Amnesty viewpoints
STOP PRESS
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy (left) and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, 18 October 2024
TIME TO GET TOUGH WITH CHINA
Talks with China on trade and mutual security should not be pursued at the expense of human rights. Amnesty’s warning came as Foreign Secretary David Lammy set off to visit China, saying it was important to ‘restart dialogue’ with the UK’s fourth largest trading partner. China routinely targets peaceful critics via online censorship, arbitrary arrest, detention and torture. In Xinjiang and Tibet the authorities are practising industrial-scale repression of ethnic minorities. And in the UK, other parts of Europe and the USA, Chinese and Hong Kong communities, students and campaigners are threatened if they criticise China. On his visit Lammy called for the release of UK national Jimmy Lai, the founder of a pro-democracy newspaper, who has been imprisoned by the Hong Kong authorities since 2020 (see Amnesty Magazine, summer 2024). We welcomed this, but we also want the foreign secretary to work to secure the release of Lai’s fellow prisoners of conscience – Hong Kong lawyer-activist Chow Hang-tung, Chinese human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi and Uighur economist Ilham Tohti. We also call for the release of #MeToo activists Sophia Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing.
Behind closed doors, but also in public, David Lammy needs to tackle China over repression in Xinjiang and Tibet, its widespread imprisonment of peaceful activists and its unacceptable intimidation of students and campaigners in the UK.
4 AMNESTY WINTER 2024
Two former police officers who confessed to the murder of Brazilian human rights defender Marielle Franco were sentenced to decades in prison on 31 October. This is a first step towards justice for
Marielle, whose story first featured in our Write for Rights campaign in 2018. Those who orchestrated the killing have yet to face trial, so our campaign continues.
NEW ATTACKS ON ROHINGYA IN MYANMAR
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The persecution of Myanmar’s Rohingya community is reaching new heights as fighting intensifies in the state of Rakhine between the military junta and the rebel Arakan Army. The predominantly Muslim Rohingya have been oppressed by the authorities for decades. Now, Rohingya civilians are being killed by both sides in the conflict, and there are also reports of forced conscription of Rohingya into the Myanmar military. As a result, hundreds of thousands have fled their homes with many seeking refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh, where Amnesty has gathered testimonies of refugees being pushed back into Myanmar by border guards. Those who manage to reach the refugee camps, which now house an estimated one million people, report a desperate shortage of essential supplies and services. The recent escalation in fighting began in November 2023 with the launch of an offensive by the Arakan Army and two other armed groups. The impact on Rakhine state, where most of the 600,000 Rohingya in Myanmar still live, has been severe, with towns transformed into battlegrounds. Amnesty calls on the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military to abide by international humanitarian law, and the international community to step up with funds and assistance for people in the refugee camps. We urge Bangladesh not to forcibly return refugees fleeing the conflict.
People rebuild temporary homes after fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army in a village in Minbya Township, Rakhine State
© Florence Lo/AFP/Getty Images
© AFP/Getty Images
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