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February 3, 2021 News

Not helping low-income countries get the vaccine could come back to haunt us

Canadians are getting increasingly frustrated as supply disruptions delay when they will get access to the COVID-19 vaccine shot. Europe’s dramatic announcement that they would be controlling when and how vaccines produced in their region can be…

A health worker displays a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in Istanbul, Turkey on October 9, 2020.

January 26, 2021 News

China's Covid Success Story is Also a Human Rights Tragedy

China's Official Covid Rates Are Down. But Has That Come at the Cost of Human Rights?

I imagine January has been a relatively good month for Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Covid-19 pandemic appears to be largely under control in his country, and China's is the only major economy in the world expected to report growth for…

Chinese paramilitary police wearing face masks to protect against the spread of the coronavirus stand guard near the portrait of Chinese leader Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Gate near Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Saturday, January 9, 2021.

March 16, 2020 News

Pope Francis Should Speak Out Against Beijing’s Abuses

In February 2020, the foreign ministers of the Holy See and China met in their highest-level official encounter in decades. Their agenda included the September 2018 provisional agreement that allows…

Pope Francis meets a group of faithful from China at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, April 18, 2018.

March 4, 2019 News

Why Some Chinese Immigrants Living in Canada Live in Silent Fear

On the surface, it seems that many people from China living in Canada do not shy away from voicing their political opinions. This month, at McMaster University, a Chinese student group issued a statement condemning a Uyghur activist’s speech at the…

China: One Belt, One Road, Lots of Obligations PHOTO

October 5, 2018 News

Despite China-Vatican Agreement, Many Chinese Worry About Religious Freedom

“In the future, I’m afraid that Chinese Catholics might think singing the praises of the Communist Party is an integral part of the Catholic faith,” said You Jingyou, a 50-year-old human rights activist and member of an “underground”…

A Chinese Catholic prays on Easter Sunday at the state-sanctioned Saint Ignatius Cathedral in Shanghai.

January 10, 2011 News

Beijing's Broken Promises on Human Rights

The National Human Rights Action Plan wraps up after two years, but confessions extracted by torture are still accepted in Chinese courts

China's first National Human Rights Action Plan committed the Chinese government to end the practice of "extortion of confessions by torture" and put police and security forces on notice that "it is strictly forbidden to extort confessions by torture." In…

December 1, 2010 News

China: Rights Abuses Belie Success in AIDS Fight

In September, Premier Wen Jiabao attended a UN Aids sponsored summit on HIV/Aids. "We cannot turn a deaf ear to the call of life," he said, while announcing a China-Africa strategic partnership on health and development. Today, on World Aids…

June 26, 2010 News

When a Problem Comes Along, You Must Whip It

"[H]e started to whip me on my back with twisted electrical wire," said Kakada, recalling his detention in a so-called "youth rehabilitation center" in Cambodia. "I was in such pain. Sometimes I cry alone, after the beating, because it was so painful. I…

May 13, 2010 News

Chinese Corruption Is Hazardous to Your Health

Local officials often prioritize economic gain at the expense of public health

At the end of March, a Chinese newspaper reported that four children died and many more fell ill in Shanxi province after receiving vaccines that were not properly stored. The heat-sensitive vaccines had been taken out of air-conditioned rooms because…

January 15, 2010 News

Don’t Improve Drug Detention: End It

Just before Human Rights Watch released our report on human rights violations in Chinese drug detention centers on January 7, the Chinese Ministries of Health and Public Security ordered detention centers and jails to improve medical care. But…

October 30, 2003 News

China's Epidemic of Secrecy

Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, known for his work on poverty and hunger, has written that the best policy to prevent famine is a free press. Exposing the truth is more than half the battle when it comes to averting famine. In many ways, the…

May 8, 2003 News

Collateral damage of a drug war

Published in Globe & Mail When it comes to the "war on drugs," Canada's stance is not unlike its position on the war in Iraq: We're not the United States. Our government supports needle exchange, has recommended the legalization of marijuana, and is…

April 4, 2002 News

Holding China to Account

As riot police shut down workers' protests in northeast China, Beijing's diplomats in Geneva have little to worry about. As things now stand, they won't be forced to defend China's treatment of labor organizers, or its crackdown on pro-democracy activists…

February 28, 2002 News

Falungong, the Olympics, and President Bush in China

In 1999, the Chinese government banned Falungong, a variant of an ancient exercise and meditation system. The government labeled Falungong an "evil cult" and began an aggressive and often violent campaign against its practitioners which continues…

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