China’s Secretive System of Mass Incarceration: Daily Brief

Thousands of photographs from the heart of China’s highly secretive system of mass incarceration in Xinjiang, as well as a shoot-to-kill policy for those who try to escape, are among a huge cache of data hacked from police computer servers in the region, the BBC’s John Sudworth reports. The files, which were passed on to the BBC earlier this year, offer insights into the internment of the region’s Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities, and echo what Human Rights Watch had already reported last year: that China is committing crimes against humanity in the region. The cache consists of internal police instructions and never-before-seen images of detainees. It reveals details about heavily armed strike units dispatched as camp security, exposing the prison-like nature of the re-education camps, while police spreadsheets show the vast scale of internments and government’s widespread and arbitrary use of terrorism charges as a pretext for detention. “The documents”, writes Sudworth, “provide some of the strongest evidence to date for a policy targeting almost any expression of Uyghur identity, culture or Islamic faith.” The publication coincides with the arrival in China of the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, the first visit to China by a UN human rights commissioner since 2005. While the high commissioner had previously asserted she would require “unfettered” access to Xinjiang to conduct an “independent assessment,” Chinese authorities have insisted they will not allow anything other than a “friendly visit” for the purposes of dialogue. In September 2021, Bachelet told the UN Human Rights Council her office was “finalising its assessment of the available information on allegations of serious human rights violations in that region with a view to making it public.” Eight months later, Bachelet’s office has not yet published its report. 

Today marks three months since Russia's renewed invasion of Ukraine – an invasion which had been preceded by Russia’s occupation of the Crimea peninsula eight years ago. Ever since, Human Rights Watch has documented serious human rights abuses, including in Crimea and other areas under occupation by Russia and its proxies. Russia’s latest, full-scale military invasion of Ukraine has been marked by numerous violations of the laws of war that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has led to the worst destruction in Europe since the Second World War, with thriving cities having been reduced to rubble, a global food crises as Russia blocks Ukrainian wheat from being shipped abroad and thousands of deaths. By the end of the first week of hostilities, more than a million people in Ukraine had fled their homes, many seeking refuge outside Ukraine. Many children are among those killed due to Russia’s indiscriminate shelling of populated areas, including hospitals, schools and shelters, and the use of internationally banned cluster munitions. In Bucha and much of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions in northeastern Ukraine, hundreds of civilians have been summarily executed, tortured or subjected to other atrocities during Russian forces’ occupation of these areas, while tens of thousands of residents in Mariupol have been forcibly evacuated to non-government-controlled areas and to Russia, according to local authorities. Meanwhile, in Russia, censorship reached new heights as authorities blocked access to multiple independent media sites who had reported about the war, closed major independent outlets, and arbitrarily detained  thousands of anti-war protesters across the country. The pattern of abuse in Ukraine is consistent with well-documented grave crimes by Russian forces in other places such as Syria. The lack of accountability for those violations has regrettably opened the door for what is happening today. To ensure accountability for the serious crimes committed in Ukraine, impartial investigations and prosecutions are essential, paired with the painstaking collection and preservation of evidence and a commitment by the international community to impartial justice. 

A new social media campaign, #FreeHerFace, has Afghan male journalists and others posting selfies with their faces covered, in solidarity with Afghan women journalists. On May 21, the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue had extended a Taliban decree demanding women and older girls cover their faces when in public to women television presenters, ordering them to do the same – even when on air. In response, male presenters at several major news channels in Afghanistan have worn masks on air in solidarity with female colleagues – an act that prompted the #FreeHerFace campaign. This latest decree is part of a steady flow of Taliban actions that have blocked girls’ secondary education, pushed women out of most employment, curtailed women’s freedom of movement, obstructed women’s access to health care, and abolished the system designed to protect women and girls from violence. “It’s time for foreign governments to do much more to raise their concerns”, write Heather Barr, Associate Director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, and Assistant Women Rights Researcher Sahar Fetrat. Diplomats meeting with the Taliban should signal support for the #FreeHerFace campaign and speak out publicly against the Taliban’s intensifying violations of the rights of women and girls. 

The Labor defeat of the governing coalition in Australia’s elections last weekend indicates strong public support for urgent and ambitious action on climate change. Australians voted for a record number of representatives outside the two-party system, giving unprecedented support to the Greens Party and climate-focused independents. The country is among the top 20 emitters, and one of the world's biggest per capita emitters, of greenhouse gases responsible for the climate breakdown, and the resulting toll on human rights around the globe. Australia is also the third largest exporter of fossil fuels globally. Labor’s climate policy sets higher emission reduction targets than the previous government’s. However, the new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has also previously supported opening new fossil fuel projects in Australia, including coal, oil and gas developments. In 2021, the International Energy Agency announced that if governments are serious about the climate crisis, there could be no new investments in oil, gas, and coal from the beginning of 2022. With the climate crisis posing a serious risk to human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, and an adequate standard of living for individuals and communities in Australia and elsewhere, Mr. Albanese should use this mandate to shift his country from climate laggard to climate leader. 

African Union (AU) member countries should use their upcoming summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, to commit to addressing human rights issues underlying armed conflict and political upheaval on the African continent. The summit, scheduled to begin tomorrow on Africa Day, is taking place within the context of five coups in Africa since 2021, and Islamist insurgencies in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Somalia, and the Sahel, as well as widespread impunity for human rights violations by government security forces. Almost 60 years ago, in establishing the Organization of African Unity, African leaders decided to anchor their vision of human dignity and freedom within a pan-African institution, now the African Union. As African leaders reflect on the many gains since 1963, they should pay close attention to and respond to increasingly ruthless forms of state-sponsored repression such as the use of mass surveillance equipment, hampering of humanitarian access, deliberate internet shutdowns and denial of access to information, which are fuelling the many political crises across the continent. The summit is an opportunity for the continent’s leaders to do just that.