Companies such as Toyota, Volkswagen, Tesla, General Motors and BYD could do more to ensure their strict standards are applied in China, Human Rights Watch says
Car manufacturers Toyota, Volkswagen, Tesla, General Motors and BYD may be using aluminium made by Uyghur forced labour in their supply chains and could do more to minimise that risk, Human Rights Watch says.
An investigation conducted by HRW has alleged that while most automotive companies have strict human rights standards to audit their global supply chains, they may not be applying the same rigorous sourcing rules for their operations inside China.
Exclusive: Test case likely against UK’s seasonal worker scheme as charity alleges breach of right to be protected from labour exploitation
When Ismael found himself sleeping rough at York station in the late October cold he struggled to understand how an opportunity to pick berries 7,000 miles from his home had so quickly ended there.
He had left Indonesia less than four months earlier, in July 2022. He was 18 and ready for six months of hard work on a British farm to save for a science degree. “I thought the UK was the best place to work because I could save up a little money and help my parents,” he said.
Human Rights Watch’s annual report highlights politicians’ double standards and ‘transactional diplomacy’ amid escalating crises
Human rights across the world are in a parlous state as leaders shun their obligations to uphold international law, according to the annual report of Human Rights Watch (HRW).
In its 2024 world report, HRW warns grimly of escalating human rights crises around the globe, with wartime atrocities increasing, suppression of human rights defenders on the rise, and universal human rights principles and laws being attacked and undermined by governments.
Dissidents face an uncertain future in Taiwan and South Korea after fleeing
When Li Cheng En pushed his standup paddleboard off the Xiamen beach on China’s Fujian coastline, a mother and son stood nearby, watching him. It was dark, and he moved quickly, but felt sure he’d be caught. Li had spent the day scouting for a secluded beach from which he could launch his bold plan to flee China. But everywhere he went there were fences or security guards and cameras.
“At around 7.30pm, when I decided to go, I thought that there was no more choice for me,” he says. He waited for the security guard shift change. “I rushed into the water and thought that if they would catch me, they would catch me.”
US congressional commission has called for Li Qiaochu’s release, citing reports she needs urgent medical treatment
Li Qiaochu, a human rights activist detained for nearly three years in China, has gone on trial in Shandong province charged with “inciting subversion of state power”.
On the eve of the trial the chairs of the US congressional commission on China called for Li’s unconditional release, citing reports that the labour rights and feminist activist needed urgent medical treatment.
Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong are leading figures in the thwarted New Citizens’ Movement group of activists and lawyers
A Chinese court is to rule in the appeals of detained human rights lawyers Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong, as Ding’s wife called on China’s top judge to “rectify the miscarriage of justice” in their case.
Ding and Xu are leading figures in China’s thwarted New Citizens’ Movement, a loose network of activists and lawyers concerned with human rights and government corruption. In April, the men were sentenced to more than a decade in prison for subversion of state power, in a ruling that was criticised by the UN’s human rights chief. Ding received a 12-year sentence, while Xu’s was 14 years.
Fears South Korean court will impose harsh penalty on Kwon Pyong to appease Beijing
The father of a Chinese dissident detained in South Korea said his son will die if he is sent back to China, a country he escaped from on a jetski in a life-threatening journey in August.
A court in South Korea will decide on Thursday the fate of Kwon Pyong, who is charged with violating the immigration control act. Kwon, 35, pleaded guilty and appealed for leniency as prosecutors requested a sentence of two and a half years, which experts say is unusually harsh.
Xinjiang, a region of north-west China that is about three times the size of France, is an area that has become associated around the world with detention camps. The facilities are referred to by Beijing as vocational education and training centres. But critics say they are used to indoctrinate Uyghurs and other minority ethnic groups with the goal of transforming them into devotees of the Chinese Communist party.
After unrest in the region and a series of riots and violent attacks by Uyghur separatists between 2014 to 2017, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, launched his Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism, leading to the establishment of the camps. The UN has estimated that since then about 1 million people have been detained in these extrajudicial centres.
Activists have secured a string of legal victories in Hong Kong but it is a very different story on the mainland
After months of pandemic-related delays, Asia’s first Gay Games was held in Hong Kong last week, with nearly 2,400 athletes competing. At the opening ceremony, Regina Ip, the convenor of Hong Kong’s executive council, said the competition represented the city’s commitment to “equal opportunity and non-discrimination”, and praised Hong Kong’s courts for the “numerous judgments” handed down in favour of the LGBTQ+ community in the past decade.
This was met with bemusement by activists and lawyers, who pointed out that Ip’s government has opposed each of those judgments, losing in nearly every single case. Since 2018, there have been at least seven cases relating to LGBTQ+ rights heard by Hong Kong’s courts, with many reaching the Court of Final Appeal, the city’s highest bench. “Why are they still wasting taxpayers’ money fighting these tooth-and-nail litigations when they’re recycling the same arguments and losing?” said Mark Daly, a human rights lawyer who has worked on a number of the cases.
Activists deplore ‘distressing setback for equality’ as court backs law against ‘indecent acts’ between military personnel
South Korea’s constitutional court has upheld two anti-LGBTQ+ laws including the country’s notorious military “sodomy law” for the fourth time, in a ruling activists are calling a setback for equality rights.
The court, in a five-to-four vote, ruled that article 92-6 of the military criminal act, which prescribes a maximum prison term of two years for “anal intercourse” and “any other indecent acts” between military personnel, even while on leave and consensual, was constitutional in response to several petitions challenging the law.
NGO leaders and technical experts who helped secure western aid for official shift to clean energy are being locked up now that they are no longer needed
Less than 12 months ago G7 countries agreed to provide billions of dollars to help Vietnam ditch coal. The funding was described as a “gamechanger in the fight against climate change” by Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister. It was designed to help Vietnam achieve a “just and equitable” energy transition, with input from civil society.
But in the months that have followed, Vietnam has continued a crackdown on environmentalists, jailing NGO leaders and technical experts who specialise in clean energy.
The US government has taken some steps to block Chinese imports made with forced labor. Britain and the EU have done shamefully little
Last month, Chinese diplomats sent letters – really threats – to discourage attendance at an event on the sidelines of the UN general assembly spotlighting Beijing’s persecution of Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. The childish tactic backfired, heightening media interest, but it highlighted the lengths to which Beijing will go to cover up its repression. A recent exposé on the persecution of Uyghurs should reinforce our determination to address these crimes against humanity.
A four-year investigation by the Outlaw Ocean Project pulls back the curtain on the massive use of forced labor in the Chinese government-backed fishing industry. Much of the study focused on people coercively kept on China’s distant-water fishing fleet, which holds workers at sea for months at a time in appalling conditions, often with lethal neglect. But the study also showed that seafood-processing facilities inside China are deploying Uyghur forced labor on a large scale.
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs
Parliamentarians from 15 countries urge reduction in vote to signal disapproval of country’s crackdown on Uyghur population
An effort is under way to drive down the Chinese vote at the UN human rights council this week in an attempt to show continuing worldwide disapproval of its human rights record.
The elections on to the world’s premier human rights body take place by secret ballot on Tuesday with China guaranteed a seat in one of the uncontested seats from its region, but human rights campaigners are working to lower the level of Chinese support to show pressure on the country is not dissipating.
Ngo Thi To Nhien detained over charges of ‘appropriating documents’, a government spokesperson confirmed
Vietnam state media has confirmed the arrest of the director of an independent energy policy thinktank – the sixth expert working on environmental issues to be taken into custody in the past two years.
A rights group reported last month that Ngo Thi To Nhien, executive director of the Hanoi-based Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition (Viet), had been detained, although at the time there was no official confirmation.
Hong’s three-year sentence is the latest in a string of convictions for environmental campaigners in the country
A leading Vietnamese climate activist has been jailed for tax evasion, the latest environmentalist put behind bars by the country’s communist government.
A court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced Hoang Thi Minh Hong to three years in prison for dodging $275,000 in taxes related to her environmental campaign group Change, her lawyer, Nguyen Van Tu, said.
Human rights group says Rahile Dawut lost appeal after being convicted in 2018 on charges of promoting ‘splittism’
A leading Uyghur professor who disappeared six years ago is reported to have sentenced to life in prison by Chinese authorities for “endangering state security”.
Rahile Dawut, 57, who specialises in the study of Uyghur folklore and traditions and is considered an expert in her field, lost an appeal over her sentence after being convicted in 2018 on charges of promoting “splittism”, according to the US-based Dui Hua Foundation human rights group.
Egypt, Vietnam and Indonesia among countries sending delegations to four-day DSEI at ExCeL
Europe’s biggest ever arms fair got under way in London on Tuesday with record numbers expected to attend, boosted by interest from countries with controversial human rights records.
Authoritarian Egypt and Vietnam are among those sending delegations, defence sources said, as well as Indonesia and India – all countries whose arms-buying strategies have been affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Energy bill amendment requires large solar energy projects to prove supply chain free of slave labour
The UK risks becoming a dumping ground for the products of forced labour from Xinjiang province in China if it rejects reforms by members of the foreign affairs select committee with cross-party support, ministers have been warned.
An amendment to the energy bill, due to be debated on Tuesday, would require solar energy companies to prove their supply chains are free of slave labour.
Exclusive: Report says optics of western firms organising Xinjiang tours amid ‘crimes against humanity are disastrous’
Uyghur advocates have called on western tourism companies to stop selling package holidays that take visitors through Xinjiang, where human rights abuses by authorities have been called a genocide by some governments.
Analysis by Human Rights Watch finds the country’s major platforms ‘do not routinely address’ pervasive online racism
Chinese social media is littered with racist videos, particularly content that mocks black people or portrays them through offensive racial stereotypes, research by Human Rights Watch (HRW) has found.
The human rights watchdog analysed hundreds of videos posted on Chinese social media since 2021 and found that major platforms, including Bilibili, Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo and Xiaohongshu, “do not routinely address racist content”.
China’s paramount leader, like his Russian counterpart, is making a fine mess of his country’s economy and world standing
It must be tough, being a dictator, when your diktats are ignored, thwarted and scorned. Vladimir Putin is a sad case in point. He ordered the glorious reintegration of Ukraine into his imaginary Russian empire. What he got was an existential crisis that he couldn’t control.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, is another paramount leader with dictatorship issues. Xi presumes to exercise supreme control, channelling Mao Zedong like a card-carrying Communist party Zeus – yet repeatedly messes up. Xi’s signature tune could be the chorus to Moby’s Extreme Ways: “Then it fell apart … Like it always does.”
Sixty-eight organisations sign letter amid fears Lu Siwei could be deported at request of Chinese authorities
Sixty-eight human rights groups have signed an open letter calling on the Laos government to release Lu Siwei, a Chinese former human rights lawyer detained by Laotian police near Vientiane last week.
Lu was seized by police on Friday as he attempted to board a train from Laos to Thailand, where he planned to catch a flight to the US to join his wife and daughter. Nearly one week later, he appears to still be held in Laotian immigration detention, despite reportedly being told that he would be deported to China.
Activists and family members fear Lu Siwei will be deported back to China, where he could be sent to prison
A Chinese rights lawyer stripped of his licence for taking on sensitive cases has been arrested in Laos, and activists and family members are worried he will be deported back to China, where he could be jailed.
Lu Siwei was seized by Laotian police on Friday morning while boarding a train for Thailand. He was on his way to Bangkok to catch a flight to the US to join his wife and daughter.
Exclusive: China appears to have expanded use of high-security prisons as tool of repression in Tibet, researchers say
There has been a pattern of increased activity in recent years at high-security detention facilities in Tibet, according to a new study measuring night-time lighting usage, suggesting a potential rise in harsher imprisonments by Chinese authorities.
The report, by the Rand Europe research institute, said the findings added rare new clues about the Chinese government’s “stability maintenance” policies of control in the highly securitised Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), which it described as an “information black hole”.
From today readers of rnz.co.nz will see a change to the home page, and a new initiative to tell the stories of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Asian community.
RNZ.co.nz has added a lineup of four sections which focus on the growing communities of Aotearoa and are placed right at the top of the home page.
Elevated links have been added to RNZ’s existing Te Ao Māori and Pacific sections.
RNZ has also launched two new sections for Chinese and Indian New Zealanders and added them at the top of the home page as well.
The sections are part of a new initiative to speak to and report on issues in the growing Asian communities of New Zealand.
The new Indian section features original stories in English by specialist reporters.
The Chinese section has stories in the simplified Chinese script. Original stories are there as well as translations of RNZ news stories of interest to the Chinese community.
NZ On Air survey
RNZ is starting with the simplified script and will then scope whether it is feasible and useful to translate using the traditional script as well.
The different approaches are a response to a NZ On Air survey which found the Indian and Chinese communities had different language needs and approaches to seeking out news.
This is one of RNZ’s first steps into daily translated news. Before the launch, RNZ put systems in place to make sure it is getting translations right. The stories are double, and triple checked.
RNZ is also asking for feedback to make sure it is getting it right on each story and will conduct regular independent audits to make sure our translations are on track. RNZ is keen for feedback.
The new Indian and Chinese sections are a result of a two-year collaboration with NZ On Air. The unit of reporters and translators is being funded for the first year through the Public Interest Journalism Fund; the second year will be funded by RNZ, with a right of renewal after that.
Stories from the Asian unit will also be made available to more than 40 media organisations across the country and the Pacific.
RNZ believes that it is vital that RNZ supplies news to many different communities within Aotearoa New Zealand.
The Asian population in New Zealand is growing fast, particularly in Auckland.
In 2018, Asian New Zealanders made up 15 percent of the New Zealand population. The two largest groups are the Chinese and Indian New Zealanders, with about 250,000 people each.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
In his first public comments since returning home, Chau thanked supporters including some kinder jail guards
Pro-democracy activist Chau Van Kham says he wasn’t afraid of dying in a Vietnamese jail and he knew supporters in Australia would never give up on him.
In his first comments since returning to Australia, Chau on Thursday thanked everyone who had advocated for him throughout his four-and-half-year ordeal.
In his first public comments since returning home, Chau thanked supporters including some kinder jail guards
Pro-democracy activist Chau Van Kham says he wasn’t afraid of dying in a Vietnamese jail and he knew supporters in Australia would never give up on him.
In his first comments since returning to Australia, Chau on Thursday thanked everyone who had advocated for him throughout his four-and-half-year ordeal.
The authorities have put a price on activists who fled abroad. They are speaking out anyway – governments must do likewise
Unless the forces of history conspire in their favour, the fate of most exiled dissidents is a slow fade into obscurity. However admirable their cause or brilliant their tactics, it is hard to maintain the world’s interest and support as time passes. Hong Kong’s exiles are conscious of this problem. But it is Hong Kong’s government which has catapulted them back into the spotlight, by placing a bounty of 1m Hong Kong dollars each – around £100,000 – on eight activists. Three of them – Nathan Law, Finn Lau and Mung Siu-tat – now live in the UK.
They were part of the massive uprising that wanted Beijing to uphold the promise it made at the handover in 1997: that Hong Kong could enjoy its way of life and freedoms until 2047. After the authorities crushed resistance there, they tried to keep alive the cause from overseas. For this, they are accused of collusion with foreign forces, incitement of secession, and subversion. Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee, has said the city will pursue them “to the ends of the earth”, and that they must “live in fear” – all for peaceful political advocacy.
The trauma and torture of Australian border violence and its offshore detention centre has never left me, even though it’s been four years since I left Nauru and came to the US to start my new life here.
I became a refugee when I naively assumed that Australia was a nation that respected human rights and international law. I came seeking freedom under a democratic system, where my opinions could be expressed without fear of persecution or prosecution. I had so much faith in that ideal that I boarded a boat bound for Christmas Island. But instead, I was transferred to Nauru, a place without hope.
The last refugee has now been evacuated from Nauru. Yet the Australian-run detention centre remains ‘ready to receive and process’ any new unauthorised maritime arrivals at an annual cost of $350m.
Guardian Australia chief political correspondent Paul Karp and reporter Eden Gillespie tell Jane Lee about what refugees and asylum seekers detained for more than a decade make of the decision, and what it means for Australia’s deterrence policy
