100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (July 1)

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, the Society for Threatened Peoples would like to draw attention to the growing gap between propaganda and the actual human rights situation in the country. "In a recent meeting of the Human Rights Council, China's UN-representation praised the alleged merits of the Communist Party with regard to the global human rights situation. At the same time, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, is not allowed to access the region Xinjiang, where genocide crimes are taking place," stated Hanno Schedler, STP expert on genocide prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, in Göttingen on Monday. In the region of Xinjiang / East Turkestan, the Chinese government has installed a system of reeducation camps, draconian prison sentences, forced labor, family separation, and forced sterilization – aiming to diminish the Uyghur and other Muslim population groups. As an attempt to cover up these appalling crimes, the Chinese authorities produced thousands of videos in which Uyghur people – under pressure – reaffirm that their people are actually doing very well. An investigation by the New York Times and Pro Publica had come to the conclusion that many of the people in the videos use exactly the same formulations.  

In Germany, the Communist Party is trying to create an exceptionally positive image of itself: "On its Twitter-Account, the Chinese embassy absurdly praises the country's one-party-system as 'democratic'. Meanwhile, Hong Kong's pro-democratic newspaper 'Apple Daily' was closed down, and seven employees were arrested. Commemorations for the victims of the Tiananmen Massacre are still forbidden, and Chinese human rights lawyers are locked up without proper trials," Schedler summarized. For example, human rights advocate Li Yuhan has been kept detained without a trial since November 15, 2017. Several important German politicians support the propaganda. Thus, Vice President of the Bundestag and former Minister of the Interior Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) is known for relativizing criticism towards China. Friedrich, who is also Head of the "China Bridge", is not prepared to call the Chinese government dictatorial. Chinese consortiums such as Huawei and Alibaba are integral parts of the board of the "China Bridge".

Internationally, the Chinese government is said to be applying more and more pressure to force other states not to criticize China's treatment of the Uyghurs: On Friday, it became known that Chinese diplomats had threatened Ukrainian politicians to prevent them from stopping the delivery of 500,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines to the country. Thus, Ukraine was supposed to renounce its support for a critical statement regarding China's policy in Xinjiang / East Turkestan. At the same time, the Peoples' Republic is threatening the democratic state of Taiwan. Two weeks after 28 Chinese military aircraft entered the Taiwanese airspace, China's military stated that Taiwan should be aware of the fact that there will soon be a "reunion".