Global Affairs Canada (GAC) has confirmed an unspecified number of Canadians have been executed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so far in 2025.
The federal agency indicated Robert Schellenberg, a man from British Columbia who was sentenced to the death penalty in January 2019, and lost an appeal in 2021, is still alive.
There are currently roughly 100 to 115 Canadian citizens detained in Chinese prisons, some of them not heard from for years, and about five sentenced to death.
Alleged crimes are often related to drugs, and sometimes on religious or political grounds, such as the case of Huseyin Celil, a Uyghur imam from Xinjiang, a muslim minority region in Western China. Celil has been cut-off from consulate services and his family has not had any contact from him in more than a decade.
GAC spokeswoman Charlotte MacLeod confirmed to the Globe & Mail Canadians were executed in China this year, but would not identify who they were out of privacy for their families “during this difficult time.”
“[Ottawa] strongly condemns China’s use of the death penalty, which is irreversible and inconsistent with basic human dignity,” said MacLeod.
She said Canadian officials “repeatedly called for clemency for these individuals at the senior-most levels and Canada remains steadfast in its opposition to the use of the death penalty in all cases, everywhere.”
“We continue to provide consular assistance to the victims' families,” added MacLeod.
Schellenberg, convicted of capital drug offences, initially received a 15-year sentence. However, his court appearance came just weeks after the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou at the Vancouver airport on December 1, 2018, to be extradited to the US on alleged financial crimes.
The CCP hit back at Canada by detaining Canadian businessmen Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were held for 1,000 days, and amping up Schellenberg’s sentence to the death penalty.
Canada eventually let Meng go back to China, and the two Michaels were released, but Schellenberg was dropped from media attention and left to his fate in the CCP’s legal system.
MacLeod confirmed Schellenberg was not among the Canadians executed earlier this year and said Ottawa continues to advocate for clemency on his behalf, reported the Globe.
China considers its execution data to be top-secret and does not disclose this information to international records, such as Amnesty International.
“In 2020, most known executions took place in China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – in that order,” states the organization's website.
“China remains the world’s top executioner — but the true extent of the use of the death penalty in China is unknown as this data is classified as a state secret.”
“The global figure of at least 483 recorded in 2020 excludes the thousands of executions believed to have been carried out in China.”
Former UK private investigator Peter Humphrey, who was jailed in China and is now an advocate for foreign prisoners, told the Globe the execution of multiple Canadian citizens “is a wake up call which should shock and alert every government in the world.”
“For China to execute a significant number of foreign citizens [in quick succession was] absolutely unprecedented,” said Humphrey.
“This is really a strong signal that China has no intention of patching things up with Canada.”
