Canadian governments have taken meaningful action to defend the rights of persecuted people overseas only when it has required little effort, when it was politically expedient or advantageous, and where it has involved Canadians who were white
By Fareed Khan
December 9th marked Victims of Genocide Day, and December 10th was International Human Rights Day. These dates are observed annually through events organized by the United Nations and international human rights organizations, and they are usually occasions when politicians rise in Parliament to utter the words “never again” in memory of victims of genocide, and extoll the virtues of Canada as a human rights defender. However, this is all theater to promote a vision of this country that is a fraud and portray an image of Canada as a human rights champion on the world stage.
In reality, if you look at Canada’s record on international human rights over the last few decades, this country has taken decisive and meaningful action to defend the rights of persecuted people overseas only when it has required little effort, when it was politically expedient or advantageous, and where the rights of white Canadians have been violated.
The world is living through a time when human rights and the international legal order around the globe are under assault like never before, a time when authoritarian and quasi-fascist governments are committing human rights atrocities with impunity. At this time, despite its claims to the contrary, Canada is nothing like the human rights champion it claims to be. In truth the Canadian government and the politicians who lead it are phonies when it comes to defending international human rights or taking action to defend persecuted minorities overseas from crimes and atrocities which violate the basic tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention.
For more than
two-and-a-half years, while the ‘Two
Michaels’ were imprisoned in China, Canadians heard the government
repeatedly talk about defending human rights and the “international rule of law”. But while Canada was using every tool at its disposal to free the two Canadians, it was failing repeatedly to stand up for the rights of
persecuted peoples on the world stage. Canada failed to take decisive
action to
defend the rule of law where minority communities were subjected to
brutal atrocities, and it demonstrated through its actions that the
lives of two white men held greater value than millions of people who
were not white being subjected to crimes against humanity, war crimes
and genocide.
The litany of Canada’s human rights failures goes back decades. The most recent of these is Canada’s lack of meaningful action in response to the Uyghur genocide in China and the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, its unwillingness to act in response to the egregious human rights atrocities committed by India in Kashmir, and Canada’s perennial refusal to take action against Israel for the atrocities it regularly commits against Palestinians. In all of these cases Canada has either made half-hearted PR statements with no teeth behind them, or in the case of Israel it has looked the other way as Israeli military and security forces have repeatedly committed crimes and atrocities against Palestinians.
When it comes to defending the human rights of the Black and Brown peoples of the world Canada is in essence a human rights defender only on paper. Recent proof of this is the government’s refusal to be a leader with respect to a full boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in response to the Uyghur genocide. The most Canada is willing to do, like the US and Australia, is to engage in a “diplomatic boycott” of the games, something the US instigated with Canada being the third country to join the boycott after Australia. This means that no government officials will attend the Beijing Winter Olympics, an action that is unlikely to have any impact on the plight of the Uyghurs.
Canada’s fraudulent claim to be a human rights defender is also evident in its lack of action with regard to the Rohingya genocide case making its way through the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Despite being a leader on the Rohingya crisis in 2018, when it was the first nation to recognize the crimes committed by Myanmar against the Rohingya as genocide, Canada is now a laggard. Since 2019, when the nation of Gambia filed a genocide case against Myanmar at the ICJ, Canada has made repeated official statements that it would join the case in support of Gambia. But to date Canada has taken no action to back up those statements. In addition, Canada’s failure to pursue any sort of action against China in response to the Uyghur genocide, in spite of overwhelming evidence of atrocities committed by China, also demonstrates the Canadian government’s lack of conviction in defence of international human rights.
Another example of the odour of racism in Canada’s international human rights efforts can be seen when one compares efforts to free the Two Michaels to the lack of effort to free Uyghur-Canadian Huseyin Celil from more than 15 years of imprisonment in China. Celil was abducted while visiting relatives in Uzbekistan and deported to China at the Chinese government’s behest, where he was tried and convicted for the ‘crime’ of being Uyghur and speaking out in defence of Uyghur rights. Since coming to office in 2015 the government of Justin Trudeau has done little or nothing to gain Celil’s freedom. There has been no full court press or high level international diplomacy to free him, and it begs the question whether such efforts are only reserved for Canadians who are white, like the Two Michaels.
The racial aspect to how the Canadian government deals with the cases of Canadians who run afoul of foreign governments or are imprisoned or kidnapped can also be found in Canada’s efforts gain the release of Kevin and Julia Garratt from a Chinese prison, and efforts to win the release of diplomat Robert Fowler when he was abducted in Niger by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Compare those efforts and the work to free the Two Michaels to Canada’s apathetic response to the illegal detention by the US of Canadian Omar Khadr, Canada’s total disregard for Canadian children born to Canadian women who married ISIS fighters currently detained in Kurdish territory, and case of Hassan Diab, a Canadian who has been embroiled in a legal fight against the French government to extradite him to stand trial for a 1980 Paris synagogue bombing, which evidence shows he could not have committed.
These are just some of the examples of the shadow of racism being present in Canada’s foreign policy, and demonstrates Canada’s lack of conviction to defend human rights in a meaningful way. One could justifiably make the claim that this is not leadership but rather political cowardice on the part of Canadian leaders and officials.
So when Canadian politicians say “never again” or express pride about Canada’s self-proclaimed image as a human rights champion, all Canadians need to look through the facade that Canadian leaders have created about this nation’s leadership on human rights, and look at Canada’s record. It is not a record to crow about, and it shows that Canada has a long way to go before it can live up to its own image of being a leader in defending international human rights.
© 2021 The View From Here. © 2021 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved
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