Canada condemns China for jailing dissident

By Agence France Presse | via (uncensored) Yahoo! News
April 04, 2008

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier expressed "deep regret" Thursday over China's sentencing of Hu Jia and urged Beijing to release the human rights crusader.

"Canada learned with deep regret of Mr. Hu's sentence. He is well-known as a Buddhist activist and a human rights defender," Bernier, who was attending a NATO summit in the Romanian capital Bucharest, said in a statement.

"Canada continues to urge China to release Mr. Hu, as we have consistently done since his detention last December," he added.

Chinese authorities sentenced Hu, 34, to three years and six months in prison for "incitement to subvert state power" following a one-day trial last month.

Bernier said "freedom of expression and religion are universal human rights, and we note that China's constitution guarantees human rights for all its citizens."

The Canadian reaction joins widespread international condemnation of Beijing, which is facing accusations it has launched a campaign to silence dissent before it hosts the Olympic Games in August.

Hu, considered one of the country's most outspoken critics of China's communist regime, became the second Chinese dissident in less than two weeks to be jailed after using the Beijing Olympics to highlight human rights problems in China.

Yang Chunlin, 52, a former factory worker, was sentenced in March on similar subversion charges after he collected signatures for a petition entitled: "We want human rights, not the Olympics".