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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33260481

In a case that has drawn international attention, renowned Chinese human rights lawyer Lu Siwei was sentenced to 11 months in prison following a closed tribunal in Chengdu, Sichuan province. Lu, charged with 'illegally crossing the border,' was initially detained in Laos while attempting to join his family in the United States, despite having legal travel documents.

Lu, a prominent figure known for defending clients in politically sensitive cases, has faced relentless state scrutiny. Despite securing temporary release in 2023 after being extradited back to China, he was re-arrested in 2024 as authorities pursued border-crossing allegations. His ongoing legal battles have spotlighted Beijing's expanded reach in transnational repression, igniting calls for international human rights advocacy.

During his recent trial, which barred public access, Lu's defense argued for a reduced sentence based on time served, including his Lao detention. The appeal was dismissed, and he was fined 10,000 yuan. Lu's imprisonment, estimated to extend until mid-2024, signals increasing crackdowns on dissenters against the backdrop of closed legal proceedings and intimidation of supporters.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33238989

Archived

• Pipeline: A Chinese prison is part of the pipeline that delivers fentanyl to the U.S., ProPublica found in a review of U.S. and Chinese documents and interviews with investigators.
• Fallout: Opioid overdoses have killed more Americans than the number of U.S. deaths in several wars combined.
• Permissive: Veteran federal agents told ProPublica that China has failed to cooperate and even interfered with drug investigations; China insists it has cracked down.

China’s vast security apparatus shrouds itself in shadows, but the outside world has caught periodic glimpses of it behind the faded gray walls of Shijiazhuang prison in the northern province of Hebei.

Chinese media reports have shown inmates hunched over sewing machines in a garment workshop in the sprawling facility. Business leaders and Chinese Communist Party dignitaries have praised the penitentiary for exemplifying President Xi Jinping’s views on the rule of law.

But the prison has an alarming secret, U.S. congressional investigators disclosed last year. They revealed evidence showing that it is a Chinese government outpost in the trafficking pipeline that inundates the United States with fentanyl.

[...]

Although China tightly restricts the domestic manufacturing, sale and use of fentanyl products, the nation has been the world’s leading producer of fentanyl that enters the United States and remains the leading producer of chemical precursors with which Mexican cartels make the drug. Overdoses on synthetic opioid drugs, most of them fentanyl related, have killed over 450,000 Americans during the past decade — more than the U.S. deaths in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

The involvement of a state-run prison is just one sign of the Chinese government’s role in fomenting the U.S. fentanyl crisis, U.S. investigators say. Chinese leaders have insistently denied such allegations. But U.S. national security officials said the Yafeng case shows how China allows its chemical industry to engage openly in sales to overseas customers while blocking online domestic access and enforcing stern laws against drug dealing inside the country. Beijing also encourages the manufacture and export of fentanyl products, including drugs outlawed in China, with generous financial incentives, according to a bipartisan inquiry last year by the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33196889

Archived

Kyiv has presented Beijing with evidence that Chinese citizens and companies have participated in Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, the Foreign Ministry reported on April 22.

The report comes less than a week after President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that China is supplying weapons to the Russian military.

"I think we will be able to say in detail next week that we believe that Chinese representatives are engaged in the production of some weapons on the territory of Russia," Zelensky said on April 17.

During a meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Ukraine Ma Shengkun, Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgen Perebyinis shared evidence that Chinese citizens and companies are involved in the war in Ukraine.

The ministry cited the participation of Chinese nationals in combat in Ukraine alongside Russian troops and Chinese businesses' role in producing military equipment for Russia.

These matters "are of serious concern and contradict the spirit of partnership between Ukraine and the People's Republic of China," the ministry said.

Ukrainian special services shared evidence of allegations with the Chinese, the Foreign Ministry reported.

Perebyinis also called for China to "take measures to stop supporting Russia" in its aggression against Ukraine, and assured that Ukraine "values ​​its strategic partnership with China and expects that China will refrain from taking steps that could hinder bilateral relations."

[...]

Although China has officially claimed neutrality with regard to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Beijing has deepened economic ties with Moscow, supported Russia against Western sanctions, and emerged as a top supplier of dual-use goods that feed the Russian defense sector.

Earlier this month, Ukraine captured two Chinese citizens fighting for Russia in Donetsk Oblast. President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that "several hundred" Chinese nationals are fighting on Russia's side in the war.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33196646

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has taken at least 744,000 Ukrainian children to its territory, mostly accompanied by their parents, according to Daria Zarivna, Head of the Bring Kids Back UA initiative. Her remarks were published in an Espresso interview on April 19.

“Before the full-scale invasion, Ukraine had approximately seven million children. According to human rights organizations, about 1.6 million children remain in temporarily occupied territories. Russia has stated that it took at least 744,000 children to its territory, mostly with their parents,” Zarivna said.

[...]

Due to the lack of access, it is unclear how many children have died, how many have been separated from their parents, or how many were born after February 2022.

According to official Ukrainian data, 19,546 cases of unlawful deportation or forced displacement of children have been documented. “The real number is much higher, but Russia blocks access to information, preventing a full assessment of the scale of this crime,” Zarivna added.

Through the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, Ukraine has managed to return 1,269 children—449 over the past year, and 18 in March 2025 alone.

[...]

Children are taken to filtration camps or sent deeper into occupied regions, where they are housed in “re-education camps,” orphanages, or medical facilities.

[...]

In other instances, children are forcibly taken from institutions. “Russia abducted 48 children from the Kherson Infant Home alone, many of whom have already been adopted by Russian families,” Zarivna said.

One example cited in the interview involved 17-year-old Vlad Rudenko from the Kherson region. Russian soldiers entered his home while he was alone, ordered him to pack his belongings, and transported him and his siblings to a military college in Crimea. Only months later was his mother able to locate him and begin the process to bring him home.

Earlier, Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets reported that over 3,000 children were forcibly deported from occupied areas of Kherson during the summer of 2024 under the pretense of “vacation” programs. According to his statement, the children were taken to camps in remote Russian regions, where they were subjected to “re-education” activities aimed at erasing their Ukrainian identity.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33178194

Online dissent is a serious crime in China. So why did a Weibo censor help me publish posts critical of the Communist party?

[...]

The Cyberspace Administration of China is the premier censorship agency in China. The newly appointed boss, Lu Wei, popularly known as the “internet tsar”, begins to implement a series of severe purges of online speech. Countless accounts are cancelled, and many people are thrown behind bars for what they wrote online. But that’s just guesswork. In China, there’s no need for a good reason to block someone’s account. A powerful government agency can simply issue an order to make a person disappear from public life.

[...]

After three years as a censor, Liu [Lipeng] detests his job. He detests the white office ceiling, the grey industrial carpet and the office that feels more like a factory. He also detests his 200-odd colleagues sitting in their cubicles, each concentrating on their mouse and keyboard as they delete or hide content.

[...]

One day, Liu sends me a direct message on X. He is excessively polite. He writes: “Mr Murong, please forgive me for presumptuously disturbing you,” before asking whether I remember the email sent via Yu Dayou with the two screenshots. My heart is pounding. I say: “Yes, I remember that. I wondered who sent that email. I am most grateful.”

We have a long phone call like long-lost friends. We describe everything we have done since leaving China. He says: “I wish to testify that although I was a Weibo censor, I am not a bad person.”

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33177843

• Major Russian banks set up netting system for China trade
• Aim is to cut risk of secondary sanctions
• System has lower commissions, is set to expand
• Xi due to visit Russia in May, meet Putin

Major Russian banks have set up a netting payments system dubbed "The China Track" for transactions with China, aiming to reduce their visibility to Western regulators and mitigate the risk of secondary sanctions.

[...]

Russia's trade with China hit a record $245 billion last year despite payment problems and commissions running as high as 12%, as Chinese banks had grown too cautious to do business with Russia and jeopardise their ties with the United States.

[...]

The issue had become so important that Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's President Xi Jinping discussed it during Putin's visit to China in May 2024, which was aimed at cementing the two countries' 'no limits' partnership.

Xi is set to take part in Russia's Victory Day parade on May 9, but his visit is now taking place amid China's trade war with the United States, making the booming trade with Russia and other non-Western nations more important.

[...]

The new system has been set up by major sanctioned banks and involves a web of intermediaries registered in countries that Russia considers friendly. The system has been in place for some time and has not yet suffered any major setbacks.

Each bank runs several verified payments agents, some of whom handle payments for exports, and some for imports. All payments are then netted centrally at the bank with all the counterparties involved receiving their money.

The banks settle trade in both directions, said market sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33125526

Archived

The key motions of the resolution are the following:

• Noting that China commits human rights violations on a frequent basis and in particular, religious and ethnic minorities (such as Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongols and others), are subjected to discrimination, harassment, criminalisation, re-education and imprisonment.
• Calls on the Cabinet to push for an EU Special Representative for Tibet and a joint EU-Tibet strategy, along the lines of the US “Resolve Tibet Act” and to inform the Chamber about this prior to the planned EU-China Summit.
• Noting that the Dalai Lama will celebrate his 90th birthday this year which has sparked conversation about his successor as head of the Tibetan Buddhism; whereas there are concerns among Tibetans and the Tibetan government-in-exile about the interference by the Chinese Communist Party in the appointment of a successor; believing that interference in Tibetans’ customs regarding their spiritual leader is undesirable; Speaks out that the Chinese Communist Party should not have a voice in the Dalai Lama’s succession; Requests the cabinet to express this signal in bilateral and multilateral forums.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33122022

A campaign started in 2018 by Safeguard Defenders, a human rights organization focused on China, revealed how the Chinese police use threats and fear to coerce scripted confessions for television. In 2021, it led to a ban on broadcasts of the international arms of China’s state TV (CGTN and CCTV-4) in several countries, including the UK, Australia and a number of European nations.

After 2020 China's forced televised confessions of foreigners ceased, except for those of Taiwanese citizens.

But now, it appears they’re back at it again.

[...]

On April 3, domestic channel CCTV-13 and the international Chinese-language channel CCTV-4 broadcast the forced confessions of three Filipino expats living in China.

The two young men and one young woman are accused of espionage, something which the Philippine government vehemently denies.

The CCTV-4 broadcast (which includes one of the confessions) was aired internationally, including in Canada, where our long-term regulatory complaint on the use of such forced televised confessions remains pending before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The renewed airing of forced confessions, abusive and harmful content, is yet another clear violation of the terms and conditions of CCTV-4’s continued broadcasting license in Canada.

Now, Filipino authorities and TV providers face the same issue, as the illegal forced televised confessions of their compatriots were broadcast on their own soil.

[...]

CCTV-4 is broadcast in the Philippines through SKY Cable Corporation. In its public values statement, the pay television and broadband arm of ABS-CBN highlights its commitment to “serving the Filipino”. It claims to uphold a customer service that drives the company “to treat Filipinos as our Kapamilyas (e.g. ‘family’) whose interest is put above all”.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33121732

Archived

Chinese nationals have been increasingly attempting to smuggle military equipment and dual-use goods out of Russia, often using international postal services, Russian state-controlled media Izvestia reported on April 21, citing undisclosed sources.

The incidents reportedly concern body armor, tactical gear, and other military apparel that are then studied and replicated using cheaper materials before being resold abroad.

The news comes as China becomes increasingly involved in the Russian war against Ukraine. While Beijing officially denies supplying arms to Moscow, it has become a major supplier of dual-use goods since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on April 17 that Chinese exports to Russia also include weapons, making the accusation only days after saying that hundreds of Chinese nationals fight against Ukraine in the Russian military. China has denied any involvement in the war.

[...]

The Russian news outlet reported that incidents of Chinese citizens attempting to smuggle Russian military-related goods have increased since 2022. In one of the first known cases, a Chinese national was convicted in the fall of that year for attempting to export sensitive sensors and sentenced to three years in a penal colony.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32905914

Archived

Here is the original report, It Does Matter Where You Stay: International Hotel Chains in East Turkistan.

Key takeaways:

• Five international hotel chains—Accor, Hilton, InterContinental (IHG), Marriott, and Wyndham—currently operate in the Uyghur Region amidst ongoing crimes against humanity and genocide.

• International hotel chains have significantly expanded their presence in the Uyghur Region, with at least 115 hotels operational as of April 2025. At least another 74 hotels are in various stages of planning or construction from Accor, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, Minor Hotels, and Wyndham. A total of 189 hotels from international chains are either open, or are planned to open, in the Uyghur Region.

• Three international hotel chains—Hilton, IHG, and Wyndham—are located in areas administered by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) (新疆生产建设兵团), an entity under targeted sanctions by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, for its grave and systematic human rights violations.

• Hilton, through a franchisee, built a Hampton by Hilton hotel on the site of a demolished mosque in Khotan, following an extensive government campaign that left more than 10,000 mosques destroyed throughout the region. Despite international scrutiny, including an inquiry from the US Congress in 2021, the hotel opened for visitors in 2024.

• Accor has been exposed to Uyghur forced labor in two ways: (1) through a franchisee’s participation in a “labor transfer” program called the Hundred Project (百名工程); and (2) through its strategic partner in China, H World Group Limited (华住酒店集团), which has benefitted from “Xinjiang Aid” (对口援疆) programs, identified by experts as a high-risk indicator of Uyghur forced labor.

• Ownership structures and management partnerships between international hotel chains and Chinese companies link international chains to state-owned companies, creating ties that financially benefit and advance the interests of a government responsible for crimes against humanity.

• Hilton Hotels in the Uyghur Region host state propaganda events and promote tourism sites that erase a non-state version of Uyghur culture and history.

• International hotel chains’ operations in the Uyghur Region may be in violation international standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, and the International Labour Organization’s Forced Labour Convention (C29) and Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (C105).

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32890522

• Ukraine president says China providing artillery and gunpowder
• Zelenskiy also says Beijing helping make weapons in Russia
• Beijing accused of direct military aid for Russia for first time
• Russia waging a more than three-year-old invasion of Ukraine

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32890027

Archived

“If [the] government goes to the bank with a list of 100 Uyghur names and says, you know, ‘give me the bank balance for these people [and] how much money they have.’ The bank will print it out and hand it over to the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]. Then, they shut down the bank accounts, freeze their assets, and they take their properties,” she said.