We promise not to torture or kill you

Vancouver is the centre of an unfolding human rights case, full of international intrigue, shadowy characters and questionable ethics.

A Chinese businessman under house arrest in his Vancouver condo is hoping Canada's courts will protect him from the long reach of the Chinese government. Lai Changxing is accused of running a smuggling empire worth billions and corrupting Chinese officials. (For the full story by Steve Mertl, link here).

The Federal Court of Canada has agreed to hear his case to stay an order for deportation. Changxing claims he's being targeted because he's the victim of a frame-up after making enemies of some of China's political elites.

Official Chinese assurances that he would not be executed if sent back are not necessarily relevant; once Changxing gets processed through the Chinese prison system, he stands as good a chance of enduring back-breaking punishment in a labor camp or the harvesting of his organs as he does of surviving a bullet to the head.

In China, torture is used routinely to extract confessions. Defense lawyers can be put in prison for defending their clients too strongly. Whether or not Changxing actually did the crime, China's demented joke of a legal system makes it impossible to deport him.

Changxing may be guilty, or not. But his case is not unique, or even all that unusual. The end result is that people who commit terrible crimes in terrible countries don't have to answer for them, so long as they can escape to a country where the rule of law (as opposed to the law of arbitrary and predatory rules) is followed.

Martin Luther King once said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. That statement is as true as ever, but perhaps now it is for a different reason.

tags: Vancouver, Canada, human rights, China, Chinese government, torture, David Matas, corruption, ethics, law, legal, court