The daughter of a missing Chinese human rights defender is pleading with the Vietnamese and Chinese governments to reveal her father’s whereabouts and allow him to travel to Canada.
Dong Guangping, an activist who has previously spoken out against China’s attempts to erase the bloody outcome of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest, has “disappeared,” according to his daughter.
Dong, a 64-year-old activist, was arrested on Aug. 24 in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, where he had fled after being released from prison in China.
His daughter, Katherine Dong, is a Toronto university student and became a Canadian citizen this past summer. The 22-year-old student has not heard from her father for more than 80 days and fears he has been handed over to Chinese authorities.
“He didn’t want me to live in a country without human rights…Heloves his family and he is a courageous survivor,” Katherine said Thursday at a news conference in Ottawa.
“I want to hold on to hope, but I fear the worst.”
Katherine Dong listens to a question from a reporter as she takes part in a news conference for the release of her father Dong Guangping, on Parliament Hill, Thursday, November 17, 2022 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Alongside her at the event were representatives of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China and the Federation for a Democratic China, as well as Alex Neve, former secretary general of Amnesty International Canada.
The association for democracy says Dong Guangping has been granted asylum in Canada, but Ottawa was not able to persuade Vietnamese officials to allow him to leave the country.
Dong had been hiding in Vietnam for 31 months while trying to make it to freedom.
According to Neve, the family has been told that Dong’s case has been raised by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly in recent international meetings with leaders of Southeast Asia in Cambodia and at the G20 summit in Indonesia.
In a statement to CTV News, Global Affairs Canada says it is “deeply worried about Mr. Dong’s safety and wellbeing and has been raising our concerns at the highest levels. Officials are working to ascertain his whereabouts, including through diplomatic engagement with both Vietnam and China.”
The tension between China and Canada played out in front of cameras during an interaction between the Prime Minister and Premier Xi Jinping, when the Chinese leader criticized Trudeau for allegedly “leaking” information about their discussions.
DETAINED FOR DISSENT
Dong’s supporters say he was fired from his job as a police officer in China in 1999 because he signed a public letter related to the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
He was later imprisoned for three years on charges of “inciting subversion of state power.”
“Dong Guangping, like other courageous activists in China, has refused to let themselves be silent around Tiananmen. The Chinese government brutally represses any attempts, including those by relatives of students who were killed to hold ceremonies memorializing their deaths – let alone more forceful campaigns insisting that the truth be told,” said Neve, who is now a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa.
Dong Guangping, an activist who has previously spoken out against China’s attempts to erase the bloody outcome of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest, has “disappeared,” according to his daughter.
THREE ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE
Dong fled to Thailand in 2015 with his wife and daughter, who were resettled to Canada as refugees, but he couldn’t get out. Despite being designated as a refugee by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Thailand sent Dong back to China where he was imprisoned for another three-and-a-half years.
In 2019, Dong tried to escape again by swimming from China’s east coast to an island under the control of Taiwan.
His daughter, Katherine, says her father swam for 12 hours before “he couldn’t bear it anymore” and was rescued by a Chinese fishing trawler.
In January 2020, the human rights activist fled a third time, and successfully made it across the border to northern Vietnam. Katherine says while hiding in Hanoi, her father was moved from one safe house to another while the Canadian government worked behind the scenes to secure travel documents for him.
The Dong family was initially asked by Global Affairs Canada to stay silent to allow diplomats to negotiate his release. Despite the delicate balancing game, Neve said the family made the decision to speak publicly after it became clear that Canadian officials had not heard anything about Dong for weeks.
“Every hour, every day, and every week that goes past without knowing where he is, without knowing anything about his fate means really the danger he faces will only deepen. Being silent won’t help,” said Neve.
It’s unknown how many human rights activists with Canadian ties are imprisoned in China, but Dong’s detention parallels the case of Uyghur-Canadian Huseyin Celil.
While on an overseas trip visiting his wife’s family in Uzbekistan in March 2006, China asked the Uzbek government to arrest Celil and extradite him. Celil has been in prison now for more than 16 years.
Fearing a similar fate for her father, Katherine Dong and supporters delivered personal appeal letters Thursday to the Chinese and Vietnamese embassies in Ottawa.
She is asking the two governments to allow Canadian officials to visit her father immediately, and to let him come to Canada without any further delay.
CALGARY – The Calgary Flames have re-signed defenceman Ilya Solovyov and centre Cole Schwindt, the NHL club announced Wednesday.
Solovyov signed a two-year deal which is a two-way contract in year one and a one-way deal in year two and carries an average annual value of US$775,000 at the NHL level.
Schwindt signed a one-year, two-way contract with an average annual value of $800,000 at the NHL level.
The 24-year-old Solovyov, from Mogilev, Belarus, made his NHL debut last season and had three assists in 10 games for the Flames. He also had five goals and 10 assists in 51 games with the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers and added one goal in six Calder Cup playoff games.
Schwindt, from Kitchener, Ont., made his Flames debut last season and appeared in four games with the club.
The 23-year-old also had 14 goals and 22 assists in 66 regular-season games with the Wranglers and added a team-leading four goals, including one game-winning goal, in the playoffs.
Schwindt was selected by Florida in the third round, 81st overall, at the 2019 NHL draft. He came to Calgary in July 2022 along with forward Jonathan Huberdeau and defenceman MacKenzie Weegar in the trade that sent star forward Matthew Tkachuk to the Panthers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
KING CITY, Ont. – Oman scored 10 runs in the final over to edge Nepal by one wicket with just one ball remaining in ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 play Wednesday.
Kaleemullah, the No. 11 batsman who goes by one name, hit a four with the penultimate ball as Oman finished at 223 for nine. Nepal had scored 220 for nine in its 50 overs.
Kaleemullah and No. 9 batsman Shakeel Ahmed each scored five in the final over off Sompal Kami. They finished with six and 17 runs, respectively.
Opener Latinder Singh led Oman with 41 runs.
Nepal’s Gulsan Jha was named man of the match after scoring 53 runs and recording a career-best five-wicket haul. The 18-year-old slammed five sixes and three-fours in his 35-ball knock, scoring 23 runs in the 46th over alone when he hit six, six, four, two, four and one off Aqib Ilyas.
Captain Rohit Paudel led Nepal with 60 runs.
The 19th-ranked Canadians, who opened the triangular series Monday with a 103-run win over No. 17 Nepal, face No. 16 Oman on Friday, Nepal on Sunday and Oman again on Sept. 26. All the games are at the Maple Leaf Cricket Ground.
The eight World League 2 teams each play 36 one-day internationals spread across nine triangular series through December 2026. The top four sides will go through to a World Cup qualifier that will decide the last four berths in the expanded 14-team Cricket World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Canada (5-4) stands second in the World League 2 table. The 14th-ranked Dutch top the table at 6-2.
Oman (2-2 with one no-result) stands sixth, ahead of Nepal (1-5).
Canada won all four matches in its opening tri-series in February-March, sweeping No. 11 Scotland and the 20th-ranked host Emirates. But the Canadians lost four in a row to the 18th-ranked U.S. and host Netherlands in August.
Canada which debuted in the T20 World Cup this summer in the U.S. and West Indies, is looking to get back to the showcase 50-over Cricket World Cup for the first time since 2011 after failing to qualify for the last three editions. The Canadian men also played in the 1979, 2003 and 2007 tournaments, exiting after the group stage in all four tournament appearances.
The Canadian men regained their one-day international status for the first time in almost a decade by finishing in the top four of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier Playoff in April 2023 in Bermuda.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024
PENTICTON, B.C. – Rick Tocchet has already warned his Vancouver Canucks players — the looming NHL season won’t be easy.
The team made strides last year, the head coach said Wednesday ahead of training camp. The bar has been raised for this year’s campaign.
“To get to the next plateau, there are higher expectations and it’s going to be hard. We know that,” Tocchet said in Penticton, B.C., where the team will open its camp on Thursday.
“So that’s the next level. It starts day one (on Thursday). My thing is don’t waste a rep out there.”
The Canucks finished atop the Pacific Division with a 50-23-9 record last season, then ousted the Nashville Predators from the playoffs in a gritty, six-game first-round series. Vancouver then fell to the Edmonton Oilers in a seven-game second-round set.
Last fall, Jim Rutherford, the Canucks president of hockey operations, said everything would have to go right for the team to make a playoff push. That doesn’t change this season, he said, despite last year’s success.
“The challenges will be greater, certainly. But I believe the team that we started with last year, we have just as good a team to start the season this year and probably better,” he said.
“As long as the team builds off what they did last year, stick to what the coaches tell them, stick to the system, stick together in good times and bad times, this team has a chance to do pretty well.”
Some key players will be missing as Vancouver’s training camp begins, however.
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin announced Wednesday that star goalie Thatcher Demko will not be on the ice when the team begins it’s pre-season preparation.
Allvin did not disclose the reason for Demko’s absence, but said the 28-year-old American has been making progress.
“He’s been in working extremely hard and he seems to be in a great mindset,” the GM said.
Demko missed several weeks of the regular season and much of Vancouver’s playoff run last spring with a knee injury.
The six-foot-four, 192-pound goalie has a career 213-116-81 regular-season record with a .912 save percentage, a 2.79 goals-against average and eight shutouts across seven seasons with the Canucks.
Allvin also announced that veteran centre Teddy Blueger and defensive prospect Cole McWard will also miss the start of training camp after each had “minor lower-body surgery.”
Vancouver previously announced winger Dakota Joshua won’t be present for the start of camp as he recovers from surgery for testicular cancer.
Tocchet said he’ll have no problem filling the holes, and plans to switch his lines up a lot in Penticton.
“Nothing’s set in stone,” he said. “I think it’s important that you have different puzzles at different times.”
The coach added that he expects standout centre Elias Pettersson to begin on a line with Canucks newcomer Jake DeBrusk.
Vancouver inked DeBrusk, a former Boston Bruins forward, to a seven-year, US$38.5 million deal when the NHL’s free agent market opened on July 1.
The glare on Pettersson is expected to be bright once again as he enters the first year of a new eight-year, $92.8 million contract. The 25-year-old Swede struggled at times last season and put 89 points (34 goals, 55 assists) in 82 games.
Rutherford said he was impressed with how Pettersson looked when he returned to Vancouver ahead of camp.
“He seems to be a guy that’s more relaxed and more comfortable. And for obvious reasons,” said the president of hockey ops. “This is a guy that I believe has worked really hard this summer. He’s done everything he can to play as a top-line player. … The expectation for him is to be one of the top players on our team.”
A number of Canucks hit milestones last season, including Quinn Hughes, who led all NHL defencemen in scoring with 92 points and won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top blue liner.
Several players could once again have career-best years for Vancouver, Tocchet said, but they’ll need to be consistent and not allow frustration to creep in when things go wrong.
“You’ve just got to drive yourself every day when you have a great year,” the coach said. “You’ve got to keep creating that environment where they can achieve those goals, whatever they are. And the main goal is winning. That’s really what it comes down to.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
Katherine Dong listens to a question from a reporter as she takes part in a news conference for the release of her father Dong Guangping, on Parliament Hill, Thursday, November 17, 2022 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Dong Guangping, an activist who has previously spoken out against China’s attempts to erase the bloody outcome of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest, has “disappeared,” according to his daughter.
