A Chinese rights lawyer stripped of his licence for taking on sensitive cases has been arrested in Laos, and activists and family members are worried he will be deported back to China, where he could be jailed. Lu Siwei was seized by Laotian police on Friday morning while boarding a train for Thailand. He was on his way to Bangkok to catch a flight to the US to join his wife and daughter. “I’m extremely worried for his safety,” said his wife, Zhang Chunxiao, in a text message. “If he’s…
Tag: Human rights
Satellite data sheds light on China’s detention facilities in Tibet
There has been a pattern of increased activity in recent years at high-security detention facilities in Tibet, according to a new study measuring night-time lighting usage, suggesting a potential rise in harsher imprisonments by Chinese authorities. The report, by the Rand Europe research institute, said the findings added rare new clues about the Chinese government’s “stability maintenance” policies of control in the highly securitised Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), which it described as an “information black hole”. “Using overhead satellite imagery analysis and night-time lighting data, this study sought to add…
The Guardian view on Hong Kong’s pursuit of exiles: these bounties should backfire | Editorial
Unless the forces of history conspire in their favour, the fate of most exiled dissidents is a slow fade into obscurity. However admirable their cause or brilliant their tactics, it is hard to maintain the world’s interest and support as time passes. Hong Kong’s exiles are conscious of this problem. But it is Hong Kong’s government which has catapulted them back into the spotlight, by placing a bounty of 1m Hong Kong dollars each – around £100,000 – on eight activists. Three of them – Nathan Law, Finn Lau and…
UK Hong Kong scheme ‘funding charity with links to Chinese Communist party’
A consortium of Hong Kong community groups have accused the UK government’s flagship programme for welcoming Hongkongers of funding an organisation with alleged links to the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Last week, the government announced grants worth more than £3m to a range of organisations that support east and south-east Asian communities, including Hongkongers who have recently arrived in the UK via the bespoke British National (overseas) (BNO) immigration route. Of the grants issued, £39,990 went to Wai Yin Society, a charity that runs three community centres in Manchester. In…
China, Myanmar and now Darfur … the horror of genocide is here again | Simon Tisdall
It’s happening again. In Darfur, scene of a genocide that killed 300,000 people and displaced millions 20 years ago, armed militias are on the rampage once more. Now, as then, they are targeting ethnic African tribes, murdering, raping and stealing with impunity. “They” are nomadic, ethnic Arab raiders, the much-feared “devils on horseback” – except now they ride in trucks. They’re called the Janjaweed. And they’re back. How is it possible such horrors can be repeated? The world condemned the 2003 slaughter. The UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC)…
China is state most dangerous to its own citizens’ civil rights, report finds
China has been ranked as the worst country in the world for safety from the state and the right to assembly, in a human rights report that tracks social, economic and political freedoms. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), a New Zealand-based project, has been monitoring various countries’ human rights performance since 2017. In 2022, HRMI started tracking freedom of religion and belief for the first time. China also scored worst on this indicator, although the pilot study only covered nine countries. HRMI concluded that on several measures China was…
From the archive: How Hong Kong caught fire: the story of a radical uprising – podcast
We are raiding the Guardian Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors This week, from 2020: Hong Kong used to be seen as cautious, pragmatic and materialistic. But protests have transformed the city. As Beijing tightens its grip, how much longer can the movement survive? How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know The Guardian
Number of people prosecuted in China’s courts up 12% in five years, report shows
Chinese courts prosecuted 8.3 million people in the five years to 2022, a 12% increase on the previous period. There was also a nearly 20% increase in the number of protests against court rulings. The figures released by the supreme people’s procuratorate (SPP) in March give a glimpse of how China’s notoriously opaque justice system has operated in recent years, amid a tightening domestic security environment. Zhang Jun, the outgoing director of the SPP, said prosecutions for violent crimes decreased by 31.7%, while prosecutions for internet-based crimes, such as gambling,…
Chinese activist sentenced to eight years on subversion charges
A Chinese court has sentenced a prominent rights activist to eight years in jail on subversion charges in what he said was a “score-settling” punishment for his two decades of rights advocacy. Yang Maodong, who goes by the pen name Guo Feixiong, was sentenced on Thursday by the Guangzhou intermediate people’s court for “inciting subversion of state power,” his brother Yang Maoquan wrote on social media. Repeated phone calls to the court went unanswered on Friday. The court jailed Yang for his “long-term attack and smearing of the Chinese political…
‘My time in the UK has been a disaster’: Hongkongers fear deportation after years left in limbo
In March 2021, less than one month after his 18th birthday, Lawson* made a decision that would change the course of his life for ever. The previous year had been tumultuous in Hong Kong. Lawson, like millions of other Hongkongers, had taken to the streets to participate in pro-democracy protests against the influence of the Chinese Communist party, which was seeking to tighten its grip on the territory. He had been forced by police to kneel on the ground as he choked on teargas at the siege of Hong Kong…