Toronto, Ontario
Canada M4T 2Y8
Phone 416-925-2493
1-800-268-7230
Fax 416-925-7764
March 12, 2003
The Right Honourable Jean Chrétien
Prime Minister of Canada
House of Commons
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
Dear Prime Minister Chrétien:
We the undersigned organisations and individuals across Canada strongly appeal you to help stop the "National Security Legislative Provision Law" (otherwise known as "Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law") that is being pushed into legislation by the Hong Kong/China government, and raise or co-sponsor a resolution to condemn China's abuses of human rights at the upcoming UNCHR (United Nationals Commission on Human Rights) meeting beginning on March 17th, 2003 in Geneva, Switzerland.
We are extremely disappointed to see the Article 23 draft published on February 14, 2003. We found that the core of the Article 23 draft, the mechanism involving the banning of organisations, is now more severe than it was in the consultation paper issued in the past.
There has been a lot of new content added into the new draft. The most worrisome part of this draft is that as long as the Central Government can issue a written document declaring that an organisation inside Mainland China has been banned for "national security reasons", that piece of paper becomes enough "proof" for banning the subsidiary organisations in Hong Kong and it cannot be challenged. So any organisations that have branches in Mainland China and become outlawed in China will become a (banned) high-risk organisation in Hong Kong. This will subsequently implicate organisations such as Trade Unions, Human Rights Groups, Hong Kong's Roman Catholic Church, and Falun Gong practitioners, etc.
We are also astonished about the legislation involving "secret trials (close-door hearing)" in the draft. As Ms. Audrey Eu, member of the Hong Kong Article 23 Concern Group, Legislative Council member, and senior lawyer pointed out that for a citizen's appeal, the government's new item of closed-door hearings is extremely dangerous. "Even if you appeal you could have a partial or complete closed-door hearing, which is a major issue for lawyers. China also uses closed-door hearings on some dissidents. For example, Wang Bingzhang had half a day of closed-door hearings and it was all over. The outside world has no clue what proof there was, and what he had done to violate the law. The closed-door hearing is a very major and vital offence."
Canada is world renowned as a leader in respecting and upholding human rights and its voice is significant. We sincerely hope that you will raise or co-sponsor a resolution condemning the Chinese government's human rights record and help stop the enactment of this law, which is in total violation of human rights.
Thank you very much.
The link to the Global Coalition Against Article 23 Legislation http://www.againstarticle23.org/en/
Yours truly,
Kathy McVean
President
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