Chinese students in Canada say they've been targeted by Beijing's campaign of fear

Some Chinese students in Canada accuse Beijing of targeting them and their families back in China with online threats and harassment — part of a campaign to crack down on anti-government dissent abroad.

Ruohui Yang is one of those students. He said he came to Canada in 2015 when he was 15 years old because his parents wanted him to study abroad.

In Canada, he said, he began learning things about his home country — such as details of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre — that challenged the Chinese government's version of events.

"In mainland China, we have our very own way of describing this event, this massacre. We just claimed that this is not a massacre, not so much people died," Yang told CBC's The House.

"I start to realize … this [protest] movement got the support of pretty much the entire nation, even officers, police, some from the army, some from the government. And everyone was talking about freedom, democracy, a new start.

"I was really shocked that for someone like me, who's raised under the dictatorship of Communist Party for pretty much my whole life, it's really hard to imagine that there was a time that … was so different and so hopeful."

That hope, coupled with the example of the 2019 demonstrations in Hong Kong against a proposed extradition bill, inspired Yang to take part in pro-Chinese democracy protests in Toronto. He also founded the Assembly of Citizens, a Canada-based pro-Chinese democracy organization.

Yang said that, at first, he hid his identity when demonstrating because he feared reprisals from China.

"I was wearing wigs, a mask, even padding my jacket just to make me look really different," he said.

He eventually shed the disguise and started showing his face in demonstrations. That's when the death threats began.

"I do already receive lots of threatening [messages], lots of swearing words, insults on my different social media accounts," he said.

The persecution didn't end there. He said his activism in Canada also caused his parents — who work for the Communist Party in China — to turn against him.

"They [were] really, really furious about my activities," he said. "They call me a traitor. They call me a slave."

Yang is one of a handful of dissidents who testified this summer before a U.S. congressional committee hearing on China's violations of human rights, including the right to free speech and peaceful assembly.