Canadian Judge Denies Chinese Officer and Wife Residency Over ‘Crimes Against Humanity’

Chinese paramilitary police guard an alley in a street next to Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sept. 7, 2019. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

A senior police officer with China’s Public Security Bureau and his wife have been denied residency in Canada after a judge found reasonable grounds to believe he had engaged in “crimes against humanity.”

Justice Shirzad Ahmed of the Federal Court of Canada said in his March 13 decision that he believed a decision made by an immigration officer in September 2024 to refuse the couple’s application for permanent residency was “reasonable.”

The immigration officer had determined that there were reasonable grounds to believe the senior Chinese police officer was “complicit in crimes against humanity,” and therefore determined that he and his wife were inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The Chinese police officer, who is not named in the ruling, told immigration officials that he had supervised between 120 and 150 personnel and oversaw “investigations, interrogations, and detentions” throughout his more than 30-year-long career with China’s Public Security Bureau.

He said he had “never abused or mistreated suspects,” and his role was to ensure the Public Security Bureau’s interrogations in Hebei Province of China were “conducted according to the law.”

The police officer’s wife, Li Li, had applied for permanent residency, along with her husband and their child, in 2016.

However, Justice Ahmed’s decision says the immigration officer refused Li’s application in September 2024 “because there were reasonable grounds to believe that the Applicant’s spouse was inadmissible.”

“A foreign national is inadmissible on the grounds of violating human or international rights if they commit an act outside Canada that constitutes an offence referred to in sections 4 to 7 of the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act,” Ahmed wrote.

His ruling also says that if an accompanying family member of the applicant is inadmissible, the applicant is generally also inadmissible.

The immigration officer cited various reports stating torture and human rights violations are “systematic and known to occur ‘nationwide’” during interrogations of suspects in China, and found that the role and duties of Li’s husband “indicate that he would have been aware” of human rights violations occurring during interrogations.

Ahmed referred to a Supreme Court of Canada case in 2005 in which the court outlined four elements of “crimes against humanity” in the context of an inadmissibility finding.

This included that “an action enumerated in subsection 6(1) of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act is committed; the act was in the context of a widespread or systematic attack; this attack is directed against a civilian population or identifiable group; and the individual knew of the attack or took the risk that their act comprised part of this attack.”

“For a finding of inadmissibility, the decision maker need only find reasonable grounds to believe that such elements exist,” Ahmed wrote. He said an assessing officer does not need to find that the alleged actions are “more likely than not to have occurred,” but there must be “more than a mere suspicion.”

Human rights and government reports have documented the Chinese Communist Party’s widespread use of torture and unlawful detention against religious and ethnic minorities, as well as democracy activists.

According to the 2022 U.S. State Department Human Rights Report, the methods used include torture, sexual assault, and forced labour, and it notes reports of organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, including Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs.

Decision

Li had sought judicial review of the immigration officer’s decision to refuse her family’s permanent residency application, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support the immigration officer’s determination that there was a “widespread policy” of torture within China or the Public Security Bureau.

Meanwhile, Ahmed said the immigration officer used documentary evidence from international non-governmental organizations, academic articles, and statements from the Chinese regime published at the time when Li’s husband was employed at the Public Security Bureau to conclude that systemic torture was carried out.

“These reports describe torture as widespread in the [Public Security Bureau] across the country and in Hebei,” Ahmed wrote, adding that he finds no error in the immigration officer’s conclusion.

Li had argued that even if the immigration officer found there was systemic torture in the Public Security Bureau’s interrogations in China, torture does not constitute an “attack” against a civilian population, as is required for a finding of crimes against humanity.

However, Ahmed rejected Li’s argument, saying it is “well established that torture may form the basis for a finding of crimes against humanity when it is widespread, systematic and aimed at a civilian population.”

“In my view, the Officer reasonably determined that the Applicant’s spouse was complicit in the PSB’s crimes against humanity in Hebei Province,” Ahmed wrote.

He said that although the immigration officer recognized Li’s husband “could not be linked personally to any specific instance of torture,” the officer found that due to the systemic nature of torture in interrogations in China, his high rank, lengthy service of China’s Public Security Bureau, and his supervisory responsibility for interrogations, there were reasonable grounds to believe her husband was complicit in the Bureau’s conduct during the interrogations.

Ahmed concluded that the immigration officer’s decision to refuse the couple’s permanent residency application was “justified, intelligible, and transparent.”