Two Michaels Christmas card campaign
The two Canadian citizens known as the two Michaels, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, face their third Christmas in a Chinese prison after being detained on December 10, 2018, by the Chinese Communist regime. Their kidnapping was in retaliation for the arrest in Vancouver of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Freedom-loving Canadians across the land are disgusted with this illegal incarceration and are joining in a “Christmas card” campaign to protest and let Chinese Communist Party authorities know just how they feel. The campaign is described by Terry Glavin in this article. It was launched by Kovrig’s friend Charles Parton, a former British diplomat who served in China and is currently an advisor on China to the British government.
When it comes to loving freedom there are none in the land as committed to the cause as Canadians like yourself - members of Canadian Citizens for Charter Rights and Freedoms (C3RF). Will you join the campaign and write Christmas cards to the two Michaels, and send the cards to the Chinese ambassador to Canada, with the request that they be given to Kovrig and Spavor? The ambassador can be reached at this address:
Mr. Cong Peiwu
Embassy of People’s Republic of China
515 St Patrick St
Ottawa ON
K1N 5H3
A sample letter is provided should you choose to copy or amend it to your own liking and enclose it with your Christmas cards. We hope that this campaign will give some impetus to the so far ineffective attempts of the Canadian government to free the two Michaels. After all, is it not past time for the two Michaels to have their Charter rights and freedoms restored?
Sample Letter
Today’s date, 2020
Ambassador Cong Peiwu
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China
515 St. Patrick St.
Ottawa, ON
K1N 5H3
Dear Ambassador Cong,
This coming Christmas will be the third that Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor will spend in a Chinese prison as the illegally detained victims of China’s hostage diplomacy. I hope that you will convey to them these Christmas cards, as their whereabouts are not known and these cards can’t be addressed to them directly.
Surely you are aware that the illegal detention of these two men by your government is having a negative effect on the attitudes of the Canadian people toward China and reinforces their view of the Chinese government as totalitarian and contemptuous of human rights.
The world is watching China and is appalled at the human rights violation in illegal detentions such as those of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor. Such is the disgust at these blatant abuses that a twitter campaign has been launched: #FreeChinaHostages. We know that Canadians are not the only victims of China’s hostage diplomacy. Rest assured that intransigence on the part of the Chinese government will not make the world forget.
Regardless of the flagrant violations of human rights committed by China in using hostage diplomacy to obtain its objectives, I am hopeful that as a humanitarian gesture you will nevertheless ensure that Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor receive these cards and those sent by others who share my concerns about their illegal detention.
If they cannot see their families at Christmas, at least they will know that their fellow citizens have not forgotten about them.
Yours sincerely,
Your name
Your town
