China’s human rights situation further deteriorated last year as police systematically tortured activists and forcibly disappeared government critics while state TV continued to broadcast forced confessions, a new report shows.
A creeping security state also attempted to codify much of its existing behaviour on paper, giving the police legal authority to criminalise a host of NGOs deemed politically sensitive by the authorities, according to the report by the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). “The Chinese government seems intent on eliminating civil society through a combination of new legislation restricting the funding and operations of NGOs, and the criminalisation of human rights activities as a so-called threat to national security,” Frances Eve, a researcher at CHRD, told the Guardian. Read more
