As described above, “by joining the UNHRC panel, China will be able to influence the selection of at least 17 UN human rights mandate-holders over the next year, known as special procedures [sic], who investigate, monitor, and publicly report on either specific country situations, or on thematic issues in all parts of the world, such as freedom of speech and religion”.
Talking about freedom of religion, in 2019, the UN appointed Saudi Arabia to the same panel. Isn’t that another UN-joke?
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/Group2019.aspx
Does all this make any sense? Bambi bets that Mr. Raif Badawi ‘s family in Sherbrooke (Québec, Canada) was not that impressed by that choice at the time ☹.
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/imprisoned-saudi-blogger-raif-badawi-begins-hunger-strike-1.4727238
Luckily, Saudi Arabia has shown a few promising social changes in recent years. This is not enough for sure, but it is a start that should be commended.
To come back to China, without punishing it for being a dictatorship (especially that we depend too much on it), we must neither reward it nor sell our souls to it. Between the two extremes, there must be a political middle ground. Isn’t it, Mr. Trudeau and “team of leaders”, namely Ms. Hajdu?
If not, without intending to, we would be insulting both the Chinese people striving for more freedom and the intelligence of Canadians.
