Brussels, May 23 (IANS) A group of seven leading international human rights groups wrote to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), urging them to prioritise human rights violations in China during their engagement with Chinese counterparts.
In its letter to the MEPs ahead of their upcoming visit to China, the human rights organisations alleged that the Chinese authorities exert unrelenting control over information and public discourse while suppressing dissent and peaceful assembly, surveilling rights activists and other civil society actors, and prosecuting many under “vague” national security provisions.
The signatories included Amnesty International, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Front Line Defenders, Human Rights Watch, International Campaign for Tibet, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and World Uyghur Congress.
The rights groups highlighted that groups which previously enjoyed limited operational space – including feminists and members of the LGBTI community – are now facing tighter restrictions and harsher punishment.
They further accused Chinese authorities of disregarding many of the country’s international human rights obligations while seeking to redefine global human rights standards and undermine key international institutions.
“Our organisations have long called on European decision-makers to move beyond abstract expressions of concern to seek to meaningfully address the human rights crisis affecting people across China and take concrete actions to mitigate it. This is because we believe in the universality of human rights and in the human rights commitments the European Union (EU) has made to the international community and to its own citizens," the letter detailed.
“Yet we repeatedly see the human rights track in EU-China relations deprioritised and deprived of the same determination dedicated to security, trade and other areas of EU external action,” it added.
Since President Xi Jinping assumed power in 2012, the signatories said that the Chinese authorities have launched a wholesale assault on human rights, including widespread arbitrary detention, forced assimilation, forced labour and torture, as well as transnational repression beyond China, including in Europe.
They further alleged that these abuses have continued with impunity, as only a few Chinese officials have been held accountable for these serious violations.
Highlighting the widespread atrocities across China and beyond, the rights bodies said, “While the EU considers China as simultaneously a cooperation partner, an economic competitor and a systemic rival, the European institutions need to take into account all aspects of Chinese authorities’ actions – above all, China’s mounting rights violations at home and abroad and its active undermining of global human rights norms and the international institutions that safeguard them.”
The human rights organisations called on the MEPs to reaffirm the European Parliament’s unequivocal commitment to the universality and indivisibility of human rights and to engage their Chinese counterparts on serious human rights violations in China.
--IANS
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