Bitter Winter and its parent organization CESNUR have joined several other NGOs that signed an appeal by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation calling for sanctions against the CCP officers who committed atrocities in Xinjiang and Tibet.
September 17, 2018
The Honorable Steven Mnuchin Secretary of the Treasury 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest Washington, D.C. 20220
The Honorable Mike Pompeo Secretary of State 2201 C Street Northwest Washington, D.C. 20520
Dear Secretary Mnuchin and Secretary Pompeo:
We, the undersigned organizations, urge you to sanction all Chinese officials responsible for the horrendous human rights situation in Tibet and Xinjiang, also known as East Turkestan. We commend the State Department for calling attention to this issue in its first-ever Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, and concur with the Ministerial’s Statement on China, which strongly urges “the Chinese government to protect the religious freedom of all individuals and to respect the human rights of all members of religious groups in accordance to China’s international commitments to respect freedom of religion.” We believe the United States can best pressure China by using the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act to punish the officials responsible for these egregious human rights violations.
Tibet and Xinjiang are considered “autonomous regions,” but in reality, they are entirely controlled by Beijing. The People’s Republic of China has made a mockery of human rights, and established concentration camps the likes of which are found elsewhere only in North Korea. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is engaged in a full-scale campaign of cultural genocide against the Tibetans and Uyghurs, and it is time for the United States to take action.
According to the United Nations, the CCP has incarcerated 1 million Uyghurs in so-called “reeducation” camps, and as many as 2 million have been forced to undergo “reeducation and indoctrination.” The Congressional Executive Commission on China claims that this constitutes “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.” Tahir Hamut, a Uyghur Muslim who left Xinjiang for the United States, recounted during the Ministerial how his people are “now living in horror” of being thrown into these camps, where they are beaten, tortured, and forced to consume alcohol and pork, both of which are anathema to observant Muslims.
Mr. Hamut also said that “there are unprecedented restrictions on the religious lives of Uyghurs.” Even “free” Uyghurs living in their own homes face a life of fear and surveillance. During Ramadan, the CCP embeds officers in Uyghur homes to make sure they don’t pray or fast. Xinjiang is one of the most surveilled regions in the world, with the CCP investing more than $1 billion in security investment projects in the first quarter of 2018 alone. Officials like Chen Quanguo, Communist Party Secretary of Xinjiang and previous Party Secretary of Tibet, are directly responsible for carrying out these brutal orders from Beijing.
The situation is just as bad in Tibet. Since invading and annexing Tibet in 1950, the CCP has murdered around 1 million Tibetans; destroyed 6,000 Buddhist monasteries; forced 100,000 Tibetans into exile; and ruined 80% of Tibet’s forests. The Chinese police state is so pervasive that Tibet has been described as “harder to visit than North Korea.” Yet the CCP is not content with merely controlling the Tibetans’ land; it must control their religion as well. For over half a century, the Dalai Lama has been living in exile from his homeland, and the Panchen Lama, who is the second most important religious authority in Tibetan Buddhism, was abducted by the Chinese over twenty years ago when he was only six years old; his current whereabouts are unknown. This state of oppression has tragically caused more than 150 Tibetans to lose all hope, and set themselves on fire to protest the abuses they face. China will continue its atrocious abuse of human rights in Tibet and Xinjiang until the free world pushes back. We must show those officials responsible for enslaving innocent people that neither they nor their assets are welcome in the United States until these abuses cease. By imposing stringent sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act, the United States can send a powerful message that the world will not stand by as the CCP abuses its people.
Respectfully,
21st Century Wilberforce Initiative AdvanceUSA Bitter Winter Boat People SOS Buddhist Solidarity Association Center for Pluralism Center for Studies on New Religions Chen Guangcheng Foundation China Aid Christian Freedom International Christian Solidarity Worldwide Church of Scientology National Affairs Office Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam The Council of Peoples and Religions of Vietnam Initiatives for China International Campaign for Tibet International Christian Concern International Interfaith Peace Corps International Observatory of Religious Liberty of Refugees The Junior Sacerdotal of Caodai Council The Junior Sacerdotal Council of the Third Amnesty of God of Tay Ninh Holy See Keep Taiwan Free Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice Love Your Neighbor Community Magnitsky Global Justice Campaign Religious Freedom Institute Students for a Free Tibet Union of Councils for Jews in the former Soviet Union Uyghur American Association Uyghur Human Rights Project Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Vietnam Coalition Against Torture Vietnam Committee on Human Rights World Uyghur Congress
In a college canteen in Jiangxi, a student found a rat’s head in what was served to him as duck. The CCP’s answer: “A rat is a duck if the Party says so.”
An old man died crushed by a wall. The CCP immediately mobilized 171 agents to investigate—not the incident but who had reported it to Radio Free Asia.
In June, rat was served as duck to students who were told they should call it a duck if the authorities say so. Now, toys alluding to the incident are seized by the police.