The daughter of a missing Chinese human rights defender is begging the Vietnamese and Chinese governments to reveal her father’s whereabouts and allow her to travel to Canada.
Dong Guangping, an activist who in the past had spoken out against China’s attempts to erase the bloody final results of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest, has “disappeared,” according to his daughter.
Dong, a 64-year-old activist, arrested on August 24 in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, where he had fled after being released from a prison in China.
His daughter, Katherine Dong, is a student at the University of Toronto and a Canadian citizen last summer. The 22-year-old student has not heard from her father for more than 80 days and fears he has been handed over to Chinese authorities.
“He didn’t need me to live in a country without human rights. . . He loves his circle of family and is a courageous survivor,” Katherine said Thursday at a news convention in Ottawa.
“I have to stay hopeful, but I worry about the worst. “
Katherine Dong listens to a reporter as she attends a press conference for the release of her father Dong Guangping on Parliament Hill on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
He was joined on the occasion by representatives of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China and the Federation for a Democratic China, such as Alex Neve, former Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada.
The pro-democracy agreement says Dong Guangping granted asylum in Canada, but Ottawa has been unable to convince the Vietnamese government to allow him to leave the country.
Dong had been hiding in Vietnam for 31 months as he sought to regain his freedom.
According to Neve, the family circle reported that Dong’s case was raised through Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Melanie Joly in recent meetings with Southeast Asian leaders in Cambodia and at the G20 summit in Indonesia.
In a statement to CTV News, Global Affairs Canada said it was “deeply involved in the protection and welfare of Mr. Dong and raised our considerations at the highest level. and China
Tension between China and Canada spread on camera in an interaction between Premier and Premier Xi Jinping, when the Chinese leader criticized Trudeau for allegedly “leaking” data about their discussions.
Dong’s supporters say he was fired from his police duties in China in 1999 because he signed a public letter similar to the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
He was then imprisoned for 3 years for “inciting subversion of state power. “
“Dong Guangping, like other brave activists in China, refused to remain silent around Tiananmen. The Chinese government brutally suppresses all attempts, adding those of relatives of academics who have been killed, to hold ceremonies commemorating their deaths, not to mention further campaigns insisting that the event be told,” said Neve, who is now a senior research fellow at the University of Ottawa.
Dong Guangping, an activist who in the past had spoken out against China’s attempts to erase the bloody final results of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest, has “disappeared,” according to his daughter.
Dong fled to Thailand in 2015 with his wife and daughter, who were resettled in Canada as refugees but were unable to leave. Although designated as a refugee through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Thailand returned Dong to China, where he was imprisoned for another 3 and a half years.
In 2019, Dong back tried to escape by swimming from China’s east coast to an island controlled by Taiwan.
His daughter, Katherine, says her father swam for 12 hours before he “couldn’t take it anymore” and rescued him via a Chinese trawler.
In January 2020, the human rights activist fled for the third time and effectively crossed the border into northern Vietnam. Katherine says that while hiding in Hanoi, her father was moved from one safe place to another while the Canadian government manipulated the scenes to unload trips. documents for him.
First, Global Affairs Canada asked Dong’s circle of relatives to remain silent to allow diplomats to negotiate his release. I haven’t heard anything about Dong in weeks.
“Every hour, each and every day and each and every week that passes without knowing where you are, without knowing anything about your destiny means that the danger you face will only get worse. Silence probably wouldn’t help,” Neve said.
It is known how many Canadian-linked human rights activists are imprisoned in China, but Dong’s detention parallels the case of Canadian Uighur Huseyin Celil.
During a stopover abroad at his wife’s circle of relatives in Uzbekistan in March 2006, China asked the Uzbek government to arrest Celil and extradite him. Celil has been in jail for more than 16 years.
Fearing her father’s fate, Katherine Dong and her followers delivered non-public appeal letters to the Chinese and Vietnamese embassies in Ottawa on Thursday.
He asked either government to allow Canadian officials to stop at his father’s house and let him come to Canada without further delay.
With from The Canadian Press