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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Letter: Beware if you're requesting asylum

Re: Chinese diplomat's wife defects to Canada, March 31.

The Ottawa Citizen: Letter published: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - I admire Jiyan Zhang's courage for defecting from the Chinese Communist Party and speaking out about their spying schemes. This reaffirms what we already know. However, Zhang should know that being a Falun Gong adherent is unlikely to win her any favours from the federal government when applying for asylum. One can only remember Montreal's Xiaoping Hu, a respected Falun Gong practitioner, who was deported to China in August 2005 ahead of President Hu Jintao's visit, to never be heard from again.

Let's hope that Immigration Canada does its homework this time and checks the well-documented evidence of the persecution at the UN before sending someone back to face persecution. After all, don't our torture laws prevent us from doing that?

Marie Beaulieu
Victoria, BC

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