A hot new political drama is airing this week – it’s called the G20 Summit.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is meeting leaders of the world’s largest economic powerhouses to discuss the global economy amid brewing trade tensions, recent high-profile human rights violations and a growing wave of troubling government measures to ban refugees and silence dissent.
Unfortunately, this is not a new Netflix series. It’s the real-life world stage on which political leaders will meet from November 30 to December 1. Amnesty International will be looking to Trudeau – and his 19 other Summit colleagues – to address these serious human rights issues.
While any number of concerns could be addressed, Amnesty International is urging Trudeau to make the following crucial recommendations with the leaders of China, India, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States.
China: Close the “re-education” camps in which at least one million Uighur and other Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, and release Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil so that he is able to return home to his family.
India: Cease the mounting crackdown against Amnesty International India and other human rights and civil society groups in the country.
Mexico: Stop blocking court-ordered measures to address a grave crisis of disappearances, act to end widespread use of torture by state security forces and sexual torture of women, stop illegally deporting asylum-seekers back to life-threatening situations, and initiate a plan for the orderly removal of the armed forces from public security.
Russia: End the use of draconian and repressive laws against independent journalists, non-governmental organizations and human rights defenders.
Saudi Arabia: End war crimes in Yemen, release imprisoned women’s rights activists and commit to a UN-led investigation into the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Turkey: Demonstrate a commitment to the protection of human rights defenders by dropping charges against the honorary chair and former director of Amnesty International Turkey and nine other human rights activists, and ensure that dual Canadian/Turkish nationals imprisoned during the post-coup crackdown have access to appeal hearings that meet international fair trial standards.
United States: Halt the deployment of US military personnel at the Mexican border, accept asylum seekers at all locations along the Mexico-US border and end all family separations of migrants and asylum seekers.
For more information, or to request an interview, please contact:
Lucy Scholey, Amnesty International Canada (English): +1 613-744-7667 ext. 236; lscholey@amnesty.ca
