Dear Prime Minister

“Stand Up Against Uyghur Genocide”

It’s time for Canada to be strong and stand up against oppression.

To:

Office of the Prime Minister

80 Wellington Street Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister,

The Canadian government needs to act swiftly to implement policy recommendations given by human rights experts and Uyghur survivors of concentration camps.

The House of Commons is in agreement that what is happening to Uyghurs in East Turkistan qualifies as a genocide under the definition of the UN Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Canada, as a signatory, has the responsibility to act to the best of its ability to prevent and punish the crime of genocide.

Since 2016, more than six million Uyghurs have been affected by concentration camps, forced labour camps, state sponsored child and family separation, forced abortion and sterilization, organ harvesting, and unprecedented governmental surveillance.

Many Uyghur Canadians have lost contact with family members and are still unable to find out what happened to their loved ones. On an individual level, we are deeply concerned about the detention of Huseyin Celil, a Canadian citizen of Uyghur origin who has been arbitrarily detained by Beijing since 2006.

• We urge you to appoint a special envoy with the objective of securing the release of Huseyin Celil so that he may be reunited with his wife Kamila Telendibaeva and his four sons in Canada.

The government of China continues to terrorize Uyghur refugees and survivors who have managed to escape and flee to other countries. Often Beijing will pressure weaker governments to extradite Uyghurs in exchange for favorable economic terms. We can have a major impact in helping prevent genocide by allowing Uyghur refugees to settle in Canada so that they can begin to heal and restart their lives.

• We urge you to mandate and provide the needed resources to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to prioritize Uyghur refugees, assist with private-public immigration sponsorship, and support Uyghur human rights defenders seeking asylum.

Beijing is profiting by using state run companies that provide businesses access to forced labor camps. Knowing this, Canada should follow the example of the US by taking a proactive approach by blocking imports of forced labor goods via the Canadian Border Services Agency.

We are also concerned that the Canada Pension Plan, has over $57 billion, about 12 percent of its entire portfolio (2021 figures) invested in China. The revenue earned from many of these investments is tainted by the forced labour of Uyghurs, either in the factories of these companies or their supply chains. Investments in state run companies based in China make Canadians complicit in the persecution and suffering of the Uyghurs. Since Beijing will not allow free and independent verification of labour conditions, the only way for the Canadian Pension Plan to avoid profiting from Uyghur forced labour is to divest fully from all state run companies that benefit the government of China.

• We ask that you support the passage of Bill S-204, empower CBSA to seize goods at the border that are suspected of being manufactured using forced labor, and introduce public financial penalties for companies that do not take steps to address forced labor in their supply chains.

Canada has a responsibility to act. We ask you, as the Prime Minister, to ensure that the voices of human rights experts and concentration camp survivors do not vanish in vain. Please listen to their voices and commit to enact their recommendations.

Thank you,

Signed by:

In solidarity with:
International Support for Uyghurs
https://isupportuyghurs.org/
Montreal, Canada