Archived

Here is the full report: TCHRD 2025 Annual Report on the Human Rights Situation in Tibet (pdf)

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) launched its 2025 Annual Report on the Human Rights Situation in Tibet.

[...]

In 2025, Tibet continued to remain one of the least free places in the world, receiving a Global Freedom Score of 0 out of 100 by Freedom House.

Under the continued leadership of Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party expanded policies aimed at reshaping Tibetan identity through tighter legal regulation, political indoctrination, heightened surveillance, and systematic cultural assimilation.

[...]

The year witnessed intensified state interference in Tibetan religious life and institutions. New measures further consolidated Party control over monasteries and religious practices, requiring monastic institutions to align more closely with CCP ideology. Heightened restrictions surrounding the 90th birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama illustrated the extent of China’s fear of Tibetan religious identity, as authorities imposed sweeping security measures, intensified censorship, and cracked down on displays of devotion to the Tibetan spiritual leader.

[...]

One of the most alarming cases documented during the reporting period involved the extrajudicial killing of Tibetan religious leader Tulku Hungkar Dorje in Viet Nam following his detention during a joint operation involving Chinese and Vietnamese authorities. The case raised grave concerns regarding China’s growing transnational repression and the targeting of Tibetan religious leaders and activists beyond its borders.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54229079

Data centers are an essential component of China’s expansive mass surveillance system in the Uyghur region, quietly processing biometric and behavioral data to target ethnic minorities — yet they remain the least scrutinized component of this digital architecture, even as compatibility with American technology continues to be required.

Archived

Here is the report: Hardwired Repression - Data Centers, Global Technology, and China’s Surveillance Infrastructure in the Uyghur Region (pdf)

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) operates one of the most expansive mass surveillance systems in the world, and data centers are its foundation. These facilities provide the physical infrastructure that stores, processes, and acts on the biometric data, communications records, and behavioral patterns used to monitor citizens, especially ethnic minorities. Despite significant international attention to forced labor, atrocity crimes, and surveillance in the Uyghur region, the digital backbone enabling those abuses has received comparatively little scrutiny.

Beijing’s “Eastern Data, Western Computing” initiative has accelerated this buildout, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has designated the region a “crucial component” of the Belt and Road Spatial Information Corridor, with plans to use the data centers in the Uyghur region to extend Chinese data infrastructure into Central Asia. The region simultaneously functions as a testing ground for digital authoritarianism: government records reveal comprehensive digitization of medical, educational, judicial, and administrative systems, with surveillance triggers that include indications of ethnic identity. Individuals identified as high risk can face interrogation, coercive labor, or detention.

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C4ADS’ analysis of 2024-2025 Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government documents found references to American and Taiwanese technology across data center projects in the region. Whether above or below export control thresholds, American and Taiwanese technology continues to flow into surveillance infrastructure targeting a population subject to documented atrocity crimes. Meaningful change will require action beyond the corporate level. C4ADS recommends adding China Telecom and its provincial subsidiaries to the Commerce Department’s Entity List and mandating post-shipment verification for dual-use technology exports destined for regions with documented records of atrocity crimes – with clearer liability standards for exporters whose hardware reaches military or intelligence-affiliated end users.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/52923837

May 2026 was set to mark a milestone as Zambia hosted the world’s premier digital rights conference for the first time in southern Africa, just months before its elections. Instead, the government delivered a masterclass in censorship by pulling the plug on RightsCon, compromising flag­­ship World Press Freedom Day celebrations in Lusaka and issuing a stark reminder of the fragility of digital rights and media freedom on the continent and around the globe.

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The 1,100 virtual delegates and 2,600 in-person attendees, many of whom were mid-transit, were blindsided. Adjacent events planned alongside RightsCon, including the World Press Freedom Day programme, were downgraded, and solidarity boycotts and withdrawals followed.

Organiser Access Now has pointed specifically to China’s hidden hand in leaning on Lusaka because Taiwanese representatives were due to attend the conference in person – ironically at the Chinese-built Mulungushi International Conference Centre, as Beijing fiercely guards its “One China ­policy” amid its expanding infrastructural presence.

Responding to queries this week, the Zambian government conceded that “diplomatic sensitivities” were among the considerations, along with “national interest and security concerns”. However, to attribute the reasons for “postponing” the conference to external Chinese influence were “mischaracterisations”.

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Zimbabwe-based Tabani Moyo, regional secretariat director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, warned that these heavy-handed actions could spread “like wildfire” to other African countries, which may now feel emboldened to suppress activities that may be deemed politically sensitive. Zambia had chosen political survival over short-term economic gain in the capital city, he said.

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Moyo, who travelled to Lusaka to participate in a World Press Freedom Day panel on digital transformation, AI and information integrity, said the fallout extended directly to digital rights and technological dependency, as the supply side of telecoms in the African context is increasingly reliant on Chinese infrastructure.

China has been steadily increasing its influence through digital infrastructure and surveillance spyware.

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China’s extension of soft-power efforts in Africa

In terms of media influence, China’s soft-power tactics in Africa date back at least a decade, as tracked by Herman Wasserman, the Centre for Information Integrity in Africa’s director, in various research studies ...

The Chinese Communist Party has invested heavily in the region’s news outlets, media advertising and training for African journalists to promote its narratives ...

In 2023, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua formed partnerships with several Zambian media outlets, exposing a new African audience to Beijing’s propaganda ...

In 2025, RSF described an “unprecedented SLAPP tactic” by Beijing to silence critics when the Chinese Chamber of Commerce obtained a gagging order to prevent the airing of a News Diggers! Documentary detailing the negative consequences of China’s commercial presence in Zambia.

China placed 177th out of 180 countries in the latest RSF World Press Freedom Index.

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53903311

The campaign of repression against the Uyghurs has entered a new phase.

Archived

In August 2024, the parents of Ekpar Asat made a long journey to a prison in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.

Asat, who belongs to the Uyghur ethnic group, was detained by authorities in April 2016 on charges of “inciting ethnic hatred”. The founder of a popular Uyghur-language website, he had recently returned from attending a prestigious leadership programme in the US.

The May visit was the first time Asat’s parents had seen him in person since his disappearance, and he had lost so much weight he was “unrecognisable”, his sister Rayhan later said.

The meeting lasted barely 10 minutes and was done through a glass window, according to human rights groups. The family was forced to speak in Chinese — a language Ekpar is fluent in, but his parents barely speak — and not permitted to show any emotion. “Prisoners have to be always happy,” Rayhan tells the FT.

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Analysis suggests that the Chinese state’s campaign of oppression against Uyghurs and their culture and identity has in fact entered a new phase. While many camps have shut, a vast network of prisons and detention centres remains, alongside pervasive surveillance and systems of coercive social control.

It shows Xinjiang has the world’s highest prison detention capacity relative to its population size — evidence that authorities continue to rely on mass incarceration. Researchers and rights groups say repression in the region now extends towards the long-term remaking of Uyghur society.

Beijing has expanded labour transfer programmes that move Uyghurs into factory work elsewhere in the country — schemes UN experts say can amount to forced labour. This places multinational corporations that work in China in a challenging situation, as Beijing is also making it increasingly difficult and dangerous for companies to perform due diligence in their supply chains so they do not target Uyghur rights.

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Researchers say the campaign reflects Beijing’s drive to assimilate Uyghurs into mainstream Han Chinese identity amid rising nationalism under Xi Jinping.

Uyghurs’ distinct language, culture and Islamic faith create a “degree of insecurity that has only intensified as China has begun taking this profoundly nationalistic turn”, says historian Hannah Theaker. “They just want to force them to be Chinese,” adds Peter Irwin, co-executive director of the Network for Uyghur Rights.

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Xinjiang is also strategically important to Beijing, as it straddles trade routes linking China to Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, while holding large reserves of coal, oil and gas. “They see it as an economic engine for the country,” Irwin says.

China continues to frame its policies in Xinjiang as essential to security and stability. In a speech last year, Xi stressed the need for readiness in “combating terrorism”. State media said Xi also called for religions to “conform to China’s realities” and for officials and ethnic groups to “develop a correct view” of the country, its history, nation, culture and religion.

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China tightly controls information from the region, censoring online material, restricting travel and intimidating Uyghurs abroad through threats against relatives back home. But the FT was able to gather a picture of the current situation from human rights observers, members of the diaspora, and people who recently left China and witnessed the mechanisms used to control Uyghurs.

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Human rights researchers believe many facilities remain occupied. More than 578,000 people were prosecuted in Xinjiang between 2017 and 2022, according to figures compiled by the Uyghur Human Rights Project from official data. Given China’s conviction rate of more than 99.9 per cent and the long prison terms handed down during the crackdown, researchers believe many of those sentenced are likely still imprisoned.

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The figures suggest that if Xinjiang were a country, it would have the highest incarceration rate in the world, at 1,944 per 100,000 people. China’s nationwide rate is 119 per 100,000 people, according to the World Prison Brief.

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Uyghurs interviewed by the FT say large parts of their families have been detained. Nureli Abliz, a former telecoms worker in Xinjiang, estimates that roughly 70 per cent of his extended family remain in custody.

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The campaign to assimilate Uyghurs into mainstream Han Chinese culture is reshaping a generation, particularly children separated from their families through Xinjiang’s vast boarding school system.

Boarding schools have long existed across the region, often justified by authorities as a way to provide education in rural areas. But official documents also describe them as a way to teach children Mandarin and “[block] the influence of the family’s religious atmosphere”.

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Uyghur activists say the removal of children from their families and communities is creating a “generation gap” in which many no longer understand their language and culture. Lessons are taught in Mandarin, and families say children are not allowed to speak Uyghur.

“Young children lose their language skills very quickly,” says Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur linguist and activist. In one family, he says, siblings learnt different Mandarin dialects from their respective teachers. “Now the children can’t communicate with one another.”

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A new law downgrades languages other than Mandarin, encourages inter-ethnic marriage and requires parents to raise children to “love the Chinese Communist Party”.

“Everything that once reflected Uyghur civilisation — our culture, our language — has been wiped out,” says a Uyghur man who recently visited the region from the US.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53852233

Archived

Here is the full report: Guarding the G7 - Countering Beijing's interference operations (pdf)

Canadian researchers are warning G7 countries of “systemic” Chinese foreign interference, particularly as technology and tactics evolve and Beijing’s agents embed themselves further into societies.

The report by the Montreal Institute for Global Security - released Wednesday, the day before Canada is set to welcome China’s foreign minister to Ottawa - calls on democracies to counter Chinese interference.

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"The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leverages a broad ecosystem of affiliated organizations, intermediaries, and informal networks that span political, economic, academic, and societal domains to influence and interfere in G7 countries," the report says.

"These actors often operate under the guise of legitimate exchange, enabling influence to be exercised in ways that are difficult to detect, attribute, or regulate."

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The Group of Seven (G7), comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, represents some of the world’s most advanced democracies and largest economies. As central pillars of the rules-based international order, G7 members are also prime targets for foreign interference.

Over the past decade, mounting evidence has highlighted the role of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front Work Department (UFWD) as a key instrument of influence across G7 countries. United front work is not simply a set of formal organizations, but a method of influence that operates through political, economic, academic, and societal channels.

While many activities occur under the banner of legitimate exchange and cooperation, investigations, intelligence disclosures, and parliamentary inquiries have revealed patterns consistent with covert influence, elite capture, and transnational repression, the report says.

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In a related report by Canadian media outlet Global News, Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Global Affairs, said he and other experts support Canada pursuing trade with China and other countries like India that have been accused of foreign interference, but “we cannot be naive.”

“We’re dealing with states that have murdered Canadian citizens, that have harassed Canadian citizens, states that have stolen some of our top intellectual property,” Matthews said.

“We do have economic interests to expand. However, we cannot be blind.”

Dan Stanton, a former official with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service who is now the director of the national security program at the University of Ottawa, said the federal government needs to be transparent with Canadians — especially diaspora communities — that it still recognizes the risk of foreign interference.

“Canadians need to understand that the government has not forgotten, one hopes, and the government is still going to hold countries to account for what they’re doing,” he said.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53805497

Archived

Here is the report: From Watchdogs to Ideologues - How Politicized UN Rapporteurs Are Subverting Human Rights (pdf)

In November 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the system of Special Procedures as “the crown jewel of the UN human rights system.” Nearly two decades later, that jewel has lost much of its luster—tarnished by politicization, disregard for impartiality, and a complete failure of accountability to minimal norms and professional standards.

The Human Rights Council today maintains 59 Special Procedures mandates—46 dealing with global themes, and 13 addressing specific countries—an increase of nearly 30% from when the Council was created in 2006. Although Special Procedures are unsalaried, they receive certain financial support when carrying out official duties, including UN funding for country visits, as well as training, staffing support, and other institutional resources.

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Yet, like the body that appoints them—the 47-member Human Rights Council, a majority of whose members are non-democracies—the Special Procedures have become politicized. The mechanism increasingly functions not as an independent human rights safeguard, but as a vehicle for ideological advocacy, selective targeting, and the laundering of unverified and even spurious allegations through the authority of the United Nations.

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[According to a new report], the reality of the Special Procedures system increasingly diverges from the admiring scholarly assessments. Rather than operating as independent and impartial experts, many mandate-holders now use country visits and thematic reports to advance politicized narratives, disproportionately target democratic states, and shield authoritarian regimes from scrutiny. As detailed below, structural deficiencies—including politicized appointments, proliferation of mandates, weakened evidentiary standards, lack of transparency, and the absence of accountability—have eroded the credibility and integrity of the system in practice.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53574583

Internships are mandatory for the roughly 4 million children who graduate from secondary vocational schools each year. But some internships involve hazardous conditions – and even death.

Archived

A 16-year-old vocational student arrived at a factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, for an internship. He worked 11-hour shifts – days and nights, weekdays and weekends – processing car parts. A 17-year-old began an internship at a technology company’s factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, logging more than 10 hours a day hauling heavy boxes. Another 17-year-old, assigned to an electronics manufacturing factory in Jiangxi Province, January 2022, worked 12-hour shifts.

Internships are mandatory for graduation from secondary vocational schools across China. But tragically these three young people did not finish their education. Despite expressing severe distress to factory managers and teachers, all three died during their internships, two by suicide, and one of serious illness that had progressed too far before receiving adequate medical care.

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These were not workplace accidents in any ordinary sense. For vocational school students, internships are supposed to help build career skills for the roughly 4 million children who graduate each year. But new research by the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) shows that some internships involve hazardous conditions for student interns: long hours, vulnerability to work injuries, inappropriate work assignments, inadequate protection mechanisms, all in violation of domestic and international law.

That same research – drawing on news reports, court records, and government notices – also found companies in manufacturing, entertainment, and services are hiring children under 16 to work in spite of clear legal prohibitions. In one case, a 13-year-old child working at a garment factory in Hebei Province fell, suffering fractures, and skin damage requiring graft surgery. In July 2024 alone, authorities in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, issued 39 administrative penalty notices to companies for child labor violations.

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But the true scale of these abuses almost certainly exceeds what is officially recorded or reported by state media or legal bodies, because that depends on victims and their families coming forward – a step many are unwilling to take given the risk of government retaliation.

That gap is precisely why international oversight matters. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) have repeatedly called on Beijing to document violations and release disaggregated data on child labor, but the Chinese authorities have not complied. No publicly available disaggregated data exists to assess how many children have been subject to child labor abuse, or whether any remedies have been applied.

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Foreign governments, too, have a role to play. The goods and services flowing from China, from clothing to electronics, touch the lives of consumers around the world – and so do the conditions under which they are produced.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53526868

Fewer Tibetans are seeking exile, as escaping Beijing-controlled Tibet has become more complicated and dangerous. The drop raises questions about preserving the future of Tibetan culture.

Web Archive link

For decades, the steady flow of Tibetans escaping across the Himalayas into India and Nepal served as a barometer of conditions inside Tibet.

From the late 1990s through the mid‑2000s, several thousand Tibetans sought exile every year, bringing firsthand accounts of political restrictions, cultural pressures and daily life under Chinese rule.

But data from the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, the de facto capital of Tibetans in exile where the 14th Dalai Lama also resides, has revealed a collapse in the number of newly arrived Tibetans

Between 1995 and 1999, more than 12,000 Tibetans successfully sought exile. In the past five years, that number has plummeted to just 81.

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With fewer Tibetans able to leave, independent information is becoming scarcer. That has made Beijing's policies, like religious regulation, language reforms, or rural relocation, more opaque to the outside world.

This comes as Beijing is increasingly promoting its own narratives on development and stability in Tibet.

Lobsang, a middle-aged man who left Tibet in 2010, said the drop in the number of exiles comes as China has tightened its grip.

"Since 2008, the security architecture within Tibet has undergone a total transformation," he told DW.

"What we see now is a high-tech surveillance web where every village, every monastery and every household is monitored. Reaching the border is now nearly impossible for the average Tibetan," he added.

[...]

The data suggests that the steepest drop in exiles began after large-scale protests in 2008 that spread across Tibet ahead of the Beijing Summer Olympics, prompting a heavy security response from Chinese authorities.

In the years that followed, Beijing expanded policing, digital surveillance and border enforcement across the Tibetan Plateau.

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Despite recent developments, human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have regularly documented increased restrictions on movement, religious activity and communication in Tibetan regions alongside Beijing-backed development.

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Nepal aligns more with China

Along with changes within Tibet, the geopolitical calculations of neighboring Nepal have also had an effect on the number of exiles, said ORF's Kumar.

The Himalayan mountain crossings in the Tibet-Nepal border were once a key transit route for Tibetans heading to India. Under an informal agreement mediated by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, Nepal allowed Tibetans safe passage to India.

However, as China's economic and geopolitical influence over Nepal has grown through the Belt and Road Initiative, Nepal has increasingly aligned its border policies with Beijing's preferences.

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"Crossing the border today is fundamentally different and harder from what it was 20 years ago. Since 2008, Beijing has exerted heavy diplomatic pressure on Kathmandu. Consequently, since then, surveillance activity on the China-Nepal border has increased significantly," Kumar said.

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Beijing has also strengthened border enforcement along the Tibet-Nepal border, where joint patrols and closer security cooperation with Kathmandu have made it harder for new Tibetans to enter India.

Tibetans who managed to escape have said that access to safe routes through the Himalayas is declining.

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[Edit to insert amp-free links.]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53473839

Op-ed by Barbora Bukovská, Senior Director for Law and Policy at ARTICLE 19.

Archived

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On 29 April – days before RightsCon, the key global gathering of digital rights advocates, was due to open in Lusaka – the Zambian government announced a postponement that effectively cancelled the event. The Zambian government stands accused of giving in to China’s pressure over the participation of people from Taiwan. The event had been set to bring over 2,600 participants to sub-Saharan Africa for the first time, with another 1,100 joining online. Instead, it became the latest casualty of growing authoritarian pressure on the spaces where civil society convenes.

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The cancellation lays bare how emboldened China feels to globalise its political red lines and exercise transnational repression. For years, it has applied pressure on governments to sideline Taiwanese participation in multilateral forums. Taiwan’s leading role in digital rights and technology has long irritated China. What’s new is other governments’ willingness to yield.

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China’s leverage across Africa has grown substantially in recent years. Chinese funding has built major infrastructure in Zambia, including Mulungushi International Conference Centre, the venue where RightsCon was due to take place. Only days before the cancellation, China signed a new agreement to fund further development projects. Zambia carries roughly US$5 billion in debt to China, and that dependency comes with strings attached.

Domestically, the picture is similarly bleak. Despite President Hakainde Hichilema being elected in 2021 on a promise of democratic renewal, civic space has shrunk steadily since. In 2025, parliament passed cybersecurity laws now used to curtail freedom of expression online and detain political opponents. Ahead of the August 2026 general election, the government is enacting further laws designed to entrench its power. Political control is winning out over democratic commitments.

Yielding to Chinese pressure while restricting civic space at home calls Zambia’s commitment to the rule of law and human rights into serious doubt. The debt creates a channel through which China can extract political cooperation. Together, these dynamics create a dangerous precedent for other global south nations facing similar pressure.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53426860

Hong Kong and Macau were once the only places in China where people could publicly mourn Beijing's deadly crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Defendants Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, were leaders of a now-defunct group called the Hong Kong Alliance that arranged an annual candlelight vigil in the city's Victoria Park for decades.

However, Beijing imposed a national security law on the former British colony in 2020 after huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests the year before.

Lee and Chow were arrested in 2021 and are standing trial for "incitement to subversion", which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.

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Erik Shum, a defence lawyer representing Lee, told the court that the Alliance's "end one-party rule" slogan did not mean it intended to overthrow Communist Party leadership.

"It does not target the Communist Party, no matter which party is in power... it should not be a dictatorship," Shum said.

He told the three-judge panel that the court must not pay "lip service" to human rights, adding that the right to criticise state organs is protected by China's constitution.

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The Alliance was founded in May 1989 to support the democratic movement led by students and workers in Beijing.

Its key tenets included "building a democratic China" and "ending one-party rule".

[...]

Archived

The full report: Death sentences and executions 2025 (pdf)

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Iranian authorities, the main drivers behind the spike, executed at least 2,159 people, more than double its 2024 figure. Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia raised its execution tally to at least 356, using the death penalty extensively for drug-related offences. Executions in Kuwait almost tripled (from 6 to 17), while they near doubled in Egypt (from 13 to 23), Singapore (from 9 to 17), and the United States of America (from 25 to 47).

Overall, executions rose by 78%, after at least 1,518 executions were recorded in 2024. The 2025 total does not include the thousands of executions that Amnesty International believes continued to be carried out in China, which remained the world’s lead executioner.

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"A shameless minority are weaponizing the death penalty to instill fear, crush dissent and punish marginalized communities," says Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

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While executions surged, executing countries remain an isolated minority. China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, USA, Viet Nam and Yemen are the same 10 countries known to have carried out executions every year in the last five years and that have consistently shown disregard for safeguards established under international human rights law and standards.

Four countries resumed executions last year (Japan, South Sudan, Taiwan and United Arab Emirates), bringing the total number of executing countries to 17.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53334202

Archived

Here is the full report (pdf).

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Companies are at a growing risk of finding themselves in a ‘double bind’, caught between international standards and Chinese law, the UK-based think tank China Strategic Risks Institute (CSRI) writes in a report.

"Nowhere is this clearer than in the field of data protection. While a number of jurisdictions are developing increasingly aligned data protection safeguards, such as the General Data Protection Regulation in the EU and UK, the Personal Data Protection Act in Singapore, and Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information, PRC [People's Republic of China] law explicitly overrides such regulations by requiring companies to hand over private data to authorities when requested to do so," the report says.

[...]

Since the advent of the Hong Kong National Security Law in 2020, foreign firms – particularly banks – are routinely pressured by PRC authorities to place restrictions on the ability of dissidents living overseas to access bank accounts and other financial services. Companies should be prepared for these requests to become more frequent, as the PRC intensifies ‘transnational repression’ against other groups, and through other means. For example, under extraterritorial clauses, PRC authorities may request access to the personal data of dissidents abroad held by foreign companies, or to remove social media accounts and content – which may put companies in breach of laws, regulations and ethical standards in their host countries.

[...]

As a result, businesses may be compelled to support acts of transnational repression, such as denying services to or providing personal information to PRC authorities on overseas dissidents and critics of the PRC government, contravening ethical guidelines, local laws and international human rights obligations.

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Several sitting members of the Human Rights Council are among the States showing weak cooperation with UN Special Procedures, whether by leaving country visit requests unanswered for years or by failing to provide substantive replies to communications. The pattern raises serious concerns about whether Council members are meeting the level of cooperation expected of States elected to the UN’s principal human rights body.

Archived

Data shows that some current Council members have accumulated high numbers of pending or declined visit requests over the past five years. Of the 13 States with 10 or more pending or declined requests during the period, nine currently sit on the Council.

China records the highest number, with 21 requests still awaiting confirmation.

Other States with high numbers that also happen to be current Council members include Indonesia (18), South Africa (17), India (17), and Kenya (14).

[...]

The concern is even greater where the unanswered requests come from mandates dealing with grave violations. The Special Rapporteur on torture and the Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances currently face the highest numbers of pending visit requests globally, with 40 and 38, respectively.

The Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders also faces persistent barriers to access, with 18 pending requests and two formal declines over the past five years. When access is withheld from mandates addressing these violations, allegations cannot be independently examined on the ground, victims lose visibility, and States avoid scrutiny in areas where accountability is most urgent.

Country visits are one of the UN’s most important tools for examining human rights conditions at the national level.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/49524156

Here is the study: Willing Accomplices: Gazprom & Rosneft's Role In The Transport and Indoctrination of Ukraine's Children (pdf)

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Russian state-owned energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft are directly involved in the transfer and political indoctrination of thousands of Ukrainian children, according to a report published by the Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab.

The report, Willing Accomplices: Gazprom & Rosneft's Role In The Transport and Indoctrination of Ukraine's Children (opens pdf), comes soon after U.S. President Donald Trump's decision this month to ease sanctions on Russian energy, notably to authorize the sale, delivery, or offloading of Russian-origin crude oil and petroleum products that were already loaded onto shipping vessels in an attempt to stabilize global energy markets amid disruptions from the Iran war.

Gazprom- and Rosneft-controlled subsidiaries and trade unions helped facilitate and sponsor the transport and re-education of Ukraine’s children through direct ownership of camps, provision of camp vouchers, and coordination of pro-Russia indoctrination. Three of the camps previously identified by Yale HRL were owned by Gazprom subsidiaries when children from Ukraine were present at these facilities. As of March 2026, two of the three camps still are owned by Gazprom subsidiaries.

It is worth noting that Gazprom and Rosneft have sponsored children from Russia to attend camps since as early as 2008. Additionally, at least 15 children from Ukraine were taken by Gazprom to the “Kubanskaya Niva” camp in 2015, which is owned by Gazprom subsidiary Gazprom Dobycha Urengoy. However, the energy companies' involvement into this illegal activities have been increasing since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"What this report demonstrates for the first time is that Gazprom and Rosneft, two of Russia’s most critical oil and gas companies, are willing accomplices in this interconnected web of diverse entities," the report concludes.

Key findings:

• Children from Ukraine have been taken to at least six camps in Russia and Russia-occupied Crimea, including three camps owned by Gazprom subsidiaries as recently as 2025.

• At least 2,158 children from the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts of Ukraine were taken to camps owned by Gazprom subsidiaries and/or sponsored by Gazprom and Rosneft subsidiaries and trade union organizations to attend these or other pro-Russia camps beginning in 2022.

• At least 1,072 children from Russia-occupied Ukraine received vouchers from Gazprom subsidiaries and trade union organizations to attend pro-Russia camps in 2022 and 2023.

• Rosneft Trade Union sponsored 100 children from Ukraine to attend three camps in 2023, including: “Kubanskaya Niva” camp, “Art-Quest” camp, and A.V. Kazakevich Children’s Health camp.

• Gazprom subsidiaries facilitated the pro- Russia re-education of Ukraine’s children.

At least 80% of Russian Federation-affiliated entities involved in the activities described in this report are not currently under sanction by the United States or Europe. Yale HRL identified 44 entities – including camps, oil and gas subsidiaries, trade unions, and high-level company directors – involved in the transport and/or re-education of Ukraine’s children. Among the 44 entities identified, 35 (80%) are not currently subjected to sanctions by the United States or Europe, six entities are subject to sanctions by the United States and European countries, and three entities have an unknown sanction status.

...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/52490541

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/52490230

UK foreign aid helped to develop Chinese fossil fuel extraction in a region where the oil sector is associated with forced labour risks, a new investigation has found.

Archived

The UK funded the regional government in Xinjiang, China to develop carbon capture technology during the height of its mass internment of Uyghur Muslims, a new investigation has revealed.

The investigation was conducted by Land and Climate Review [...] uncovered data from deleted UK government webpages that show quarterly Foreign Office payments between 2016-2018 “to support the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Development and Reform Commission to systematically assess and identify regional Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) development opportunities, and build capacity for CCUS development in Xinjiang”.

CCUS is a technology designed to reduce pollution from power plants. It uses chemical filters to remove carbon dioxide gas from smokestack emissions. Xinjiang is a major fossil-fuel region for China, containing approximately a third of the country’s onshore oil and gas reserves.

[...]

Laura Murphy, whose research into Uyghur abuses led to a Chinese intimidation campaign now being investigated by counter-terrorism police in the UK, said that the internment of Uyghurs “really ramped up” in 2016. “For the years between at least 2016 and 2020, there was a system of mass internment and arbitrary detention that affected upwards of a million people in the Uyghur region.”

The academic at Sheffield Hallam University said the UK government “absolutely should have known” about this before the aid scheme ended in March 2018.

[...]

Labour transfer schemes – where Uyghurs from rural villages in Xinjiang were forcibly relocated to work across China – were headed by Xinjiang’s Development and Reform Commission as it was receiving UK funding to develop its energy sector. China denies such practices occur.

Zumretay Arkin, Vice President of the World Uyghur Congress, described the investigation findings as “deeply alarming”. She said “the Xinjiang Development and Reform Commission played a central role in the policies that enabled the mass transfer of Uyghur labour. Any cooperation with regional authorities should have been subject to the highest level of scrutiny.”

[...]

Moscow and Beijing are driving closer collaboration between authoritarian states and such networks help advance repression globally, according to researchers [at the] nonprofit Action for Democracy.

Here is the full report: Authoritarian Collaboration Index - Mapping the Global Autocratic Ecosystem (pdf)

The researchers built an index to track seven types of cooperation, including on funding, diplomatic activities, propaganda and tech sharing.

It found that China and Russia “sit at the center of global authoritarian collaboration” and were jointly involved in around half of all recorded activity. The report’s authors said that such cooperation generated compound returns because, for example, “surveillance infrastructure exported to one regime becomes a template for the next.”

• China and Russia sit at the heart of this axis of autocracy and, together with Iran, were respectively involved in nearly two-thirds of global “collaboration” events for the years 2024 to 2025.

• The authoritarian ecosystem extends far beyond China and Russia, with a mid-tier of regional powers and a long tail of smaller states and parties that sustain collaboration across narrower corridors.

• Authoritarian cooperation is becoming institutional: recurring forums, media alliances, and training platforms are hardening ad hoc coordination into durable infrastructure.

• Authoritarianism is also becoming routinised — practices like reciprocal sham election monitoring and cross-border dissident deportation now operate as low-friction, self-reinforcing defaults. And shared authoritarian imperatives consistently supersede ideological and religious divides, enabling cooperation between actors whose nominal worldviews would otherwise place them in opposition.

[...]

[China's] Belt and Road Initiative has likewise expanded beyond its origins as a development and investment vehicle to serve as a framework for media institutionalization. Beijing has promoted standing media alliances such as the Belt and Road News Network, designed to disseminate favorable content and coordinate a pro-BRI information environment through a multi-country membership model and recurring convenings. In the same vein, the Belt and Road Journalists Network provides for people-to-people information-sharing architecture, uniting nearly 1.7 million media professionals across participating states.

Crucially, these infrastructures are not confined to media collaboration.

[...]

As historian and democracy scholar Anne Applebaum has observed, contemporary authoritarian cooperation is often driven less by ideological convergence than by shared regime-security and elite-enrichment imperatives—namely, sustaining incumbency, protecting patronage networks, and shaping aspects of the international environment in ways that reduce external constraints.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/52357783

Archived

In recent years, Chinese official discourse has increasingly used the term “social governance” (社會管治) to describe policies in the Uyghur region (Xinjiang) of China. This seemingly neutral administrative language is quietly reshaping people’s perception of repression, genocide, forced assimilation, and social control.

[...]

Since 2016, the plight of the Uyghurs has drawn widespread international attention due to reports of mass detention, forced disappearances, extensive surveillance systems, and restrictions on religious and cultural life. Leaked government documents, testimonies from camp survivors, and multiple international investigations have made the region a central issue in global human rights discussions.

Chinese authorities have consistently described these policies as necessary measures to combat terrorism and maintain stability. However, United Nations human rights experts and international human rights organizations have repeatedly expressed serious concern about the scale of repression and its impact on Uyghur society.

In recent years, the official narrative surrounding the region has begun to shift. Detention facilities have become less visible in state media coverage, tourism campaigns highlighting the region’s landscapes and cultural heritage have re-emerged, and official reports increasingly portray the region as peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious.

[...]

When decoding Chinese official documents, a major key is to look for what officials avoid saying. This particular piece makes little reference to ethnic rights, religious freedom, language use, or cultural continuity. Nor does it acknowledge the concerns repeatedly raised by international observers.

The conflicts in the Uyghur region are not merely a matter of governance but also stem from history, demographic change, and political power structures.

According to data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the population of the Uyghur region in 1953 was approximately 4.87 million, of whom about 3.64 million — roughly 75 percent — were Uyghurs, while Han Chinese accounted for only about 6 percent. By 2010, however, Han Chinese made up roughly 40 percent of the population, while the Uyghur share had declined to around 46 percent.

Many researchers link this demographic transformation to decades of large-scale migration policies that encouraged settlement from China’s interior.

Although China formally operates a system of “regional ethnic autonomy (民族區域自治制),” the political structure tells a different story. The most powerful position in the region — the Communist Party secretary — is appointed by the central government, while the regional chairman, who is typically Uyghur, holds far less real authority.

Under such a structure, autonomy often exists more as a symbolic arrangement than as meaningful self-governance.

As a result, Uyghurs have increasingly been marginalized in their own homeland, not only politically but also in areas such as education, employment, and language use.

[...]

Governance in the post-violence era

The governance model emerging in the Uyghur region also reflects a broader transformation in contemporary authoritarian politics.

Repression does not always rely on visible coercion, as administrative systems, data technologies, social engineering, and policy language can gradually reshape social reality.

For many Uyghur families, the defining experience of recent years has not been open conflict but disappearance: across the Uyghur diaspora, countless people have lost contact with relatives back home. Many have been detained, sentenced, or simply vanished from public life.

The social governance system, presented as rational, benevolent, and successful in Chinese official discourse, is precisely engineered to deprive people of the ability to organize themselves, express their identity, and sustain their cultural life, thereby quietly normalizing repression in society.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/52240923

Here is the full report: Invisible Corners of the Factory Floor: Forced Labor in China’s Prisons (pdf)

A new report by China Labor Watch examines the issue of prison labor in China. Against the backdrop of increasing international attention, monitoring, and enforcement regarding systemic forced labor in China, the report aims to explore the institutional foundations of this practice within the Chinese prison system, analyze how prison-run enterprises embed products made by incarcerated laborers into global supply chains through multi-layer subcontracting, disguised registration, and local economic collaborations, and finally discuss the legal frictions and responsibility frameworks between Chinese prison labor practices and international human rights law and labor conventions.

[...]

- Institutionalized Logic of Coercion: Although labor is defined in legal texts as a means of “reform,” in practice it is directly tied to points-based evaluation systems and sentence reduction/parole decisions. This creates a structural incentive-and-sanction mechanism of “trading labor for freedom,” effectively undermining the voluntariness of labor.

- Dual Roles and Conflicts of Interest: Prison enterprises carry both judicial and economic functions. They are responsible for custody and rehabilitation while simultaneously acting as market actors accepting orders and generating revenue. These conflicting objectives often lead to weakened labor protections.

- Working Hour Limits are Systematically Relaxed: Although there are nominal limits such as “six days per week and eight hours per day,” exception clauses for “seasonal production” or “urgent tasks” are vaguely defined and lack external oversight, effectively creating a structural gateway for normalized overtime.

- Weak Labor Protection and Injury Compensation: Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) regulations are incomplete, and some cases show inadequate investment in protective equipment. Injury compensation is calculated based on prison labor stipends rather than social wage standards, resulting in significantly lower compensation. Channels for appeal and third-party medical assessment are extremely limited.

- Real Risks in Trade and Supply Chains: Despite formal export bans for prison-made products, such goods enter domestic and international markets through layered subcontracting and enterprise “rebranding.” Recent legislation, enforcement actions, and litigation within global business and human rights due diligence frameworks reveal that these risks are receiving increased recognition.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51870372

Archived

...

The family of human rights defender Yang Li, who recently spent 15 months in detention for her advocacy on land rights, says that her condition has deteriorated to end-stage kidney failure following prolonged inability to access medical care during and following her time in custody.

According to the family, since her release police have repeatedly blocked her travel to Beijing to receive potentially life-saving dialysis treatment, restricting her freedom of movement to her home in the eastern province of Jiangsu.

The ‘Two Sessions’ – annual meetings of Chinese Party and government leadership that set the tone for political, social and economic reforms for the year to come – began on Wednesday 4 March with the elite Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, while the regular, rubberstamp National People’s Congress (NPC) annual session started on Thursday.

“Keeping Yang Li from essential treatment is unconscionable. Denying urgent care to a critically ill woman – seemingly in retaliation for her peaceful advocacy – is a glaring violation of China’s duty to respect and fulfil the right to health of all,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director.

“As China’s leaders gather for the ‘Two Sessions’, we expect to hear about their commitment to improving peoples’ lives and ensuring social services; this must be matched by action and applied to all.

[...]

Yang Li, 46, is a land rights defender from Jintan, Jiangsu, who for years has pursued lawful channels to challenge land expropriation by local government and related human rights abuses. She was detained for her work between October 2024 and December 2025, during which time she allegedly faced torture and was denied medical treatment in violation of international standards, namely the Mandela Rules, which make clear that prisoners should enjoy the same standards of health care as non-incarcerated individuals.

Civil society groups following the case say police repeatedly blocked Yang’s attempts to reach Peking University No. 1 Hospital in January 2026 and confiscated phones from her and her father.

[...]

It appears that Yang did manage to make it to Beijing in early February. A hospitalization notice for Yang Li was issued by Peking University No. 1 Hospital on 11 February, but the activist was not admitted and has since been forcibly returned once again by the police to Jiangsu, where the family fears further refusal of appropriate care.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51811171

Archived

From March 1, a new law is in effect in Uyghur region — and it tells government workers what they cannot say, where they cannot travel, and who they cannot talk to, for the rest of their lives if necessary. It orders villages to appoint secrecy officers. It requires artificial intelligence to monitor what information leaves government systems. And it makes clear that anyone who talks — to a journalist, a foreign government, a human rights investigator — may be committing a crime.

China already has a national state secrets law. Every province is bound by it. So when the region’s legislature passed its own separate secrecy regulation on November 26, 2025, the question human rights advocates immediately asked was: why does the region need one of its own?

Yalkun Uluyol, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, offered a direct answer.

“China has a state secret law,” he said. “But Xinjiang authorities had to enact a new one to hide its crimes against humanity. The new law provides new enforcement mechanisms, including travel restrictions for officials and state secret offices at local institutions.”

The regulation took effect on March 1, 2026.

[...]

Among its most significant provisions is one that targets the people most likely to know what has happened inside region’s detention system: the officials who ran it. Under Article 32, any government worker who leaves a position with access to classified information enters what the law calls a “demystification period.” During that time, they are barred from traveling abroad. They cannot emigrate. They cannot speak publicly about what they know in any form.

For years, the testimony of former officials and guards has been among the most important evidence used by researchers documenting abuses in what Beijing calls “vocational training centers.” This law creates a legal wall around those people.

The law also reaches far down into ordinary Uyghur life. Article 5 requires township governments and neighborhood committees — the grassroots structures that in the region already function as instruments of community surveillance — to formally appoint secrecy management personnel. These are the same bodies that have been documented knocking on doors, monitoring prayer habits, and reporting families for contact with relatives abroad. They are now, under this law, official nodes in a secrecy enforcement network.

[...]

Perhaps the most technically far-reaching provision is Article 24, which requires agencies to treat aggregated data as classified even when individual pieces of it are not. Demographic records, birth statistics, religious registration data — the very datasets that independent researchers and UN investigators have used to document what has happened to Uyghurs — could under this article be sealed entirely.

[...]

For the families of the disappeared, for the former detainees who have already spoken, and for those inside the region who have not yet found a way to, the law arrives with a message that needs no translation: what you know about this place is a secret. And it belongs to the state.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51758910

Archived

In the name of promoting inter-ethnic harmony, China is to force dozens of ethnic minorities within the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to assimilate into Han-dominated society by enacting a landmark law during the upcoming fourth session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) which opens on Mar 5. The law will require ethnic minorities to use Mandarin Chinese as their main language of instruction, overturning decades-old policies that date back to the era of Mao Zedong, noted ft.com Mar 3.

[...]

The sweeping law marks the latest effort in a signature “Sinicization” campaign under Chinese leader Xi Jinping and prescribes legal action against anyone, inside or outside the country, who undermines “national unity” or provokes “separatism”.

The so-called Han majority accounts for more than 90% of the PRC’s population of 1.4 billion and the country’s constitution recognises 55 ethnic minorities, and a dozen languages — some with their own written scripts — and hundreds of dialects.

Under the new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, while minority languages may still be taught as a second language, groups such as Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians will no longer be entitled to use their native tongues for core subjects in schools and universities, the report noted.

[...]

The new law “overturns the multicultural promises upon which China was founded”, moving from “an idea of unity through difference or unity through pluralism, to one of unity through sameness, through the elimination of difference”, Benno Weiner, a historian of modern China, Tibet and Inner Asia at Carnegie Mellon University, has said.

“The conclusion that Xi Jinping and others seem to have come to is that diversity is dangerous.”

[...]

Worryingly, one clause in the new law is cited as saying only the state has the right to promote “a system of symbols of Chinese civilisation”, which can be used “in public facilities and architectural design, scenic area exhibitions, place naming and public activities”. Such policies, if enforced, meant there was “no way” that non-Han people would be able to safely express “any type of discontent without being accused of being essentially separatists or terrorists,” Weiner has said.

[...]

173 nations ratified the https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights — a binding framework protecting the right to work, healthcare, education, and an adequate standard of living.

The United States signed it in 1977. Nearly fifty years later, the Senate has never held a ratification vote. The only other signatories that haven't ratified: Palau and Comoros.

Why this matters now: Artificial intelligence functions as narrow superintelligence for software labor. It removes constraints that previously bounded economic activity — triggering demand explosions bounded by new bottlenecks (regulation, energy, trust, human judgment). Who benefits from that transformation depends entirely on whether legal frameworks exist to distribute the gains.

No person should lose access to healthcare because automation eliminated their job. No worker should face poverty wages while AI generates record corporate profits. The treaty that addresses this already exists. It just needs ratification.

What we built: A full differential diagnosis of AI's economic impact, four orders of knock-on effects, and what ICESCR ratification would actually change. Fair witness methodology — every claim sourced, every inference marked as inference, open data, full revision history on GitHub.

• Main analysis: https://unratified.org/
• Blog (ongoing developments): https://blog.unratified.org/
• Source code + revision history: https://github.com/safety-quotient-lab/unratified

Built by a Claude Code agent, directed by a human maintainer. Apache 2.0 (code) + CC BY-SA 4.0 (content). The site runs on open standards — no tracking scripts, no paywalls, no walled gardens.

The analysis serves five audiences: voters looking to act, policymakers evaluating obligations, developers building on the data, educators using the materials, and researchers examining the methodology. Each page adapts its framing to the reader.

How to help: Contact your senators about the ICESCR. Most have never received a single constituent letter about this treaty. Template letters and talking points at https://unratified.org/action/.

[This is an opinion piece by Rayhan Asat, a human rights lawyer of Uyghur descent, an international law scholar at Harvard Law School and a senior legal and policy advisor at the Atlantic Council Strategic Litigation Project.]

Web archive link

At Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney drew applause for his plea to middle powers to “build a new order that encompasses values.” ... It was also deeply painful to see Carney feted for his “principled pragmatism” only days after he visited China to forge a new strategic partnership, devoid of any mention of human rights concerns.

...

Carney’s embrace at Davos and his appeal to deal with the “world as it is, not as we wish it to be” left me with the question: Will the “new” world order he’s advertising protect everyone, or only those whose suffering is not inconvenient? The old order certainly didn’t. Treating human rights as separate from trade, as if mass atrocity can be compartmentalized to appease China, may have safeguarded commercial interests and avoided friction in the short-term—but it also helped normalize the intolerable.

It’s been 10 years since China began building a sprawling system of concentration camps—designed to bury atrocities behind bureaucracy and beyond tourists’ gaze.

...

It’s been three years since the U.N.’s foremost human rights body determined China is committing crimes against humanity. Carney and his “middle power” peers can hardly claim that they didn’t know.

But what happens when China’s façade becomes useful? Even for leaders of the democratic world, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently visited China, it allows suffering to be acknowledged just enough to be set aside, framed as a difference in systems rather than a violation that demands consequence. Public pressure is muted, accountability deferred and appeals for justice quietly absorbed into diplomatic language.

...

It's not just Uyghurs; there are Tibetans, Hong Kongers. International law has never protected Taiwan. Its security rests not on legal norms, but on strategic necessity—especially its dominance in advanced semiconductor chips.

Carney argued that middle powers need to unite to hedge against stronger countries, because what we’re living through is not a transition but a rupture in the rules-based order ... The deeper irony is that leaders of the Global South, including President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s advisor, argued that Brazil would continue working with Europe, China and others who champion multilateralism and international law. It’s unfathomable to square China's status as a champion with its promotion of what Professor Tom Ginsburg described as authoritarian international law.

...

An international legal order worth its name is more than just policing borders and battlefields. It must serve as a shield for those hidden from sight, protecting them from the machinery of disappearance, torture, cultural erasure and similar threats.

...