A coalition of UK-based rights groups have written to Prime Minister Liz Truss ahead of the China’s National Day. The 1st of October is celebrated as the official founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China since the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949 after defeating the Nationalist Party through brutal force.
Chairman Mao Tsetung on 1st October 1949 declared the invasion of Tibet and East Turkistan. Ever since the illegal occupation of these peaceful countries, the people of Tibet and East Turkistan continued to endure inhuman sufferings to this day. They continue to fightback the brutal CCP regime through peaceful means. It is time we support all the persecuted communities under the Chinese rule including the people of Hong Kong.
Joint Letter to the UK Prime Minister:
September 27 2022
Rt. Hon Elizabeth Truss MP,
Office of the Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London, SW1A 2AA
Dear Prime Minister,
We write to you as representatives and members of Uyghur, Tibetan, and Hongkonger advocacy movements to draw your attention to the threats that our communities and peoples face, and to request the support of this new UK government.
On 1 October, the Chinese government will mark 73 years since the formation of the People’s Republic of China. There will be festivities in Beijing, but our communities will not be celebrating. The past 73 years have seen Chinese authoritarianism evolve, harden and metastasise. As you noted during your campaign to become Prime Minister, the Chinese government poses a grave threat to the human rights of all living under its rule, and also beyond these borders.
Tibet, invaded in 1950, remains under occupation and is now seeing its unique religion, culture, language and way of life being systematically eradicated. Close to one million Tibetan children between the ages of four and eighteen have been forced into colonial boarding schools and pre-schools, where they face intense indoctrination. Meanwhile, Tibetan people have been forced to live under constant surveillance and face arrest, detention and torture for criticising the government or expressing their Tibetan identity.
These oppressive methods of control have been replicated in the Uyghur region, which has been turned into a high-tech totalitarian open-air prison. Uyghur people have suffered repression and crackdowns for decades, but since 2017 the Chinese government has been perpetrating a genocide against them. This has involved state-mandated programmes of forced sterilisations and abortions, an Orwellian network of digital and in-person surveillance, forced labour and child separations. Millions of Uyghurs have now been held in concentration camps from which reports of torture, systemic sexual violence and even organ harvesting have emerged.
Hongkongers have paid a painfully high price for the international community’s indifference to the Chinese government’s human rights violations. Whilst Hongkongers’ rights and freedoms have been eroded for decades, their oppression has become drastically more overt since 2014. In 2019 hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy activists took to the streets; they were met with state-mandated mob attacks, police brutality and live ammunition. Following these protests, and the international community’s failure to take action to protect Hongkong’s democracy, the draconian National Security Law was introduced. This law has since been used to suppress freedom of press, freedom of speech, judicial independence and all forms of political opposition.
Left unchecked, these violations will endanger international human rights standards and affect not only those living under Chinese Communist Party rule, but also people in the UK. As the new Prime Minister of the UK, we urge you to draw on the concerns you raised during the leadership campaign and show global leadership and action. We are therefore asking for your newly formed government to implement the following concrete steps:
- To place sanctions on CCP officials responsible for the oppression our communities face, including the architect of repression in Tibet and the Uyghur region, Chen Quanguo
- To introduce a UK-wide ban on companies that enable China’s human rights abuses, including, Hikvision and Dahua, which are facilitating and profiting from the atrocities taking place across Tibet, the Uyghur region and Hong Kong
- To introduce meaningful legislation to tackle forced labour – as has been widely reported in both Tibet and the Uyghur region – in UK supply chains
- To urge China to cease all policies that threaten our peoples’ religion, language, culture and way of life, including closing down the residential boarding schools system in Tibet
- A formal recognition that the Chinese government is carrying out genocide against the Uyghur people.
The Chinese government’s threat to our way of life is more severe than ever. It is crucial that your government engages with our communities’ concerns in a meaningful and sustained way. We request a meeting between yourself, the new Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and representatives from our communities to discuss how we can work together to secure change for our people that continue to suffer under CCP rule.
Signed
London Protest on 1st October 2022
A coalition of UK-based Tibetan, Hong Kong and Uyghur communities are
staging a public protest in central London to highlight the CCP regime’s continued brutal crackdown and curtailment of freedom of speech and human
dignity in their countries.
British rights groups and NGOs such as Free Tibet, World Uyghur Congress and Global Alliance for Tibet & Persecuted Minorities are supporting these communities, who are calling for their basic freedoms, human dignity and democracy.
Resist the CCP Day – Joint London Rally
Date: Saturday, 1st October 2022 | From 6.00pm – 9.00pm
6pm – We meet in Piccadilly Circus (Piazza), where a brief ceremony will be held.
7pm – We begin our march from Piccadilly Circus (Piazza) to the Chinese Embassy, 49 Portland Place, London W1B 1JL. We march via Regent Street and Oxford Circus.
The Main Rally will be held at 8pm opposite The Chinese Embassy. Speakers from concerned communities will remind the CCP regime about China’s continued atrocities in their occupied nations.
Please join us, show your support and solidarity with the peoples
of East Turkistan, Hong Kong and Tibet.
Organisers:
Global Alliance for Tibet & Persecuted Minorities 