EU Needs to Deploy \u2018Full Weight\u2019 to Ease Crackdown<\/p>\n
May 29, 2017 2:50AM EDT<\/p>\n
(Brussels, May 29, 2017) \u2013 European Union leaders should publicly and privately press China\u2019s government to end its crackdown on human rights and immediately release all detained activists, Human Rights Watch said today in a joint letter<\/a> with a dozen other nongovernmental organizations. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini will attend the EU-China Summit<\/a> in Brussels with senior Chinese officials on June 1-2, 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cThe EU has pledged to \u2018throw its full weight behind advocates of liberty, democracy and human rights\u2019 and do so at the \u2018highest level,\u2019\u201d said Lotte Leicht<\/a>, EU director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cEU leaders need to make good on their pledges and make human rights and the freeing of peaceful activists a top strategic priority in the EU\u2019s relationship with China.\u201d<\/p>\n The organizations noted that on various occasions, the EU has publicly decried<\/a> the deteriorating human rights situation in China, expressed support for independent civil society, and urged the release of imprisoned activists. Yet the EU and its member states have generally failed to move beyond rhetorical approaches and used their collective leverage to forcefully press Chin \u2013 an EU strategic partner and second largest trading partner \u2013 to end its increasingly brutal crackdown on those who peacefully dissent government policies, journalists who write on sensitive issues, and lawyers who defend activists in court.<\/p>\n The organizations urged EU leaders to take several steps, including suspending the bilateral human rights dialogue until a meaningful exchange with the Chinese government can be established, ensuring that human rights concerns are discussed in all other EU-China meetings, and explaining steps the EU and its member states will take if China does not act to end abuses and release jailed activists.<\/p>\n The EU-China Summit will be held three days ahead of the 28th<\/sup> anniversary of the Tiananmen Square<\/a> massacre in Beijing. The EU retains an arms embargo against China because of these mass killings and EU leaders should stress the need for a thorough, transparent investigation into the massacre, accountability for the crimes, and adequate compensation for victims and their families.<\/p>\n In addition to Human Rights Watch, the letter was signed by Amnesty International<\/a>, China Labour Bulletin<\/a>, DEMAS<\/a>, FIDH<\/a>, Initiatives for China<\/a>, the International Campaign for Tibet<\/a>, the International Service for Human Rights<\/a>, Freedom House<\/a>, Human Rights in China<\/a>, Human Rights Without Frontiers<\/a>, World Organisation Against Torture<\/a>, Reporters Without Borders<\/a>, the Society for Threatened Peoples<\/a>, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization<\/a>, and the World Uyghur Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe EU has acknowledged that improving human rights in China is essential for the overall EU-China relationship,\u201d Leicht said. \u201cIt\u2019s not clear whether EU leaders have the foresight and courage to push for real change with China\u2019s leaders. A failure to do so would suggest that EU human rights pledges are window dressing aimed to make Europeans feel good about themselves \u2013 rather than a principled and consistent policy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EU Needs to Deploy \u2018Full Weight\u2019 to Ease Crackdown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-3752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3752"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=3752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}