Open letter to Canada’s broadcast watchdog about complaint against China state TV

Open letter regarding the October 1^st testimony of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) at the Foreign Interference Commission

Madrid, October 14, 2024

On October 1, 2024, Mr Scott Shortliffe, CRTC Executive Director of Broadcasting, provided testimony to the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions established by the Government of Canada on September 7, 2023. 

Safeguard Defenders followed the testimony with great interest and took positive note of the CRTC’s declared intent to adapt its regulatory processes to ensure better protection of Canadian airwaves and its free and democratic society.

However, such a commitment appears to stand in stark contrast with the CRTC’s failure to properly address the longstanding complaint filed by Safeguard Defenders in December of 2019 regarding the broadcasting on Canadian airwaves of content obtained through enforced disappearances and torture by channels owned and run by Chinese Party-State TV outlets CGTN and CCTV-4[1].

Forced televised confessions serve not only to punish its victims, but by broadcasting them overseas, are also aimed at sending a direct intimidatory message to Chinese nationals and members of the global diaspora.

While Mr Shortliffe’s testimony addressed the seriousness of our complaint, it failed to account for the fact that nearly five years have passed without any resolution to our complaint. 

For the record, we would like to point out how CRTC refused to even address the complaint for about two years after its initial filing, claiming it to be outside the scope of its mandate.  This assertion starkly contrasted with CRTC’s publicly available documents (including the initial 2006 decision to allow CCTV-4 on the air) and with the seriousness that Mr Shortliffe now attributes to the complaint. A considerable amount of time was lost before action was finally undertaken and a response from the concerned TV channels was sought.

Despite the seriousness now attributed to the complaint in Mr. Shortliffe's testimony, Safeguard Defenders is still waiting for a response to our January 24, 2023 request for information on what action CRTC will take to the many obvious lies and distortions contained in CCTV's (much delayed) response to the broadcast watchdog.

But there is another, more important, reason for this open letter.

Mr Shortliffe testified that CRTC had been unable to take action as they could not ascertain the veracity of allegations that these forced confessions were obtained under torture and ill-treatment. He said it came down to a question of their (the channels') word against ours (on behalf of the victims).

Such an assessment is categorically incorrect, and this letter will address why it is wrong.

The circumstances under which many such confessions were secured and the explicit categorization of such circumstances by international and national entities as enforced disappearances and torture provide a compelling and objective set of evidence that cannot and should not be so easily dismissed.

We start from the indisputable premise that many of the recordings in question were produced while the victims were held under the People Republic of China’s Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL). Under this pre-arrest regime set up for investigative purposes, individuals are held in solitary confinement, incommunicado, at undisclosed locations for up to six months, without access to a lawyer. Individuals held under RSDL consistently report being subjected to torture to extract confessions. They are completely cut from the outside world, while their relatives are unaware if they are dead or alive.

CRTC’s assertion that it could not verify claims of torture begs disbelief considering that, to our knowledge, it has never called on any experts on the systems of RSDL and/or forced televised confessions, nor has it ever reached out to any of the many victims nor experts referenced in the complaint. It is well established that prolonged placement into RSDL is, in itself, an act of torture.

The system has been denounced repeatedly by United Nations experts. We cite in particular, as related to RSDL and torture:

• In the Committee Against Torture's (CAT) 2015 review of China, it expressed grave concern over RSDL. It recommended that China “repeal, as a matter of urgency, the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law that allow [RSDL]”.[2]
• In a March 2020 public statement, a group of UN experts including the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) reiterated the position that RSDL is not compatible with international human rights law. They asserted that “as a form of enforced disappearance, RSDL allows authorities to circumvent ordinary processes provided for by the criminal law and detain individuals in an undisclosed location for up to six months, without trial or access to a lawyer. This puts individuals at heightened risk of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”[3]
•  A September 2021 legal opinion by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) underscores the joint position adopted with other UN experts in that RSDL: “amounts to secret detention and is a form of enforced disappearance”; “may per se amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or even torture, and additionally may expose [those held under RSDL] to an increased risk of further abuse, including acts of torture”; and is “used to restrict the exercise of the right[s] to freedom of expression, [of] peaceful assembly and of association by human rights defenders and their lawyers”.[4]
• Following her official visit to China in April 2022, then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet reiterated that UN human rights bodies have categorised RSDL as a form of arbitrary detention and called for its repeal.[5] As the initiator of the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations, Canada’s Government reasserted that arbitrary arrests and detentions are contrary to international human rights law and instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other international and regional human rights instruments.
• These assessments have been reiterated time and again by independent UN experts. An updated full overview has recently been made available by non-governmental organization International Service for Human Rights.[6] 
• Democratic and allied nations have repeatedly echoed such assessments, in both country reports and during statements at the United Nations. Eight countries (Australia, France, Luxembourg, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, Germany and Switzerland) have called for the repeal of provisions allowing for RSDL during China’s Universal Periodic Review cycles in 2018 and 2024.

But perhaps the best description of the system is by one of Canada’s own. In a recent interview with CBC News, Michael Kovrig described the time he spent in RSDL as follows:

“It was psychologically, absolutely, the most gruelling, painful thing I’ve ever been through. It’s a combination of… total isolation and relentless interrogation for six to nine hours every day, on and on and on. […] The United Nations standard is no more than 15 days in solitary confinement. More than that is considered psychological torture. I was there for nearly six months.”[8]

It should be evident that this set of very specific circumstances under which many of the victims that were party to Safeguard Defenders’ CRTC complaint can hardly be described as a situation of their word against ours. They were forced to partake in self-incriminating video recordings that were televised without their consent, made while in a situation tantamount to torture. 

Every aspect of the practice constitutes a direct violation of the most basic of internationally recognized human rights, including freedom of expression and the right to privacy. Moreover, the very fact that producers and journalists for the implicated TV channels are allowed access to the incommunicado premises and actively partake in the staged process is a demonstration of the far-reaching level of complicity with the security authorities arbitrarily holding the victims.

We believe these concerns deserve to be addressed in a timely fashion and, as always, remain at disposal for any further clarifications and information.

Sincerely,

Peter Dahlin and the Safeguard Defenders team

 

Testimony of Mr Scott Shortliffe, CRTC, October 1, at the Foreign Interference Commission

Video file

For more information, including the full complaint, see this prior post.