{"id":27991,"date":"2019-01-04T07:22:03","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T07:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27991"},"modified":"2019-01-04T07:22:03","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T07:22:03","slug":"canada-13-citizens-held-in-china-since-huawei-executive-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27991","title":{"rendered":"Canada: 13 citizens held in China since Huawei executive arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Canada<\/a> has said 13 of its citizens have been held in China<\/a> since the December 1 arrest<\/a> of a top executive from Chinese telecoms giant Huawei in Vancouver, with “at least” eight later released.<\/p>\n

The Canadian government made the announcement in a statement on Thursday, without disclosing what charges, if any, have been laid.<\/p>\n

Prior to Thursday’s statement, the detention of only three Canadian citizens had been publicly disclosed.<\/p>\n

Diplomatic tensions between Canada and China have escalated since the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and daughter of the company’s\u00a0founder,<\/span>\u00a0at the request of the United States.<\/p>\n

Ottawa has repeatedly said it sees no explicit link between the arrest of Meng and the detentions of Canadian citizens. But Beijing-based Western diplomats and former Canadian diplomats have argued that the detentions were a “tit-for-tat” reprisal by China.<\/p>\n

Meng was released on a $7.4m bail on December 11 and is now living in one of her two multi-million-dollar Vancouver homes as she fights extradition to the US. She must wear an ankle monitor and stay at home from 11pm to 6am.<\/p>\n

US prosecutors have accused Meng of misleading banks about transactions linked to Iran, putting the lenders at risk of violating Washington’s sanctions. She denies wrongdoing and China has demanded her release.<\/p>\n

The 13 Canadians held include Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor and Sarah McIver, a Canadian government official who declined to be identified, told Reuters news agency on Thursday.<\/p>\n

McIver, a teacher, has since been released and returned to Canada. Kovrig and Spavor remain in custody. Canadian consular officials saw them once each in mid-December.<\/p>\n

Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Guillaume Berube confirmed the 13 detentions to AFP news agency, adding that the figures excluded Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

Overall, there are about 200 Canadians who have been held in China for a variety of alleged infractions who continue to face on-going legal proceedings and the number has remained relatively stable in recent years.<\/p>\n

In comparison, there are almost 900 Canadians in a similar situation in the US.<\/p>\n

Also on Thursday, Washington\u00a0renewed a travel warning<\/a> for US citizens visiting China, urging them to “exercise increased caution” due to “arbitrary enforcement of laws”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canada has said 13 of its citizens have been held in China since the December 1 arrest of a top executive from Chinese telecoms giant Huawei in Vancouver, with “at least” eight later released. The Canadian government made the announcement in a statement on Thursday, without disclosing what charges, if any, have been laid. Prior…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}