SW News: Ten human rights groups have called on the European Union to suspend its upcoming human rights dialogue with the Chinese government, given the magnitude of the crisis, including its potential responsibility for crimes against humanity in the Xinjiang region.

In a February 15, 2023 letter, ten human rights groups urged the EU to continue to suspend the human rights dialogues with China until conditions are met for tangible outcomes and progress. They also sought to set up an independent, international investigative mechanism into crimes against humanity targeting Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim communities and a wider, regular monitoring and reporting process at the UN Human Rights Council on the Chinese government’s human rights violations.

Many feel that the EU’s human rights dialogues with China have become increasingly meaningless because both sides know that Beijing can make no commitment and get away with it.

According to Human Rights Watch, repression deepened across China in 2022. Xi Jinping secured an unprecedented third term as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, making him the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. Authorities continued to harass, detain, and prosecute human rights defenders. In December 2021, authorities in Jilin province forcibly disappeared human rights lawyer Tang Jitian. In September, Dong Jianbiao, the father of Dong Yaoqiong, who authorities disappeared for splashing ink on a poster of President Xi Jinping in 2018, died in a prison in Hunan province. Shenyang-based human rights lawyer Li Yuhan, who had been detained since 2017, was reportedly ill-treated by detention center authorities and was seriously ill.

The EU should openly demand the release of activists and human rights defenders who have been unlawfully detained, as well as an end to China's ruthless persecution in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong. Ilham Tohti, the recipient of the Sakharov Award, Gui Minhai, a Swedish publisher, Guo Feixiong, He Fangmei, Dorjee Tashi, a Tibetan businessman, Chow Hang-tung, a Hong Kong attorney and activist, Gao Zhisheng, Ding Jiaxi, Chang Weiping, and others are among them.