OTTAWA: The Embassy of China in Canada confirmed in a statement on its official website Monday that Chinese citizens have been deported for having pornographic pictures or videos of children on their cellphones or laptops.
An official account “iask-ca” on the WeChat social network, claimed Sunday that two Chinese students who were separately trying to enter the country were recently deported by Canadian customs for having child pornography on their mobile phones.
According to iask-ca, Canadian customs found obscene content in the two students’ WeChat, a messaging app, as both students had stickers on their phones portraying children engaged in sexual acts.
Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy statement did not specifically confirm the truth of these two cases. The embassy warned Chinese citizens who plan to come to Canada to delete sensitive or illegal content on their phones, computers or hard disks before traveling.
While many on Chinese social media questioned whether customs officials had violated the students’ privacy by going through their phones, customs officers have the right to search passengers’ electronic devices according to Canada Border Services Agency’s code of conduct, news portal guancha.cn reported on Tuesday.
According to Canadian laws, persons who make, possess, distribute, or access child pornography can be sentenced to a jail term of between six months and 14 years. Exceptions may be made if one is viewing the content for the purposes of research into science, medicine, education or art.
This is not an isolated case, according to media reports.
The News, a Canadian news agency, reported that Gordon Lawrence Ellis, a Canadian national, was found in possession of child porn while crossing from the U.S. into Canada in 2011 and was given a six-month jail sentence.
In January 2015, Canada Border Services stopped Andre Delage, a Quebec man who was carrying child porn on his laptop. Andre was charged with three Customs Act offences.
