cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/38180325

• The Chinese government is persecuting and silencing lawyers who challenge official abuses a decade after a major crackdown on lawyers defending people’s rights.
• The Xi Jinping government has sought to eradicate the influence of lawyers who defend people’s rights while compelling the rest of the legal profession to serve the Chinese Communist Party’s political agenda.
• The Chinese government should stop persecuting rights defense lawyers and reinstate their licenses. Concerned governments should speak out to support rights defense lawyers, and support those seeking refuge abroad.

The Chinese government is persecuting and silencing lawyers who challenge official abuses a decade after the “709 crackdown” on lawyers defending people’s rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The Chinese Communist Party has also strengthened ideological controls over the broader legal profession.

In July 2015, Chinese police rounded up and interrogated about 300 lawyers, legal assistants, and activists across the country; members of a loosely connected community known as the “rights defense” movement, which had become increasingly influential between 2003 and 2013. Some were forcibly disappeared for months and tortured, and 10 were sentenced to harsh prison terms. In the decade since, the authorities have subjected many of them to surveillance, harassment, public shaming, and collective punishment, and revoked or cancelled their or their law firms’ licenses.

“The Chinese government under Xi Jinping has sought to eradicate the influence of lawyers who defend people’s rights while compelling the rest of the legal profession to serve the Chinese Communist Party’s political agenda,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities over the past decade have muted the rights defense lawyers, though many still find ways to fight against social injustice.”

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The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) on Thursday handed down an advisory opinion requested in 2023 by Chile and Colombia to clarify state obligations related to the climate crisis.

In a public hearing held at the court’s headquarters in the Costa Rican capital of San José, Judge Nancy Hernández read out the trailblazing decision on climate change, which for the first time in IACHR history stated a clear link between the “climate emergency” and human rights. The opinion also recognises that states and companies have an obligation to mitigate global warming and its impacts.

“The evidence we saw during the hearings and written submissions shows us that there is no more margin for indifference,” said Judge Hernández. “This is a contribution from law, but law alone is not enough. Success depends on what each one of us can do.”

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights holds jurisdiction over 20 Latin American and Caribbean states, where its advisory opinions are binding. But the strongly-worded climate ruling states that it is binding for all signatories of the Organization of American States, including the US and Canada.

[...]

The landmark 230-page ruling mentions for the first time a subcategory of the human right to a healthy environment, by introducing a “right to a healthy climate”. Court judges said that this is defined as a climate system “free of anthropogenic interference dangerous” for nature and people.

According to the court ruling, states are also expected to cooperate to take actions to reduce emissions that are “as ambitious as possible”, and are obliged to prevent harm by carrying out environmental impact studies.

[...]

In The imperative of defossilizing our economies report, Morgera argues that the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and other rich fossil fuel countries are legally bound by international law to phase out gas, oil and coal by the end of the decade, in addition to compensating communities for the harms caused.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37702329

• China’s government has erased Hong Kong’s freedoms since imposing the draconian National Security Law on June 30, 2020.
• The Chinese government has largely dismantled freedoms of expression, association and assembly, free and fair elections, fair trial rights and judicial independence, and ended the city’s semi-democracy.
• Other governments should press the Chinese government to end its repressive policies in Hong Kong by holding responsible officials to account, Human Rights Watch says.

China’s government has erased Hong Kong’s freedoms since imposing the draconian National Security Law on June 30, 2020, Human Rights Watch said today.

Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have harshly punished critics of the government, created a highly repressive national security regime, and enforced ideological controls on the city’s residents. Increasingly, only Chinese Communist Party loyalists – that is, “patriots” – can occupy key positions in society.

“In just five years, the Chinese government has extinguished Hong Kong’s political and civil vibrancy and replaced it with the uniformity of enforced patriotism,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “This heightened oppression may have dire long-term consequences for Hong Kong, even though many Hong Kongers have found subtle ways to resist tyrannical rule.”

Since adopting the National Security Law, the Chinese government has largely dismantled freedoms of expression, association and assembly, as well as free and fair elections, fair trial rights and judicial independence. The government has increasingly politicized education, created impunity for police abuses, and ended the city’s semi-democracy. Many of Hong Kong’s independent civil society groups, labor unions, political parties, and media outlets have been shuttered.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37516949

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This is an op-ed by Benedict Rogers, founder of rights group Hong Kong Watch and member of the advisory group of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) and an advisor to the World Uyghur Congress.

Four years ago today, June 24, the printing presses of Hong Kong’s largest and most successful mass-circulation Chinese language pro-democracy daily newspaper, the Apple Daily, fell silent and its newsroom shut its doors.

When the lights were switched off in the Tseung Kwan O building, they were turned off not only for the newspaper founded by media entrepreneur and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai, but for media freedom itself in Hong Kong.

Since the forced closure of Apple Daily, almost all other independent media in the city — particularly Stand News and Citizen News — have shut down.

[...]

Meanwhile, dozen of rights groups released an open letter urging UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to meet the son of jailed British publisher Jimmy Lai.

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On June 22, in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, a group of recently released Belarusian political prisoners appeared in public for the first time. The press conference included blogger and political activist Sergei Tikhanovsky, journalist Ihar Karney, language teacher Natallia Dulina, and 24-year-old activist Kirill Balahonau. Their accounts revealed the extent of repression in Belarusian prisons, detailing years in solitary confinement, forced propaganda viewings, and psychological pressure.

[...]

Blogger and presidential candidate Sergei Tikhanovsky, who was arrested in 2020 while attempting to run against Lukashenka [...] was later sentenced to 18 years in prison. Speaking in Vilnius, he described being held under a regime of total isolation and psychological pressure.

“For two and a half years, I wasn’t allowed a single letter. No phone calls to family. For five years, I wasn’t allowed to confess to a priest,” he said. “I couldn’t even buy a toothbrush or soap, for years. They’d give us something from time to time, of course. But even a pen refill was impossible to get, seven kopecks [or 2 cents] each, and even those had to be passed along by other prisoners.”

“Cleaning: four times a day. If you’re not scrubbing constantly, back to SHIZO, a punishment isolation unit. They’d come in, run a hand along the wall: ‘White? Not clean. SHIZO.’ It’s a nightmare. What do you call that, if not torture?” he said.

“Justice in Belarus isn’t dead,” he went on. “It just has a hole in its forehead.”

Asked by journalists how his children had reacted to seeing him, Tikhanovsky grew emotional and cried: his daughter didn’t recognise him.

Other prisoners faced similar pressure [...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37258415

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Beijing’s strategy to silence regime critics also relies on right-wing social media groups in foreign countries, professional hackers, staff of Chinese nongovernmental organizations with access to United Nations proceedings and members of China’s diaspora connected to the CCP-linked United Front Work Department.

[...]

“If somebody is collecting information for the Chinese government, they join our conference and get all the information, who was there, who is the main host,” [one exiled Chinese activist] said. “The Chinese government wants to know everything.”

Several governments, including the U.S., New Zealand, Sweden, Turkey and Australia, have investigated dozens of suspects allegedly involved in Chinese covert operations targeting dissidents in recent years. In some cases authorities found that the targets of espionage later ended up in prison or had family members threatened.

[...]

Last week, the leaders of the Group of Seven meeting in Kananaskis, Canada, issued a joint statement condemning transnational repression “as an important vector of foreign interference” and pledged to boost cooperation to protect their sovereignty and the targeted communities.

“It has real life consequences.” [...] “China is effective in destroying opposition, simply because they inspire that type of fear and distrust within those communities.”

[...]

Work for us or ‘we’ll destroy you’

The Chinese government has also turned victims into perpetrators.

Shadeke Maimaitiazezi, a 60-year-old textile trader from Kargılık, Xinjiang, is currently sitting in an isolation cell in Istanbul, where he was recently convicted of spying on fellow Uyghurs on behalf of the Chinese state. He has denied the allegations and accused Turkish authorities of forcing him to give a statement under duress, his lawyer Fatih Davut Ejder told ICIJ’s media partner Deutsche Welle Turkey.

Maimaitiazezi, a Muslim, has five children, including three who still live in Xinjiang, the Chinese province where many Uyghurs live and where Beijing has implemented mass-detention and other repressive policies targeting the local minority which may constitute “crimes against humanity,” according to the United Nations.

[...]

Maimaitiazezi claimed that the two Chinese officers then told him there was an international arrest warrant against him, but it could be voided if he returned to Turkey to spy on dissidents involved in activities related to East Turkistan, the name Uyghurs use for Xinjiang. According to the indictment, in the following months, they allegedly paid him more than $100,000 through intermediaries to provide information on activists. One of the alleged surveillance targets was Abdulkadir Yapchan, a Uyghur rights advocate who’s wanted by China on terrorism charges — allegations that a Turkish court has dismissed as politically motivated. The officers also asked Maimaitiazezi to find information on Uyghurs who had joined terrorist groups in Syria; he didn’t find any, he said.

[...]

Confidential domestic security guidelines reviewed by ICIJ as part of China Targets also revealed that the use of what Chinese authorities called the “covert struggle” is part of security officers’ strategy to control and stop any individuals deemed a threat to the Chinese Communist Party rule — regardless of whether they are inside or outside China.

Now advocates fear that the government’s use of informants in the Uyghur diaspora has become common overseas.

Swedish authorities recently arrested a Uyghur advocate who worked for the World Uyghur Congress, accusing him of spying on fellow Uyghurs for the Chinese government. The man denied the allegations and was released pending trial; the case is ongoing. It is the second time since 2009 that Swedish prosecutors have brought such charges against a Uyghur refugee.

[...]

ICIJ and its media partners have interviewed 105 people in 23 countries who have been targeted by Chinese authorities in recent years for criticizing the government’s policies publicly and privately. The targets included Chinese and Hong Kong political dissidents as well as members of oppressed Uyghur and Tibetan minorities.

Forty-eight targets of China’s transnational repression said they believe they have been spied on, were asked to spy on others or know of people in their communities who were asked to become informants.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37086375

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[An investigation] can reveal for the first time that global brands [like LG, Apple, Samsung] directly own factories receiving workers from China’s so-called labour transfer scheme, exposing how some have a hand in the oppression and exploitation of ethnic minorities in the country.

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Major Chinese companies, including some of the world's leading appliance manufacturers, also operate factories taking Xinjiang workers.

These businesses, as well as some of the lesser-known factories further back in the supply chain, are financed by state pension funds from Europe and North America, as well as a string of other major financial institutions. Taken together, the investigation brings to the fore the deep connection between global capital and the forced labour that is woven throughout much of China’s manufacturing economy.

[...]

In many cases, international investors need to set up a joint venture with a local partner in order to access the lucrative Chinese consumer market or to run a factory.

It’s an arrangement, research shows, that helps the government exercise control over foreign companies. Kirsten Asdal, a China risk advisor for investors and corporations, said that joint ventures are about embedding Communist Party leverage over foreign investments, through measures like requiring committees of party members in companies, acquiring board seats and controlling licensing.

Beijing has “built up arms of control into these foreign companies systematically over the last 20 years,” Asdal said. “They can no longer say no.”

International companies have far more questions to answer about forced labour in their own assembly lines. Reports connecting Chinese companies to the Xinjiang labour transfer programme have up to now only focused on supplier factories, not the plants owned by the brands themselves.

[...]

After all, China is no longer just the world’s factory. Home-grown companies have matured into global heavyweights, and appliance brands were among the earliest wave of Chinese labels to gain recognition in overseas markets.

“We’ve never seen the direct involvement of global brands in the Xinjiang government transfer program before,” said Laura Murphy, a professor focusing on labour and human rights. She previously advised the Biden administration on trade enforcement.

TBIJ’s investigation uncovered evidence of forced labour at plants owned by Hisense, Midea, Haier, and TCL. One of the five TCL facilities with Xinjiang workers is co-owned by Italy’s De’Longhi. Factories owned by Chinese footwear and car brands were also implicated.

More than 150 people were sent to Hisense in Guangdong from the infamous Xinye internment camp in Hotan, southern Xinjiang in 2018, according to Chinese state media. Operating under a “semi-militarised” system, with ideological assessments and “punishments”, the camp transforms farmers into factory workers, according to a government report on local labour transfer efforts. In 2018, state media claimed that “extremist ideas previously poisoned the minds of many trainees” at the camp.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37084496

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Thousands of North Koreans are entering Russia, posing as students on “practical training” but instead coming to labor under slave-like conditions [...] The practice directly violates UN sanctions — sanctions that Russia itself has agreed to. The workers toil six days a week, sometimes for up to 20 hours a day, while their wages are divided between the North Korean regime and Russian companies. Among those profiting from the forced labor system is an organization linked to Artem Chaika, the son of Russia’s former prosecutor general.

[...]

Pyongyang uses its labor force as a vital source of hard currency. In 2015, Marzuki Darusman, the former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, reported that foreign employers paid the regime in Pyongyang “significantly higher amounts” than the workers themselves were told they were earning, allowing the government to collect an estimated $1.2 to $2.3 billion annually.

Meanwhile, the workers themselves often received little or nothing in exchange for working grueling shifts of up to 20 hours a day — all while living in conditions of constant surveillance and with insufficient food. In one of his messages, Tkachuk noted that each group of North Korean workers must include a designated “senior” supervisor — a minder tasked with overseeing and controlling the group on behalf of the regime.

[...]

According to Cedric Ryngaert, Head of the Department of International Law at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, given the findings of The Insider’s investigation are correct, Russia is likely to violate UN Security Council resolutions 2375 and 2397, both adopted in 2017. These resolutions, among other conditions, require member states to stop issuing work permits to North Korean labourers and repatriate all of them to their home country within 2 years.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37020287

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The documentary can be watch using the YT link in the article, here is an alternative Invidious link: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=tiDFQ1lMefc

A new documentary on Sky News Australia (and also posted on YouTube) offers a rare and important glimpse inside the Communist Party of China’s secret RSDL prison system.

The documentary, Cheng Lei: My Story, reveals what happened to Australian journalist Cheng Lei after she was disappeared by China’s state security police in 2020, as relations between the two countries were at a low point. She was later falsely accused of illegally supplying state secrets overseas and eventually released in 2023.

For the first six months Lei, who is also a mother of two young children, was held in incommunicado detention under Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL).

RSDL, often used on rights defenders and political prisoners, is a system so secretive that you will not find RSDL facilities marked on maps. Neither will you see any photos of RSDL on official web pages. When you’re in RSDL, no one knows where you are except your guards and interrogators.

RSDL is basically a system of legalized black jails.

In the documentary, Lei leads the viewer on a tour of her RSDL cell (reconstructed in Australia from Lei’s memory) interspersed by powerful scenes where actors reenact the extreme surveillance she was subjected to.

[...]

A sea of pain

RSDL is no ordinary detention. UN experts have described it as tantamount to torture and to enforced disappearance.

Prolonged solitary confinement is mental torture. RSDL typically lasts six months. And sometimes beyond.

Quietly weeping, Lei relates her experience of the mental torture she endured in RSDL.

“How did they come up with this? Just nothingness. Nothingness. And also a sea of pain. I had no idea what was happening or how long I would be here.”

In the film, Lei provides some key facts about how the CCP has designed RSDL:

The RSDL Cell

“The RSDL cell is about 4m by 4m. The windows are always covered by curtains. The bathroom has no door. The light stays on 24 hours a day.”

Surveillance

“You are guarded and watched at all times by two guards. One stands in front of me, one sits next to me. And they take turns with the standing and sitting.”

Rules

“I have to sit on the edge of the bed and have my hands on my lap. Not allowed to cross the ankles or cross the legs. Not allowed to close the eyes. No talking. No laughing, No sunshine. No sky. No exercise. No exercise. No colour. Just fear. Desperation, isolation and utter boredom. That’s it. Probably 13 hours a day.”

“They watch you shit, shower and sleep. You’re not allowed to talk. To make the slightest movement, you must ask for permission.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37001579

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United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has raised serious concerns over "ongoing infringements" on the rights of people living in Tibet and called to align legislation and policies with international human rights law.

Addressing the 59th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Commissioner (OHCHR) detailed a grave assessment of the current global landscape.

He asserted that he has continued to engage directly with China on a wide range of issues.

Raising concerns about the human rights violations in China, Turk highlighted the lack of progress on much-needed legal reform to ensure compliance with international human rights law.

"In Tibet, there are ongoing infringements on cultural and other rights. I call for the release of all individuals detained for exercising their rights and to align legislation and policies with international human rights law," the UN human rights chief stated.

[...]

In his speech, Mr. Turk also emphazised "worrying reports" of violations in Xinjiang, including undue prison sentences, incommunicado detention, and restrictions on fundamental rights.

"In Hong Kong, the continued application of national security laws raises serious concerns about the shrinking of civic space," he added.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36864125

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Despite public condemnations, the European Union’s response to Beijing’s repressive tactics against dissidents beyond China’s borders remains ineffective and lacks coordination, according to a survey of 10 EU governments conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and its media partners, alongside interviews with European lawmakers.

Since 2023, the European Parliament has recognized transnational repression as a growing threat to human rights and the rule of law, and called on member states to facilitate reporting, investigate allegations and sanction the perpetrators.

But China Targets, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and 42 media partners, found that the Chinese government continues to target Chinese and Hong Kong dissidents as well as Uyghur and Tibetan advocates using surveillance, hacking and threats against them and their family members in an effort to quash any criticism of the regime.

[...]

"The EU must set clear red lines, backed by criminal investigations, sanctions, and diplomatic consequences, to show that fundamental rights are not negotiable," says Hannah Neumann, European Parliament member.

[...]

Most of the targets interviewed by ICIJ and its partners said they had not reported state-sponsored threats to the authorities in their adopted countries for fear of retaliation from China or because they didn’t have faith in local authorities’ ability to help. Of those who had filed a report — including Nurya Zyden, a Uyghur rights advocate who said she was followed by two Chinese men from Dublin, where she lives, to an activist gathering in Sarajevo, Bosnia, last year — most said police did not follow up on their case or told them that they couldn’t do anything because there was no evidence of a crime.

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Despite having sent “important political signals” through pronouncements and public condemnations, the EU’s response remains “fragmented” and “urgently” needs strengthening, said Hannah Neumann, a European lawmaker who led a 2023 report for the European Parliament on authoritarian regimes’ threats against human rights defenders.

[...]

“Currently, information on cross-border repression is scattered among local law enforcement authorities and is poorly coordinated,” says [Engin] Eroglu [who leads the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with China and was himself one of several politicians targeted by a sophisticated cyberattack allegedly linked to the Chinese government]. “Without cooperation between authorities, it is very difficult to determine the severity of cross-border repression measures, as these measures alone often do not violate local law.”

[...]

A spokesperson for the Belgian ministry of foreign affairs told ICIJ partner De Tijd that Belgian intelligence services, which are in contact with civil society organizations, have “insight into the general trends” of transnational repression in the country and that in recent years, “the intensity of the campaigns seems to have increased.”

According to EU Parliament member Eroglu, better information-sharing among member states is essential.

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36740689

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There are no detention camps in Xinjiang, Chinese authorities said once the evidence and outcry became too much to deny completely – only vocational education and training centres. And those held there, they said, are not detainees at all but trainees who benefit greatly from their stay.

“The centres provide free education,” Chinese official Aierken Tuniyazi told a session of the UN Human Rights Council in June 2019 [...] The trainees’ personal dignity and freedoms are protected and they are allowed to go home on a regular basis, he said. Many had already “graduated” from the centres to live “a happy life with better quality”.

[...]

This was the narrative carefully propagated by Chinese government and state media, and armies of online commentators. None of it corresponded with the experiences of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and others caught up in the crackdown on Xinjiang’s Muslim minorities that a 2022 United Nations report found could constitute crimes against humanity, and the United States and other countries have described as genocide.

Only a tiny fraction of the estimated one million detained in camps and prisons managed to escape abroad. I spoke with a series of them in Turkey, Kazakhstan and the US while researching my book, Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized, which investigates China’s oppression of its Muslim citizens. They had been held in different facilities across Xinjiang. All described systematic indoctrination, mistreatment and torture. Similar testimony has been gathered by rights groups and journalists and is supported by numerous leaked government documents.

People were taken to the camps for exhibiting what the Chinese government deemed signs of extremism – and that could be almost anything. Praying at the local mosque, wearing a headscarf or growing a beard. Quitting smoking, travelling to see family members abroad or just receiving a phone call from a foreign number. Saying “God bless you”

[...]

Arrests came in the form of summons to a local police station or armed squads pounding on doors late at night. Detainees were driven to massive facilities then stripped of their clothing, jewellery and phones and given uniforms. They were put in crowded cells that sometimes had beds but often did not, and watched over by ceiling-mounted CCTV cameras. The cells were unbearably warm in summer and when winter came the detainees pressed together for warmth. They were given only brief access to toilets [...]. Food was meagre. Several described only a thin soup for each meal, sometimes with a small piece of bread. Others talked of even less and a terrible, gnawing hunger.

There were classes most days that involved sitting in cramped and silent rows listening to lectures on Chinese language or the legal system. Guards would make them memorise patriotic songs and elements of Xi Jinping Thought, the president’s political doctrine. There would be videos too, detailing Xi’s foreign policy achievements or the power of China’s military.

Medical attention came only in an emergency and sometimes not even then. Most detainees said they were given regular pills or injections, however. None of them knew what they were given but it fogged their minds, made them lethargic and seemed to disrupt the women’s menstrual cycles.

[...]

There was violence. Beatings with fists, boots and shock batons for the slightest infraction and sometimes for no reason at all. Detainees spoke often of the device known as the tiger chair that guards strapped people into for hours or days at a time. The worst punishments often seemed to be reserved for Uyghurs.

Women described suffering and witnessing sexual violence. One told me men in medical masks took women from the cells at night and that when it happened to her, she was raped and beaten by several guards.

[...]

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36696301

A new report traces how China’s targeting of protesters has evolved since the Tiananmen Square massacre into part of a sophisticated transnational repression campaign using harassment, violence and surveillance.

The report by ARTICLE 19 [opens pdf], an organization that defends freedom of expression worldwide, bolsters ICIJ’s findings in China Targets, a cross-border investigation exposing the sprawling scope and terrifying tactics of Beijing’s campaign to silence its critics living overseas.

As part of the investigation, ICIJ outlined a pattern of activist detentions by local police and governments ahead of visits by President Xi Jinping. During at least seven of Xi’s 31 international trips between 2019 and 2024, local law enforcement infringed on dozens of protesters’ rights in order to shield the Chinese president from dissent, detaining or arresting activists, often for spurious reasons.

The ARTICLE 19 report goes further, interviewing 29 members of diaspora communities, including some also identified by ICIJ, to describe incidents at protests dating as far back as 2011 involving activists from mainland China, including ethnic minorities from the northwest Xinjiang region and Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Inner Mongolia.

“This report points to a campaign of international harassment and intimidation designed with one purpose: to systematically stifle global protest movements that seek to defend human rights in China,” ARTICLE 19 said in the report.

[...]

The report also highlighted the psychological toll that acts of transnational repression can take on dissidents, many of whom are already isolated as members of diaspora communities. Beyond immediate verbal and physical attacks, the protracted threat of surveillance can lead to self-censorship and burnout, the report said.

“Overseas Chinese dissidents, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, and other diaspora activists know all too well the cost of protesting against human rights violations in China: its repression knows no borders,” Michael Caster, who runs ARTICLE 19’s Global China Programme, said in a statement. “And still, authorities in host countries have yet to fully grasp the dangers of transnational repression — and so support to those targeted is often severely lacking.”

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36600461

Human Rights Watch, in a May 15 submission to the EU, reiterated its regret that the EU continues to hold a human rights dialogue with China. Along with other rights organizations, Human Rights Watch has repeatedly criticized the box-ticking nature of the exercise, in which criticism behind closed doors yields no concrete improvements.

For example, despite raising their cases for years, the EU has been unable to obtain the release of Gui Minhai, a Swedish bookseller whom Beijing arbitrarily arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison, or to receive a sign of life from Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur scholar and Sakharov Prize laureate who was sentenced to life in prison for his peaceful activism and has been denied family visits since 2017.

These cases are emblematic of the EU’s failure to meaningfully address Beijing’s repression, which has reached new peaks under Xi Jinping’s rule, including in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong.

Notably, a landmark 2022 report on Xinjiang by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights found Beijing’s abusive policies against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims may amount to “international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” The EU and its member states should press the Chinese government to allow unrestricted access to the UN human rights office for a follow-up visit.

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EU leaders should more forcefully raise human rights concerns during the upcoming summit and strategic dialogue, and lay out concrete consequences should Beijing fail to rein in its repression. Not doing so will be at the expense of all people in China.

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