Australia and New Zealand have raised deep concerns about human rights abuses against Muslim minorities in China. Citing “the growing number of credible reports” of severe violations, both countries’ foreign ministers say the abuses are occurring in the Xinjiang region. The violations include “restrictions on freedom of religion, mass surveillance, large-scale extra-judicial detentions, as well Read more
Uighurs and other Muslim minorities would be given the right to petition a UK high court judge to declare that genocide is taking place in China, requiring the UK government to curtail trade ties with Beijing, under proposals brought by MPs and peers. The cross-party parliamentary revolt is causing deep concern in government, where there Read more
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has hit out at Pope Francis following the news that diplomats from the Holy See are meeting later this month with members of the Chinese Communist Party to renew a two-year-old agreement between China and the Vatican. Though the Middle Kingdom nominally adheres to the principle of religious freedom, it Read more
For almost a decade, Laos has been warned that its extravagant spending spree on infrastructure carried enormous financial risks that threatened to undermine its sovereignty and efforts to raise living standards among the poor. Those warnings fell on deaf ears as Vientiane — hell-bent on becoming the “Battery of Asia” — borrowed heavily and built Read more
A Uyghur woman who worked as a doctor in China has told a British news network that she participated in forced abortions and sterilizations at the behest of the Chinese government. The woman, who was not identified but was seen from behind on camera, told ITV that she was sharing her story in an effort Read more
Forced abortion and infanticide are being used to carry out China’s family planning policies, according to a former hospital worker in China’s Xinjiang province. Hospitals regularly force late-term abortions on Uyghur women and kill newborn Uyghur babies, says Hasiyet Abdulla, who presently lives in Turkey. Abdulla is one of many Uyghurs who have fled to Read more
There was some excitement in Hong Kong’s under-pressure independent media on Aug. 7 when it came to light that Catholic education authorities had urged schools to follow nationalistic new practices introduced on the back of tough new national security legislation. But this seemed to have buried the real story — the short and medium-term future Read more
China’s Uyghur genocide must end, say 76 signatories. The cardinals of Myanmar and Indonesia are among the signatories of a statement calling for action to stop “one of the most egregious human tragedies since the Holocaust: the potential genocide of the Uyghurs and other Muslims in China.” Uyghur genocide and other atrocity crimes are known Read more
The Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission has launched a campaign of cyber checks across China to crack down on what it considers “the illegal activities” of commercial websites and media outlets. Although the campaign claims to target commercial web platforms, websites and social media accounts managed by church people have also been affected Read more
The Chinese Communist Party is offering monetary rewards to those who report the presence of home churches in their communities, the magazine Bitter Winter reported on Thursday. The rewards appear to be an expansion of a program already in place in the province of Heilongjiang, reported earlier this year. In the city of Nenjiang, residents Read more