Beijing Imposes Sanctions on Canadian Human Rights Advocates and Organizations
The Chinese regime has sanctioned 20 Canadian human rights advocates and two organizations that support persecuted Tibetans and Uyghurs in China.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the sanctions on Dec. 21 under its Anti–Foreign Sanctions Law against two human rights advocacy groups—the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project (URAP) and the Canada-Tibet Committee—along with 20 individuals linked to these organizations.
The move is in response to Canada’s recent sanctions targeting eight senior current and former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at a Dec. 23 press conference. These CCP officials had already been sanctioned by the U.S. government for their involvement in human rights crimes against minority groups, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Falun Gong practitioners.
The Beijing regime’s sanctions have drawn criticism, including from MP Michael Chong, the Conservatives’ foreign affairs critic.
“Conservatives condemn the sanctioning by the PRC [People’s Republic of China] of 20 Canadians simply for calling out Beijing’s human rights violations and transnational repression against Tibetans and Uyghurs,” Chong wrote in a Dec. 22 post on the social media platform X.
