Situation in Hong Kong, re-education camps in Xinjiang, Internet censorship ... The Chinese government is using its economic power to attack the international human rights protection system with unprecedented intensity, Human Rights Watch organization said on Tuesday. calling on democracies to respond.
"The Chinese government is carrying out an intense offensive against the international system for the protection of human rights", "the most intense that we have seen since the emergence of this system in the mid-twentieth century", said from New York Kenneth Roth, executive director of the NGO by presenting its annual report, which covers around a hundred countries.
"Orwellian state"
In China, the Communist Party has built "a high-tech Orwellian police state and a sophisticated system of internet censorship to monitor and suppress public criticism," writes Kenneth Roth in this 650-page document, which notably denounces "the nightmarish "system of repression against Muslims in Xinjiang.
Abroad, the Chinese government "uses its growing economic influence to muzzle critics," the organization said. "If other governments commit serious human rights abuses, no other government shows the muscles with so much vigor and determination to undermine international human rights standards and the institutions that could support them," said- she.
Kenneth Roth had hoped to present this scathing report from Hong Kong. But he was turned back on Sunday when he arrived in this semi-autonomous territory, shaken for seven months by pro-democracy demonstrations which denounce Beijing's growing interference in the affairs of the former British colony.
UN and EU pinned
Human Rights Watch denounces the inaction, or even the complicity, of other countries in the face of this "existential threat" that Beijing poses to human rights, according to her. "Several governments that could be counted on to have their foreign policy defended human rights at least part of the time have largely abandoned this cause," the organization said.
"Some leaders like US President Donald Trump, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are bridging the same set of laws protecting human rights as China, galvanizing their public by fighting" globalists "who dare to suggest that all governments should meet the same standards. "
The European Union, "occupied by Brexit, handicapped by nationalist member states and divided over migrants" also takes it for its rank, no longer defending human rights as before. HRW notably criticizes French President Emmanuel Macron for "not having mentioned human rights publicly" during his visit to China in November.
The leaders of the UN, where Beijing is doing everything to prevent the situation in Xinjiang from being discussed, are also singled out. Kenneth Roth criticizes his secretary general, Antonio Guterres, in particular for not wanting to "publicly demand that China put an end to the mass imprisonment of Muslims" in Xinjiang. More generally, HRW accuses governments, companies and universities of preferring to keep quiet rather than risk losing access to the huge Chinese market.
- World