Michael Kovrig: detention by China amounted to psychological torture, Canadian says

A former Canadian diplomat detained by China for more than 1,000 days said he was placed in solitary confinement for months and interrogated for up to nine hours every day, treatment he said amounted to psychological torture.

Michael Kovrig, speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp in his first major interview since his release, also said he had missed the birth of his daughter and met her for the first time when she was two-and-a half years old.

Kovrig and fellow Canadian Michael Spavor were taken into custody in December 2018 shortly after Canadian police detained Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei, on a US warrant. Both men were accused of spying.

“I still carry a lot of pain around with me and that can be heavy at times,” Kovrig said in his first substantial comments since he and Spavor were released in September 2021.

Kovrig noted that UN guidelines say prisoners should not be put into solitary confinement for more than 15 days in a row.

“More than that is considered psychological torture. I was there for nearly six months,” said Kovrig, who had been working as an adviser with a thinktank when he was arrested.

Kovrig said there was no daylight in the solitary cell, where the fluorescent lights were kept on 24 hours a day. At one point, his food ration was cut to three bowls of rice a day.

“It was psychologically absolutely, the most gruelling, painful thing I’ve ever been through,” he said. “It’s a combination of solitary confinement, total isolation, and relentless interrogation for six to nine hours every day,” he said. “They are trying to bully and torment and terrorise and coerce you … into accepting their false version of reality.”

Kovrig and Spavor were released on the same day the US justice department dropped its extradition request for Meng and she returned to China.

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa, responding to Kovrig’s interview, said he and Spavor had been suspected of engaging in activities endangering China’s national security.

Chinese judicial authorities handled the cases in strict accordance with the law, it said in a statement.

Bilateral ties remain chilly. China this month opened a one-year anti-dumping investigation into imports of rapeseed from Canada, just weeks after Ottawa announced 100% tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles.

Kovrig’s partner was six months pregnant at the time of his arrest. She played their daughter recordings of his voice and showed pictures of her father so she would recognise him when they finally met.

“I’ll never forget that sense of wonder, of everything being new and wonderful again and pushing my daughter on a swing that had her saying to her mother ‘Mummy, I’m so happy’,” Kovrig said.