The media mogul and prominent pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences. His family has described the sentence as ‘heartbreakingly cruel’, given the 78-year-old’s declining health. Lai was convicted in December on charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, after pleading not guilty to all charges. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s senior China correspondent, Amy Hawkins – watch on YouTube The Guardian
Tag: Human rights
Chinese technology underpins Iran’s internet control, report finds
Iran’s architecture of internet control is built on technologies from China, according to an analysis published by a British human rights organisation. The report by Article 19 says the technologies include facial recognition tools used on Uyghurs in western China and a Chinese alternative to the US-based GPS system, BeiDou. The report outlines the policies and imported hardware behind the growth of Iran’s fine-tuned censorship regime, which allowed authorities to almost entirely cut off its 93 million people from the global internet during the height of January’s anti-government protests. The…
Trump-led abuses amid ‘democratic recession’ put human rights in peril, HRW report says
The world is in a “democratic recession” with almost three-quarters of the global population now living under autocratic rulers – levels not seen since the 1980s, according to a new report. The system underpinning human rights was “in peril”, said Philippe Bolopion, executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), with a growing authoritarian wave becoming “the challenge of a generation”, he said. Speaking before the launch of the human rights watchdog’s annual country-by-country assessment, published on Wednesday, Bolopion said 2025 had been a “tipping point” for rights and freedoms in…
Alarm raised over Chinese CCTV cameras guarding ‘symbol of democracy’ Magna Carta
Security cameras guarding Magna Carta are provided by a Chinese CCTV company whose technology has allegedly aided the Uyghur “genocide” and been exploited by Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, it has emerged. In letters seen by the Guardian, campaigners called on Salisbury Cathedral, which houses one of four surviving copies of the “powerful symbol of social justice”, to rip out cameras made by Dahua Technology, based in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. They have also written to the authorities responsible for the Parthenon temple in Greece, which is monitored…
Keir Starmer to hold talks with Xi to bolster economic ties with China
Keir Starmer will meet the Chinese president Xi Jinping on Thursday for historic talks he hopes will deepen economic ties at a time when some inside government fear the US is no longer a reliable partner. The prime minister – the first UK leader to visit China in eight years – will hold a 40-minute meeting with Xi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing before a number of cultural and business receptions. On the flight to Beijing, Starmer told journalists he wanted to bring “stability and clarity”…
Starmer vows to raise issues ‘that need to be raised’ with Xi amid push to free Jimmy Lai
Keir Starmer has said he will “raise the issues that need to be raised” on human rights with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, as he arrived in Beijing for the first trip to the country by a UK leader in eight years. The prime minister has come under pressure from rights groups to try to secure the release of Jimmy Lai, the jailed former media tycoon and one of Hong Kong’s most significant pro-democracy voices. The British citizen faces spending the rest of his life in prison after he was found…
Underground church says leaders detained as China steps up crackdown
Leaders of a prominent underground church have been detained in south-west China, according to a church statement, the latest blow in what appears to be a sweeping crackdown on unregistered Christian groups in the country. On Tuesday, Li Yingqiang, the leader of the Early Rain Covenant Church, was taken by police from his home in Deyang, a small city in Sichuan province, according to the statement. Li’s wife, Zhang Xinyue, has also been detained, along with two other church members: Dai Zhichao, a pastor; and Ye Fenghua, a lay member.…
‘Mad fishing’: the super-size fleet of squid catchers plundering the high seas
In a monitoring room in Buenos Aires, a dozen members of the Argentinian coast guard watch giant industrial-fishing ships moving in real time across a set of screens. “Every year, for five or six months, the foreign fleet comes from across the Indian Ocean, from Asian countries, and from the North Atlantic,” says Cdr Mauricio López, of the monitoring department. “It’s creating a serious environmental problem.” Just beyond Argentina’s maritime frontier, hundreds of foreign vessels – known as the distant-water fishing fleet – are descending on Mile 201, a largely…
The best of the long read in 2025
Victor Pelevin made his name in 90s Russia with scathing satires of authoritarianism. But while his literary peers have faced censorship and fled the country, he still sells millions. Has he become a Kremlin apologist? At 18, Mustafa was told his only way out of prison was to join the regime forces. After 14 years, his past as one of Assad’s fighters could get him killed When fossilised remains were discovered in the Djurab desert in 2001, they were hailed as radically rewriting the history of our species. But not…
US drops plan to deport Chinese man who helped expose abuse of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, say activists
Decision comes amid growing public support for Guan Heng – who secretly filmed detention facilities in China – after he illegally entered US by boat The Department of Homeland Security has dropped its plan to deport a Chinese national who entered the country illegally, two rights activists have said, after his plight raised public concerns that if deported the man would be punished by Beijing for helping expose human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region. Rayhan Asat, a human rights lawyer who assisted in the case, said Guan Heng’s lawyer…