Wang Yan remembers the last time she heard her husband’s voice over five years ago.
It was December 13, 2019 and the Canadian citizen Li Yongui had gone to a public square in Shijiazhuang, in the Chinese province of Hebei, to exercise when he spoke to his wife in Canada by mobile phone.
“Suddenly, the call ended, as if someone was taking their phone. And I called another family (in China) and no one knew what had happened,” recalls Wang.
Li had been seized by city police, who accused him in a social media position of “allegedly bringing together public funds illegally” through his company Qingyidai, a platform for loans to anyone.
The Canadian businessman Li Yonghui, who has been detained in China since 2019, is seen in this undated photo provided by his family.
Canadian press / Ho Wang Yan
Li has been in detention since, without ever being tried or condemned.
Now his family takes the rare step to speak publicly to request a resolution in his case.
Global Affairs Canada says he knows about a hundred Canadians incarcerated in China.
However, it is rare that their family is expressed in Canada or to put pressure on decisions on their situations.
The Chinese authorities began a repression in 2019 on online lenders, but Wang maintains her husband’s innocence in the exploitation of Qingyidai, which the Chinese media had described as the largest platform of this type of Hebei.
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“Of course, we think he is innocent, but if he has violated certain laws or rules, please put him in trial and condemn him,” Wang said in an interview with the Canadian press in Vancouver where Li’s family lives.
“We have no qualms about it … but it was years when nothing happened.”
Wang said Li had no visit to the hebei detention center in anyone in addition to his lawyer and his staff at the Canada Embassy.
Li’s daughter, Wandi Li, was 21 years old when her father was arrested. She regrets that she “essentially grew up a little in my adult life without him”.
“My father, he has this habit of not really talking about him,” said Wandi Li, remembering their last conversation before his arrest. “He just asked me what’s going on in my life,” she said.
“I am the youngest in my family, so there is always this tendency to protect me a little from what is going on.”
In an e-mail answer to questions, Global Affairs Canada said she was aware of Li detention and provided consular assistance, but no additional detail was published due to confidentiality considerations.
The comments of Li’s family came after the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, said last month that four Canadians had recently been executed by Chinese authorities, all with double citizenship and all accused of drug -related crimes.
Former Chinese detainee Michael Kovrig said by e-mail that he would advise those close to prisoners to “get a good Chinese lawyer”.
He said he would also rely on the Canadian government to defend the prisoner as well as to contact human rights organizations – but this could upset the Chinese authorities.
“Understand that there is a risk that if you put pressure on a decision, the court can pronounce a relatively severe sentence,” he said. “What they want is repentance and confession, and they can be ready to offer a lighter penalty in return.
“It would be up to the lawyer to negotiate this.”
Kovrig and his Canadian colleague Michael Spolarn were arrested by China in 2018 and detained for more than 1,000 days, accused of spying in one case that the Canadian government said a false effort to put Canada to release the Huawei framework, Meng Wanzhou.
Wang said she was unable to comment on recent executions in China because she did not know the circumstances surrounding these cases.
But she said that their family was increasingly concerned about the detention of LI who persists and health problems emerged. She said that her husband had high blood pressure and that her guards refused to allow her to see a dentist.
Kovrig said Wang not authorized to speak to her husband is in accordance with what he had seen from the others under Chinese guard.
He said that even if the conditions may vary between the various detention centers, Chinese facilities “generally do not meet the basic standards of the UN Nelson Mandela rules”, referring to the minimum United Nations standards for the treatment of prisoners.
“Inmates are generally confined to a cell with limited access to an outdoor area to move,” he said. “Access very limited to books to read. No media. No writing material. Maybe a television in the evening. Sleep on a difficult berth … in a crowded cell with several cell comrades.
Detention also means constant monitoring, limited bathrooms and “zero intimacy”, said Kovrig.
Wandi Li said she was waiting for the hope of her father’s safe return to Canada.
“Our hope is just that the word moves, and let us hope, because if more people know it, maybe the government in China will be a little more influenced to make a decision on the case and release my father,” she said.
Wang Yan said that she was aware of the possible risks by speaking, but all she wanted was the movement and certainty in the case of her husband.
“We have no choice,” she said.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press
