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<\/a><\/p>\nMarco Respinti<\/em><\/p>\n Finally, the European Union (EU) gets things rolling. On April 18, during its plenary session, the\u00a0European Parliament (EP) approved an urgent resolution<\/a>\u00a0requesting attention on the awful situation of\u00a0human rights<\/a>\u00a0in China and requiring action, notably, on behalf of religious and ethnic minorities.<\/p>\n Particularly important and to the point are a few provisions in the text. Drawing on previous documents, Article 2 of the new resolution \u201c[c]alls on the Chinese Government to immediately end the practice of arbitrary detentions, without any charge, trial or conviction for criminal offence, of members of the Uyghur and Kazakh minority and Tibetans, to close all camps and detention centres and to release the detained persons immediately and unconditionally.\u201d<\/p>\n This is highly relevant, of course, because it acknowledges and mentions camps and detention centers. In fact, these are the infamous\u00a0transformation through education camps<\/a>, spread all over\u00a0Xinjiang<\/a>\u00a0(that many\u00a0Uyghurs<\/a>\u00a0prefer to call East Turkestan) and disguised by the Chinese Communist regime as \u201cprofessional and training schools,\u201d while in reality, they are concentration camps.<\/p>\n Happy with this result at the EP,\u00a0Mr. Dolkun Isa<\/a>, president of the\u00a0World Uyghur Congress<\/a>\u00a0in Munich, Germany, tells to\u00a0Bitter Winter<\/em>: \u201cIt was encouraging to see this relatively strong resolution passed today and to hear many MEPs and Ms. Mogherini state that human rights would not take a back seat to economic relations with China. We now call on the EU and its member states to implement this resolution and to back up rhetoric with concrete action.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Lucia Parrucci, in charge of China for the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO)<\/a>\u00a0in Brussels, expresses to\u00a0Bitter Winter<\/em>\u00a0UNPO\u2019s satisfaction, underlining the importance of the newly adopted document \u201con all minorities in China, especially after they passed an\u00a0emergency resolution on the Uyghurs only a few months ago, in October 2018<\/a>. The new urgent resolution is also all the more relevant because it comes just after\u00a0the recent 21st<\/sup>\u00a0EU-China Summit<\/a>. It\u2019s is very peculiar. And it means that the whole question of human rights and\u00a0religious liberty<\/a>\u00a0in China is now one of the priorities of the EU.\u201d<\/p>\n As a matter of fact, the resolution\u2019s strong Article 2 is echoed throughout the entire text of the document, where many more direct references are made to the unbearable situation of Uyghurs,\u00a0ethnic Kazakhs<\/a>\u00a0and other Muslim ethnic minorities who are regularly harassed and cracked down on.<\/p>\n Defending Muslim minorities, Tibetans, Falun Gong, and foreigners<\/strong><\/p>\n But not only. Particularly meaningful is Article 4, which extends the concern beyond Muslim groups and even names some prisoners of conscience unlawfully detained in China, asking Beijing to release them immediately: \u201c[\u2026] Uyghurs, including Ilham Tohti, Tashpolat Tiyip, Rahile Dawut, Eli Mamut, Hailaite Niyazi, Memetjan Abdulla, Abduhelil Zunun, and Abdukerim Abduweli; individuals persecuted for their religious beliefs, including Zhang Shaojie, Hu Shigen, Wang Yi, and Sun Qian; Tibetan activists, writers and religious figures who face criminal charges or have been imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression, including Tashi Wangchuk and Lobsang Dargye.\u201d<\/p>\n Tibetan Buddhists<\/a>\u00a0are extensively mentioned in Article 8, which \u201c[c]alls on the Chinese authorities to uphold the linguistic, cultural, religious and other fundamental freedoms of Tibetans, and to refrain from settlement policies in favour of the Han people and to the disadvantage of the Tibetans, as well as from forcing Tibetan nomads to abandon their traditional lifestyle.\u201d Article 9 \u201ccondemns the campaigns carried out via the \u2018patriotic education\u2019 approach, including measures to stage-manage Tibetan Buddhist monasteries; is concerned that China\u2019s criminal law is being abused to persecute Tibetans and Buddhists, whose religious activities are equated with \u2018separatism\u2019; deplores the fact that the environment for practising Buddhism in Tibet has worsened significantly after the Tibetan protests of March 2008, with the Chinese Government adopting a more pervasive approach to \u2018patriotic education.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Article 3 extends concern to other religious groups and \u201c[c]alls for the immediate release of arbitrarily detained people, prisoners of conscience, including practitioners of\u00a0Falun Gong<\/a>\u00a0and for a stop to be put to enforced disappearances, and insists that all individuals are able to choose their legal representative, have access to their family and to medical assistance, as well as have their cases investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n Christians are expressly defended in Article 7, which \u201c[c]alls on the Chinese authorities to end their campaigns against Christian congregations and organisations and to stop the harassment and detention of Christian pastors and priests and the forced demolitions of churches.\u201d<\/p>\n And Article 5 even touches on the delicate and urgent question of foreign nationals detained for political reasons in China (even if China makes excuses for that), calling \u201c[\u2026] for the immediate release of the Swedish national book publisher Gui Minhai and the two Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.\u201d<\/p>\n Now \u2013 action<\/strong><\/p>\n Just words, as usual, one may comment. No, not only. Not this time. At least in the intentions of the MEPs who passed this urgent resolution. In fact, the document urges to action the international community explicitly and the European Parliament specifically. Article 13 \u201c[c]alls on EU Member States to prevent any activities undertaken by the Chinese authorities in the EU\u2019s territory to harass members of Turkic communities, Tibetans and other religious or ethnic groups in order to compel them to act as informants, to force their return to China or silence them.\u201d And, very importantly, Article 14 \u201c[c]alls on the Chinese authorities to allow free, meaningful and unhindered access to Xinjiang\u00a0province<\/a>\u00a0and Tibet\u00a0Autonomous Region<\/a>\u00a0for journalists and international observers, including for the UN High Commissioner for\u00a0Human Rights<\/a>and UN Special Procedures; calls for the EU and the Member States to take the lead during the next session of the UN\u00a0Human Rights Council<\/a>\u00a0on a resolution establishing a fact-finding mission to Xinjiang.\u201d<\/p>\n If this happens, it will be a single significant accomplishment. In fact, recent visits by foreign delegations invited to Xinjiang appear to be staged travels for friends and allies.\u00a0China Daily has reported on the visits by observers<\/a><\/em>\u00a0from Pakistan, Venezuela, Cuba, Egypt, Cambodia, Russia, Senegal and Belarus in February 2019, astonishingly saying that they all \u201c[\u2026] spoke with trainees at vocational education and training centers, clerics and other members of the public during their visit\u201d (calling detention camps \u201cvocational education and training centers\u201d and detained \u201ctrainees\u201d is the Chinese regime\u2019s \u201cNewspeak\u201d) and all \u201c[\u2026] agreed that the Chinese government has made achievements in preventing terrorism, safeguarding the religious freedom of its citizens and conserving ethnic traditions and culture.\u201d After all, Chinese foreign ministry\u2019s spokesman,\u00a0Mr. Lu Kangs, defines Xinjiang \u201c[\u2026] an open place,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Pakistan states that Xinjiang\u2019s\u00a0detention camps have just been \u201csensationalized\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Saudi Arabia uncritically buys Beijing\u2019 lies on fighting \u201cterrorism\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in the region.<\/p>\n But even more action is envisioned in the resolution, as Article 20 calls on the European Council \u2012 which defines the EU\u2019s overall political direction and priorities, and it is now chaired by former Polish prime minister Donald Tusk \u2012 \u201c[\u2026] to consider adopting targeted sanctions against officials responsible for the crackdown in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.\u201d Similarly, Article 21 \u201c[c]alls for the EU, its Member States and the international community to halt all exports and technology transfers of goods and services that are being used by China to extend and improve its cyber surveillance and predictive profiling apparatus; is deeply concerned that China is already exporting such technologies to authoritarian states around the world.\u201d These are very important decisions, which go along the same line now followed by the US Administration after the lead, on the subject, of the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China invoking the\u00a0Global Magnitsky Act<\/a><\/em>\u00a0against the Chinese officials who are responsible for such horrendous atrocities and crimes against humanity. The situation is urgent, becoming more startling and appalling by the day, as\u00a0The New York Times has recently documented<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Having said that\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Bitter Winter<\/em>\u00a0has been\u00a0critical of the balancing act in which many MEPs<\/a>\u00a0seems to be involved regarding China and\u00a0warmly joined the international complaint on the unbearable situation<\/a>\u00a0of human rights and religious freedom in China. Thus, it now welcomes this new important, urgent resolution,\u00a0appreciating the debate that preceded the vote<\/a>\u00a0and particularly saluting\u00a0Ms. Federica Mogherini<\/a>, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, for her vibrant speech. \u201cFor Europeans, to Europeans,\u201d she said, \u201chuman rights are not less important than economic interests. On the contrary, they are as important if not more important than our economic interests.\u201d The EU, she added, has to find a way of cooperating with the People\u2019s Republic of China, but this has to be always based on clear words and principles. For this reason, Mogherini has stressed that human rights concerns should be raised at all levels in relations with China, not only by the European Council, the European Commission, and the EP but also by EU member states in their bilateral relations with China.<\/p>\n All this notwithstanding, we give the approved resolution two cheers, not three. We can\u2019t refrain from noting that in the document, no reference is made to several religious groups savagely persecuted in today\u2019s China. They are those who are listed as\u00a0xie jiao<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and considered \u201cnon-religions\u201d by the\u00a0CCP<\/a>. Of the officially listed\u00a0xie jiao,<\/em>\u00a0the EU\u2019s resolution names only the Falun Gong, which of course is welcome. We lament the document not uttering a single word on the \u201cnew Falun Gong,\u201d i.e.\u00a0The Church of Almighty God<\/a>\u00a0(called the \u201cnew Falun Gong\u201d not for any theological similarity, which is simply non-existent, but because of the bloody repression that it undergoes, similar to the one that decimated the Falun Gong). No word is also dedicated to the\u00a0Shouters<\/a>\u00a0or the Association of Disciples, to name a few other persecuted so-called\u00a0xie jiao<\/em>. The resolution condemns the persecution of Christians, and it is very good, but naming specifically these groups (which are sometimes theologically criticized also by other fellow Christian groups) would have helped them a lot to come more clearly to light and thus be defended publicly. The same is true also for the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, now being harassed in China while virtually no one is paying attention to them.<\/p>\n Catholics and some ambiguities<\/strong><\/p>\n Rather odd is also point B in the first part (dealing with premises) of the resolution, which states that \u201c[\u2026] China has been successful in lifting 700 million people out of poverty.\u201d (On the other hand, the resolution states bluntly that \u201c[\u2026] since President\u00a0Xi Jinping<\/a>\u00a0assumed power in March 2013 [\u2026] the human rights situation in China has continued to deteriorate, with the government stepping up its hostility towards peaceful dissent, the freedoms of expression and religion, and the rule of law,\u201d targeting specifically, in point C, the new\u00a0Regulation on Religious Affairs<\/em>\u00a0effective from February 1, 2018). In reality, as\u00a0Bitter Winter<\/em>\u00a0has documented, the Chinese communist regime keeps on\u00a0destroying properties and disrupting families to hide poverty from official statistics<\/a>. In China,\u00a0the CCP fights poverty politically and legislatively declaring that it no longer exists<\/a>: to uplift the poor from poverty, the CCP merely eliminates the poor.<\/p>\n Another highly critical element in the resolution is point D of the premises. It states that \u201c[\u2026] while an accord was reached between the Holy See and the Chinese Government in September 2018 concerning the appointments of bishops in China, the Christian religious communities have been facing increasing repression in China, with Christians, both in underground and government-approved churches, being targeted through the harassment and detention of believers, the demolition of churches, the confiscation of religious symbols and the crackdown on Christian gatherings.\u201d<\/p>\n This is all true, but also ambiguous because of the way it is phrased. The implied Christians are obviously the Protestants, who suffer very much, especially if they belong to the dissident\u00a0house churches<\/a>. But in the text, they seem to be opposed to the Catholics, supposedly living in better condition because of the mentioned accord. This is incorrect. For sure, the\u00a0Vatican-China Deal of 2018<\/a>\u00a0obtained the historical pastoral goal of reuniting the Roman Catholic Church for the first time since the creation of the\u00a0Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association<\/a>\u00a0(CPCA), which followed the expulsion of the Apostolic Nuncio in 1951, after the Communists gained power in 1949. But the CCP is politically and ideologically interpreting the agreement with the Holy See as an order given to all Catholics to join the CPCA, the Vatican giving the green light. \u00a0But his has never occurred, and thus, the underground Catholics, doomed to be extinguished in the plans of the Party, are still persecuted, arrested and re-educated if they resist. It\u2019s no detail or triviality; unless this problem is properly addressed and clarified at all international levels, the Chinese regime will keep on persecuting the Catholics with the \u201cpermission\u201d of the world.<\/p>\n Source: https:\/\/bitterwinter.org\/theres-life-in-the-eu-and-hope-for-the-persecuted-in-china\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brussels\u2019 hemicycle passed an urgent resolution on human rights and religious freedom in the land of the Red Dragon. We applaud it while noting a few faults. Marco Respinti Finally, the European Union (EU) gets things rolling. On April 18, during its plenary session, the\u00a0European Parliament (EP) approved an urgent resolution\u00a0requesting attention on the awful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uyghur-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1326,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions\/1326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}