It has been 20 years since Canadian Huseyin Celil was detained in Uzbekistan and ultimately deported to China, where he has been jailed ever since, a legal and diplomatic saga that has bedevilled three consecutive Canadian governments.
A Uyghur political activist who grew up in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, Mr. Celil was convicted on charges of terrorism and separatism in 2007 over the staunch objections of Ottawa and human-rights groups. Beijing has always refused to recognize his Canadian citizenship, despite supporters saying Mr. Celil renounced his Chinese passport prior to his arrest.
Originally sentenced to life, in 2016 he was among a group of 11 Uyghurs who saw their sentences reduced − in his case to 20 years, starting in 2018 − after they “had confessed their crimes and shown remorse,” according to a contemporaneous Chinese state media report, which held them up as an example of a successful “deradicalization” program.
The following year, that “deradicalization” approach would be applied across Xinjiang as a whole, as hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs were processed through a sprawling network of what the Chinese government would ultimately term “vocational educational and employment training centres,” but which outside observers have denounced as re-education facilities.
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In 2021, Parliament voted unanimously to declare that China’s actions in Xinjiang constituted a genocide against the Uyghur population. The vote, along with the detention of two other Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, saw relations with China enter a deep freeze, which has only begun to thaw since Mark Carney became Prime Minister.
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With so much uncertainty surrounding the case − [it is not even known] if Mr. Celil was still alive − [his supporters] were able to track him down to a prison in Xinjiang, where a member of the staff appeared to confirm he was still being held.
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Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, a long-time critic of consecutive Liberal governments’ approach to China and an advocate for Mr. Celil, said he has received “no additional information” about what Ottawa is doing on his behalf.
“Our office is in the process of submitting a written question to the Canadian government on his case, identifying the Carney government’s intended approach going forward,” Mr. Genuis said.
“Unfortunately, the government’s response to this case does not match the intensity of their response to the detention of the Two Michaels. My view is that a Canadian is a Canadian, and the government should be fully and sharply engaged to secure Mr. Celil’s release.”