Canada voices ‘real concern’ about human rights in China on 30th anniversary of Tiananmen crackdown
- Prime Minister Trudeau’s remarks were ‘gross accusations’, Chinese embassy says
- Canada’s foreign ministry calls on Beijing to ‘break silence’ on events of June 1989
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau marked the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on Tuesday by expressing “real concerns” about China’s human rights record, prompting a swift reaction from Beijing.
Diplomatic relations between the countries have deteriorated since December, when police in Vancouver detained Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou on a US arrest warrant.
Trudeau said Canada continued to call on China to “respect human rights, to respect the right to protest, to respect freedom of expression” and to end its mass detention of Uygurs and other Muslims.
“We have real concerns about China’s behaviour in regards to human rights and will continue to … call for better respect of human rights on this anniversary and every day going forward,” he said on a visit to Vancouver.
The Chinese government imposed an information lockdown on Tuesday.
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada wanted Chinese authorities “to break the silence on these events by openly accounting for the Chinese citizens who were killed, detained or went missing”.
