China court rejects Canadian citizen’s appeal of death sentence

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China court rejects Canadian citizen’s appeal of death sentence

August 10, 2021 11:47:06 pm

The Higher People’s Court of Liaoning (“appellate court”) in China on Tuesday upheld Canadian citizen Robert Lloyd Schellenberg’s death sentence for methamphetamine smuggling.

Initially, the Dalian Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Schellenberg to 15 years in prison for smuggling drugs. On Schellenberg’s appeal, the appellate court remanded the case for retrial concluding that the punishment was improper.

On retrial in January 2019, the court overturned Schellenberg’s initial 15-year verdict and imposed a death sentence instead. Contrary to the first trial, the court now concluded that Schellenberg is the principal offender in the smuggling operation as opposed to an accessory to drug smuggling. Schellenberg appealed the sentence.

The appellate court proceedings were held virtually while Schellenberg was in the detention centre in Dalian. Canadian Ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, consular officials and Schellenberg’s lawyer attended the verdict pronouncement in person in Shenyang.

Stating that it afforded all the appropriate rights available to Schellenberg, the appellate court upheld the sentence adding that “the evidence was true, sufficient, the conviction was accurate, the sentence was appropriate and the trial procedure was lawful.”

Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau released a statement almost immediately, condemning the court’s decision to uphold the death sentence:

Canada strongly condemns China’s decision to uphold the death penalty sentence against Robert Schellenberg. We have repeatedly expressed to China our firm opposition to this cruel and inhumane punishment and will continue to engage with Chinese officials at the highest levels to grant clemency to Mr. Schellenberg. We oppose the death penalty in all cases, and condemn the arbitrary nature of Mr. Schellenberg’s sentence…Global Affairs Canada will continue to provide consular services to Mr. Schellenberg and his family.

Refusing to release any further information on the matter due to privacy concerns, Garneau thanked representatives from Australia, France, Germany and the US for their presence during the court proceedings.

Tensions between China and Canada have escalated since 2018 after Meng Wanzhou, an executive of the Chinese tech company Huawei, was arrested at the Vancouver airport on a US warrant on allegations of fraud. It has been suggested that the sentencing of Schellenberg and Fan Wei, another Canadian citizen, to death on alleged drug-related offenses was done in retaliation for Wanzhou’s arrest.

The next and final step in China’s legal process is a mandatory review by the Supreme People’s Court. The timeline for a final verdict from the Supreme People’s Court is uncertain.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.