Federal Court Rejects Uyghur Group’s Lawsuit Against Ottawa Over Inaction on Beijing’s Abuses

Demonstrators take part in a rally to encourage Canada and other countries to consider labeling China's treatment of its Uyghur population and Muslim minorities as genocide, outside the Canadian Embassy in Washington on Feb. 19, 2021. Leah Millis/Reuters

A Federal Court has struck down an application from a Uyghur rights group that sought to sue the federal government over its lack of action on Beijing’s human rights atrocities against the Uyghur minority population in China.

The petition also sought to gain formal recognition that China’s internment of its Uyghur population is an act of genocide, and that the Liberal’s inaction on the matter it had amounted to a violation of a United Nations convention against genocide.

Justice Alan Diner said he agrees with a motion brought by Attorney General David Lametti to strike the application made by the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project (URAP) without leave to amend, according to the court ruling released on Jan. 26.

“URAP is challenging Canada’s failure to act. However, Canada has not implemented any policy about whether to act or not. Rather, it has decided not to act,” Diner wrote, saying the courts can only rule on whether the government is following existing laws and policies.

URAP introduced the application for judicial review on Feb. 3, 2022, saying that Ottawa’s inaction against Beijing’s “ongoing genocide” is a violation of the United Nations Convention On The Prevention And Punishment Of The Crime Of Genocide, which Canada ratified in Sept. 1952.

The Convention says in Article I that “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.”

“This lack of action, according to URAP, contributes to the crimes committed against the Uyghur people of China,” said the court decision.

As a remedy from the judicial review, URAP asked the Court to declare at least one of its five claims, including that “The crime of genocide is currently being committed against the Uyghur population on the territory of the PRC, since at least 2014” and that “Canada, by its acts and omissions, is in breach of article I of the Convention.”

The Attorney General argued that the URAP application should be dismissed, citing reasons including that the petition “raises issues that are not justiciable due to their political nature.”

Justice Diner agreed, saying in his decision that “The mere potential existence of a genocide does not automatically ground proceedings before the Court.”

Mehmet Tohti, executive director at URAP, told The Epoch Times that the court’s dismissal of the case was likely on “jurisdictional grounds” and that his group’s legal application wasn’t asking for a court ruling on the matter, but rather to seek “declaratory relief from the judge.”

“We will evaluate the situation with our legal team and make a decision for what could be the next step,” he said. “I am sure that this is just a beginning, not the end.”

Motions

On Jan. 30, days after the court struck the URAP application, MPs took up debate on a private member’s motion asking the cabinet to formally acknowledge communist China’s crimes against humanity.

M-62, introduced by Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi, and seconded by MPs from all major political parties, asked that the Government of Canada acknowledge that Uyghurs “face the serious risk of mass arbitrary detention, mass arbitrary separation of children from their parents, forced sterilization, forced labour, torture and other atrocities,” and that they continue to face threats from the communist regime to return to China after they fled to a third country.

Motion-62 also asked the federal government to expedite the entry into Canada of 10,000 Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in need of protection over two years starting in 2024.

MPs are set to vote on Zuberi’s motion on Feb. 1.

Zuberi’s motion follows a February 2021 motion wherein MPs voted unanimously (266-0) to label the arbitrary incarceration and abuse of an estimated one million to three million Uyghurs by the Chinese Communist Party in China’s western province Xinjiang as an act of genocide.

The Liberal cabinet abstained from the vote, however, and Trudeau has said more formal investigations are needed to determine whether genocide has occurred.

“The word ‘genocide’ is not one to be used lightly,” Conservative MP Ziad Aboultaif said in the House on Jan. 30. “It was with that definition in mind that this House, on February 22, 2021, recognized that genocide is indeed taking place, being carried out by the People’s Republic of China against Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims.”

He added, however, that “Since that motion passed in the House, the government has not addressed the concerns it raised.”

“If we do not act now, when will we?” Aboultaif said.