Friday, December 8, 2000

A Liberal MP and veteran defender of international political prisoners has joined the fight to save a Canadian citizen imprisoned in China for practising his religion.

"This is such a classic case of a prisoner of conscience that it leaps out at you," Mount-Royal MP Irwin Cotler told a press conference at Parliament Hill yesterday.

Cotler, who has 25 years' experience as a human rights lawyer, agreed to act as pro bono international legal counsel for KunLun Zhang, a former colleague from McGill University.

Zhang, 60, was arrested last July for performing Falun Gong exercises in a public park.

Three weeks ago he was sentenced without trial to three years in a forced labour camp and is believed to have been tortured while his wife ShuMei remains under house arrest. Their daughter, LingDi, has appealed to the Canadian government for help, but embassy officials in China have been thwarted in their attempts to visit him.

http://www.canoe.ca/OttawaNews/OS.OS-12-08-0007.html