Toronto (AP) – China executes four Canadians in recent months, said Foreign Minister in Canada on Wednesday. Such executions of Westerners are relatively rare.
Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie said she and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demanded a pardon in drugs involved in dual citizens.
The Beijing Embassy in Ottawa said the executions were due to drug crimes and noted that China did not recognize dual citizenship.
“We categorically condemn the executions,” Jolie told reporters in Ottawa. “I asked personally about condescension … They were all double citizens.”
Jolie said that Canada consistently wanted reconciliation for the Canadians facing the death penalty abroad. She said families asked the government to refuse details of the identity of the four individuals.
Global Affairs spokesman Charlotte McLeod said they were continuing to provide consular assistance to families and asked the media to respect their privacy. She said Ottawa continues to stand up to pardon Robert Schellenberg, Canadian, who was sentenced to death for drug smuggling.
“China always imposes serious penalties on drugs related,” said a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy. “The facts about the crimes committed by Canadian citizens involved in the cases are clear and the evidence is stable and sufficient.”
China is thought to be executed more prisoners every year than the rest of the world combined, although the common is a state secret. Executions have traditionally been carried out by firearms, although deadly injections have been introduced in recent years.
The embassy spokesman said Beijing “fully guarantees the rights and interests of Canadian citizens” and called on the Canada government to “stop making irresponsible remarks.”
The two countries have some tension. China imposed revenge tariffs for some Canadian farms and food imports earlier this month after Canada imposed obligations in October on electric vehicles and steel and aluminum products made by China. Tariffs add to global trade tensions against the background of tariff messages from the US, China, Canada and Mexico.
“China sends us a message that we need to take steps if we want to see an improvement in the relationship,” said a former Canadian ambassador to China Guy Saint-Jacques.
Ian Brody, a former head of former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has published on social media that it turns out that “agricultural tariffs are not the worst part of the CNR’s EV tariff response.”
And the opposition conservative legislator Michael Chong said that “the performance of a number of Canadians in a short order is unprecedented and it is obvious that Beijing has no intention of improving relationships with Canada.”
China is the second largest trading partner in Canada, but relations are bad, as the Canadian authorities in 2018 have arrested a former CEO of Huawei, which the United States has been charged with fraud.
China closed two Canadians shortly after Canada arrested Meng Wangou, the daughter of the company’s founder, at the request of an American extradition. They were sent back to Canada in 2021, the same day Meng returned to China after making a deal with US authorities in her case.
Many countries have called China’s “hostage policy”, while China has identified the allegations against Huaui and Meng as a politically motivated attempt to retain China’s economic and technological development.
Amnesty International condemned executions and noted that China was performing thousands of people in 2023.
“These shocking and inhuman executions of Canadian citizens from Chinese authorities must be a call for Canada,” said the head of the Anglosic Canada Group Kathy Niviabandi on Wednesday in a statement.