Professor, Human Rights Lawyer, and Member of Parliament Irwin Cotler's Speech Outside the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa

August 1, 2001

We are here today because a Falun Gong practitioner, Shenli Lin, should be permitted to give expression to fundamental freedoms of conscience and belief, freedom of assembly and association, freedom of expression and information -- fundamental human rights that China has undertaken to guarantee it's citizens. Yet when Shenli Lin sought to do that which is protected under Chinese Law -- that which is protected under Canadian Law and that which is protected under the International human rights law -- he was arrested, detained, tortured and imprisoned for 18 months in a Chinese labour camp. When his day of liberation came, after not having been permitted to be released earlier, which in itself is unjust, when the final day came on July 23rd, he was sentenced once again to six more months. I again call his continuous imprisonment a criminalization of innocence.

So we are here today for three reasons:

One is to join Jingyu Li, Shenli Lin's wife, showing solidarity with her and Falun Gong practitioners toward their fellow members who are imprisoned for doing nothing other than making expressions of human rights protected under Chinese law.

Two is to appeal to the Chinese government to release Shenli Lin, pursuant to their own laws and protection of fundamental freedoms, because his continuous imprisonment is a continuing violation of Chinese protections of civil liberties and human rights.

Number three is to ask the Chinese government that they themselves should reflect and represent the fundamental values that the Falun Gong practitioners' spiritual and exercise meditation movement itself is expressing, namely the values of "Truth, Compassion, Forbearance." These represent the best of Chinese values...the values of a great civilization. They represent universal values. And Shenli Lin and all others like him imprisoned for giving expression to their belief, for giving expression to "Truth, Compassion and Forbearance," should be immediately released so that the true and authentic values of the great Chinese civilization can be given proper expression and respect.

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