TADC Media Release: MP Jenny Kwan tabled petition e-5137 in solidarity with Hong Kong political prisoners and pro-democracy movement

Media Release

Toronto - November 20, 2024

MP Jenny Kwan tabled petition e-5137 in solidarity with Hong Kong political prisoners and pro-democracy movement

In response to Hong Kong’s sentencing of 45 of the Hong Kong 47 pro-democracy activists, a coalition of community groups presented a petition yesterday at the Parliament calling on the Canadian government to demand the immediate release of Hong Kong 47, Jimmy Lai, and others.

"The verdict for the Hong Kong 47 is one of the darkest chapters in Hong Kong's history,” said Jenny Kwan, MP Vancouver East, the petition sponsor. “It's just astonishing that pro-democracy activists are jailed and former legislators are sentenced up to 10 years for simply exercising their basic right to participate in elections under Hong Kong's Basic Law.”

“In 2020, 610,000 Hong Kong citizens participated in the democratic primary elections, clearly demonstrating their will for political reform,” said Cheuk Kwan, co-chair of Toronto Association for Democracy in China and the petition’s initiator. “Their only ‘crime’ was to exercise their rights and freedoms as prescribed by the UN Human Rights Declaration.”

“The International community must stand united to condemn this gross violation of international human rights and demand accountability from Hong Kong and China in their broken promise to the ‘One Country, Two Systems’," Jenny Kwan said.

The petition, which collected more than 4,600 signatures in two months, also urges the government to proactively apply sanctions under the Magnitsky Act on Chinese and Hong Kong officials; and to stop according any special rights or diplomatic status to the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO).

The trial of Jimmy Lai and other pro-democracy activists resumes in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

“Canada and the global community must reaffirm their commitment to democracy, human rights, and freedom by standing resolutely with the people of Hong Kong,” said Mabel Tung, Immediate Past Chairperson of the Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movement. “Silence in the face of such tyranny only emboldens authoritarian regimes.”

The petition was initiated by Toronto Association for Democracy in China, Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movement and Movement for Democracy in China (Calgary) with support from Canada-Hong Kong Link, Hong Kong Watch and Action Free Hong Kong Montreal.

Supplemental links:

MP Jenny Kwan tabled petition e-5137 in solidarity with Hong Kong political prisoners and pro-democracy movement
https://youtu.be/2q1Kp2Jdmp8
Full text of Petition e-5137
https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-5137

Toronto Association for Democracy in China

多倫多支持中國民運會

https://www.TADC.ca

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In a statement, Kwan’s lawyer, Sujit Choudhry, said Woo’s allegation that the MP’s testimony was “flimsy” is “false and misleading.”

“It was CSIS who informed MP Kwan in a classified briefing that she was a long-time target of (Chinese Communist Party) interference and will remain an ‘evergreen target.’ MP Kwan testified and brought to the commissioner’s attention that she believed she had been de-platformed by Chinese community organizations,” Choudhry wrote in a statement to Global News.

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