Detained Canadian teacher in China has been released

Albertan Sarah McIver was arrested earlier this month for issues related to her teaching job, but Global Affairs Canada spokesman Richard Walker said Friday that she has returned home.

The spokesman did not specify when the Canadian was released or returned to Canada.

China’s Foreign Ministry said this month that McIver was undergoing “administrative punishment” for working illegally.

McIver’s detention followed the arrests of two other Canadians on allegations they were harming China’s national security.

McIver was the third Canadian to be detained by China following the December 1 arrest in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd., but a Canadian official said there was no reason to believe that the woman’s detention was linked to the earlier arrests.

Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland did not mention the woman in calling for the release of the other two Canadians last week.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Saturday, a Chinese court will hear an appeal in the case of a Canadian citizen held on drugs charges, that could further test the tense relations between the two countries.

The high court in the city of Dalian in the northeastern province of Liaoning will hear the appeal of Robert Lloyd Schellenberg at 2 pm local time, it said in a statement this week.

A Dalian government news portal said Schellenberg was a Canadian and that this was an appeal hearing after he was found by an earlier ruling to have smuggled “an enormous amount of drugs” into China.

Canada’s government said this week it had been following the case for several years and providing consular assistance but could provide no other details, citing privacy concerns.

Drugs offences are usually punished severely in China.

China executed a Briton caught smuggling heroin in 2009, prompting a British outcry over what it said was the lack of any mental health assessment.