Canada said on Wednesday that China had executed four Canadian citizens on drugs smuggling charges earlier this year, and strongly condemned Beijing’s use of the death penalty.

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters that all four had been dual citizens and said Ottawa would ask for leniency for other Canadians facing the same fate.

“There are four Canadians that have been executed and therefore we are strongly condemning what happened,” she said, adding that all four had been convicted on drugs charges.

Separately, the Canadian Foreign Ministry said that Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian man sentenced to death in 2019 for drug smuggling, had not been executed.

Canada-China ties have been icy since 2018 when Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms firm Huawei, was detained in Vancouver at the Trump administration’s request. China arrested two Canadians shortly afterwards.

Meng and the Canadian duo were released in 2021.

Earlier this month Beijing announced tariffs on over $2.6 billion worth of Canadian agricultural and food products, retaliating against levies Ottawa slapped on Chinese electric vehicles and steel and aluminum products last year.

In a statement, the Chinese embassy in Ottawa said Canada was making irresponsible remarks.

“China always imposed severe penalties on drug-related crimes and maintains a ‘zero tolerance’ attitude towards the drug problem,” it said, without confirming that any executions had taken place.

Indonesia’s parliament on Thursday passed contentious revisions to the country’s military law, which will allocate more civilian posts for military officers, and street protests against the changes are expected to take place.

The revisions have been criticized by civil society groups, who say it could take the world’s third-biggest democracy back to the draconian “New Order” era of former strongman president Suharto, when military officers dominated civilian affairs.

Speaker Puan Maharani led the unanimous vote in a plenary council and officially passed the law, saying that it was in accordance with the principle of democracy and human rights.

President Prabowo Subianto, who took office last October and was a special forces commander under Suharto, has been expanding the armed forces’ role into what were considered civilian areas, including his flagship program of free meals for children.

Rights groups have criticized the increased military involvement because they fear it may lead to abuses of power, human rights violations, and impunity from consequences for actions.

The government has said the bill requires officers to resign from the military before assuming civilian posts at departments such as the Attorney’s General Office and a lawmaker has said officers could not join state-owned companies, to counter concerns the military would be involved in business.

Protesters from several democracy groups and students have said they will stage rallies in front of the parliamentary building in Jakarta.

Some students had camped at the back gate of parliamentary building since Wednesday evening, protesting the law and demanding the government pull out all military personnel from civilian jobs.

Police officers forced them to leave the building but they refused, one protestor who declined to be named told Reuters. There were just a few dozen protesters at the time the bill was passed by parliament.

Military personnel were called in for security in the parliamentary building to assist police.

“The geopolitical changes and global military technology require the military to transform … to face conventional and non conventional conflicts,” Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin told parliament, while defending the revised law.

“We will never disappoint the Indonesians in keeping our sovereignty,” he added, but did not specify what geopolitical challenges he was referring to.

Venezuela’s leader has described the deportation of more than 200 mostly Venezuelan migrants sent by the United States to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador as a “kidnapping,” and denied they are criminals while backing calls for their return.

“Nayib Bukele should not be an accomplice to this kidnapping, because our boys did not commit any crime in the United States, none,” Nicolas Maduro told supporters Wednesday, referencing El Salvador’s leader, who has struck a deal with US President Donald Trump.

“They were not brought to trial, they were not given the right to a defense, the right to due process, they were deceived, handcuffed, put on a plane, kidnapped, and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador,” Maduro added.

The Venezuelan leader, who has ruled with an iron fist since 2013, said his government will deliver El Salvador an “official document” to request the return of the Venezuelan deportees, which will have the support of “millions” of signatures of Venezuelan citizens.

Over the weekend, Trump invoked an 18th-century wartime law to deport 238 Venezuelans it claims are part of the Tren de Aragua gang despite a court ruling halting the move, deepening tensions between the US and Venezuela. He defended the move arguing the US faced an “invasion” of migrants and described those deported as “a bad group of, as I say, hombres.”

The Venezuelans, along with 23 Salvadorans also deported, were sent to the Counter-Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador, as part of an agreement between the US and El Salvador. The prison is notorious for the ruthless way it treats prisoners, which human rights organizations say is inhumane and violates human rights.

Venezuelans took to the streets of the capital Caracas Tuesday to rally against the deportations. Some claimed they identified their loved ones among the deported group in videos and photos shown on the news. Some relatives of men sent to El Salvador said their loved ones were not criminals and demanded they be returned home.

Maduro backed those calls.

“I celebrate that millions of men and women from Venezuela have come out to support the families of these young Venezuelans with their signatures, to officially demand that the Government of El Salvador free them from this kidnapping, not subject them to humiliation, and return them to us sooner rather than later,” he said.

The White House has not presented evidence that the deported Venezuelans belong to Tren de Aragua, a group linked to human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling and other crimes. In January, Trump designated Tren de Aragus and the Salvadoran MS-13 gang as foreign terrorist organizations.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said this week it conducted a thorough review of the profiles of the individuals in question to verify that they are part of criminal groups. The names of the deported individuals have not been released.

Some Venezuelans previously deported by the Trump administration have insisted they have nothing to do with the gang, such as Daniel Simancas Rodríguez, who spent 15 days in detention at Guantanamo Bay before being deported to Venezuela.

Maduro said Wednesday he ordered his government to increase the number of flights repatriating Venezuelan migrants detained in the US.

“We are going to return all migrants who have been detained to give them respect, dignity, support, and to return to their homeland and their families,” he said.