Joint Statement in Response To Foreign Interference Inquiry | Human Rights Coalition

February 24 2025 - The Alliance of Genocide Victim Communities, in collaboration with esteemed human rights organizations, has released a joint statement addressing the recent findings of the foreign interference inquiry. The joint statement emphasizes the urgent need for a comprehensive strategy to effectively address transnational repression and recognizes the diverse and profound impacts of foreign interference on Canadians from different cultural backgrounds. The statement underscores the imperative for Canada to provide crucial support and protection to victims of transnational repression, including those from the Uyghur, Tibetan, Hongkonger, Falun Gong, Tigrayan, Eritrean, Cuban, and Tamil communities.

We collectively call for proactive measures to safeguard the rights and well-being of those affected and to galvanize coordinated action in tackling transnational repression. The Alliance of Genocide Victim Communities and the collaborating human rights organizations are resolute in their commitment to championing justice, protection, and support for all individuals impacted by transnational repression. In a united voice, we call upon the Canadian government to prioritize and uphold these communities' rights and to take substantive steps towards addressing transnational repression and the challenges posed by foreign interference.

Statement: Isabelle Terranova

The Human Rights Coalition is a group of community organizations from the Uyghur, Tibetan, Hongkonger, Falun Gong, Tigrayan, Eritrean, Cuban, and Tamil communities that joined together to participate in the Foreign Interference Inquiry in Canada. This week, the coalition released a joint statement in response to the inquiry’s final report. We echo the Commissioner’s call for the government to “develop a comprehensive strategy to address transnational repression”. We want to state that any attempt to combat transnational repression must address collaborations between authoritarian regimes and with proxy organizations. We speak a lot about China and Russia, and rightfully so, but if we fail to account for the role of other autocrats, we leave gaps and exclude various victimized communities from the conversation.

For example, Canada’s ban on Russian state broadcasters is meaningless if stations like Cubavision are allowed to broadcast on Canadian airwaves. As the coalition showed during the inquiry, Cubavision replays Russian TV programming. This illustrates how our failure to address this kind of cooperation undermines efforts to combat foreign interference and incentivizes Chinese and Russian alignment with smaller authoritarian regimes and struggling democracies.

This week’s statement urgently requests that the Canadian Government take comprehensive measures to combat foreign interference and transnational repression. First, Canada must pursue new avenues to protect and provide support, including financial, physical, and psychological support, to victims of transnational repression in Canada.

The Canadian Government must also consistently leverage existing laws and policies, including immigration and sanctions laws. For example, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, various existing provisions, such as removals for criminality, organized criminality, and espionage, could be leveraged to exclude perpetrators of transnational repression. Targeted sanctions laws should be used as well. No such sanctions have been imposed by Canada in response to gross human rights violations perpetrated against Tigrayans, Eritreans, Cubans, or Hongkongers. Finally, immigration laws should be used consistently to resettle vulnerable refugees; to date no special stream has ever been created in response to a crisis in Africa. 

Finally, Canada should revoke counterproductive laws and policies, including those furthering cooperation with authoritarian regimes in criminal matters, such as the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with China and the extradition agreement with Cuba. In the interest of time, I will leave my remarks there.

Statement: Joanne Hodges

On behalf of the Human Rights Coalition, we also want to highlight that Commissioner Hogue found that disinformation and misinformation is an existential threat to our nation’s democracy. This is an incredibly serious issue that has deeply impacted each one of our communities, but I would just highlight that the Falun Gong and Tigrayan communities, for example, have faced multiple compounding ramifications, including a direct diminishment of their ability to participate in civic discourse, due to misinformation and disinformation. Canada should urgently work to protect these communities. Falun Gong activists have evidence from the highest level of the CCP government that there is a directive to use misinformation and disinformation to attack Falun Gong activists. In Tigray, there was a horrific genocide that led to the death of somewhere between 800,000 and 1 million people in 2 years, hundreds of thousands of women were raped, and atrocities and the targeting of civilians continue to this day -  and hardly anyone knows about it, partly because of a concerted and organized mis and disinformation campaign.

We also call for justice and accountability for mass human rights violations. For the Tigrayan community, the Tamil community and others like them. The Tamil community, who also experienced genocide, has drawn a direct line between the ongoing impunity of the Sri Lankan government and the government’s emboldened acts of transnational repression against them.  We see the impact of decades of unchecked oppression in the Eritrean community. How so many Eritrean voices are viciously silenced. How the dictator in Asmara continues to impose a 2% “diaspora tax” on Eritrean refugees in Canada. As a coalition, we call for the misuse of charitable funds and proxy organizations to intimidate and harass the Eritrean community to be investigated. 

Finally, let me say how vitally important we think it is that any steps Canada takes to address transnational repression be transparent and that discussions include all of the impacted communities. There is a real lack of transparency, for example, in the sanctions process in Canada, Currently, there is no procedure to address a request for the imposition of a sanction. There is no obligation on the government to consider a request. If the Government does consider a sanction request and decides to deny it, there is no obligation to inform the person or organization requesting the sanctions that their request has been rejected. It takes a great deal of organization and resources to submit a sanctions request in the first place. 

And we need collective action. Just as authoritarian regimes around the world are learning repressive tactics from one another and cooperating to carry out global campaigns to silence critics, we, too, need more collaboration, information sharing and sharing of best practices when talking about transnational repression. And we must be careful not to exclude any groups directly affected.

And don't miss AGVC member Sherap Therchin's Statement (Executive Director of the Canada Tibet Committee) here:

https://youtu.be/R0gb1HGBXBU

Joanne M Hodges, Alliance of Genocide Victim Communities

https://youtu.be/tZKYjm_HrOU

Full press conference: https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/community-orgs-share-proposals-for-fighting-foreign-interference?id=2c47b7dd-2b43-4e12-816f-746741af7fcc