The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) welcomes the European Parliament’s resolution on China’s new law on “Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress.” In it, the Parliament clearly states that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is thereby intensifying its assimilation policy toward ethnic minorities and restricting cultural, religious, and linguistic rights: “This law creates an additional basis for assimilation, repression, and serious human rights violations in China,” explains Mirjam Kobold, STP expert on genocide prevention and the responsibility to protect. “The CCP is thereby legalizing a policy it has been practicing for decades against Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongols, Hui, and other minorities: the subordination of language, culture, religion, and education to a state-imposed, Han-dominated concept of unity.”
The STP expressly welcomes the European Parliament’s call for the law to be repealed and its support for sanctions against those responsible under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime. The resolution highlights the serious consequences of the new law for EU-China relations and criticizes its extraterritorial scope: for exile communities and human rights defenders in Germany and Europe, the regime’s transnational repression threatens to intensify further. “These clear words must now be followed by concrete protective measures,” said Kobold. “The EU and its member states must systematically document cases of transnational repression, respond to intimidation and surveillance through political, diplomatic, and criminal measures, support those affected through secure reporting channels, humanitarian visas, and protection and resettlement programs, and prevent further repression through targeted sanctions and legal action against those responsible. Otherwise, the resolution remains nothing more than lip service to human rights policy.” The STP most recently organized a side event on transnational repression at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in March.
Furthermore, the EU Parliament should have made it clearer that the law further erodes China’s own promises of autonomy to minorities. “The resolution also remains incomplete regarding religious freedom. While it criticizes interference in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and the persecution of the Dalai Lama, the religious persecution of Muslim minorities—particularly the Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang/East Turkestan—should have been explicitly mentioned as well,” Kobold criticizes. Finally, the Parliament should have more clearly criticized the law’s security policy framework: By portraying language, religion, and cultural autonomy as a threat to “unity” and “stability,” the CCP creates political and legal justification for further persecution, control, and surveillance of minorities.
This press release was translated from German to English using AI. If you come across errors or ambiguities, please contact us at 65]G378o6DD6CA.
Contact: Mirjam Kobold, Referentin für Genozid-Prävention und die Schutzverantwortung – 65]G378o5=@3@<]>