultaneously will it be consistent with the interests of Canada in the long-run,” the report quoted Kenney. VOA is an American government-run radio station who’s Chinese and English broadcasts are popular in China, where local media are under the control of the governing Communist Party. Annual reports by the UN’s Special Rapporteurs have regularly documented serious violations of human rights in China against Tibetans, religious groups, as well as widespread severe persecution of the Falun Gong meditation group. However, intense lobbying by China has kept the commission from criticizing its human rights record. http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-3-25/27331.html |
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