China’s Foreign Minister expected in Berlin

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has appealed to German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to use his talks with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday to advocate for more freedom of religion and a rule of law in the People’s Republic. The human rights organization also asked Minister Maas to inquire about the whereabouts of Liu Xia, the widow of Liu Xiaobo, and to advocate for her to be able to leave the country. “The aspect of human rights must not be excluded from the dialogue, as the situation in the People’s Republic is currently in free fall. This is especially true for religious minorities and nationalities such as the Uyghurs, the Kazakhs, the Tibetans, and the Mongols,” criticized Ulrich Delius, the STP’s director, in a letter to Maas. The Chinese Foreign Minister will hold talks with Minister Maas in Berlin on May 31, as part of a multi-day visit to Germany.

In China, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists are suffering from attempts of the Communist Party and the regional authorities to restrict religious freedom and to gain absolute control over all religious communities. In the provinces of Zhejiang, Henan, and Jiangsu, for example, there has been a massive increase in controls of churches – and pastors as well as members of the religious communities are being intimidated or arrested. There are also more and more measures to keep children from attending church services or church events.

For the Muslim Uyghurs and the Kazakhs in the Xinjiang region, targeted violations of the freedom of belief of children and families have been part of everyday life for quite a while. During the month of Ramadan, there are even measures to keep the Muslim people of Xinjiang from fasting. “We are concerned that the restrictions on religious freedom will soon also affect the Muslim Hui in central China, who have so far been spared. Thus, there are more and more signs that Muslim faith is disappearing from public life,” Delius warned.

The STP emphatically demanded an end to the arbitrary arrests of Uyghurs and Kazakhs in Xinjiang – as well as a closure of the illegal detention centers in which members of these population groups are “re-educated”. “These brainwashing centers are to be seen as a massive violation of Chinese law. They are incompatible with a rule of law,” Delius stated. Unexplained deaths occur in these centers almost every week. Thousands of Uyghurs and Kazakhs are held in centers like this without any legal basis.

Headerpicture: Kleinschmidt /MSC via Wikimedia Commons