Authoritarianism With Chinese Characteristics: Political and Religious Human Rights Challenges in China and Dangers of Reporting on Human Rights - China's Strike-Hard Campaign Against Uyghurs, Muslim Minorities in Xinjiang Province

Authoritarianism With Chinese Characteristics: Political and Religious Human Rights Challenges in China - Hearing of the House of Representatives Committee Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation - Today we focus on human rights in China. One of the greatest human rights crises in the world is China's "strike hard" campaign against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang Province. Under the guise of counterterrorism, the Chinese Communist Party is seeking to eradicate Uyghur culture and religious belief. At least a million Uyghurs and perhaps far more are in what one Pentagon official has called concentration camps. Whether they are concentrated or not, they are camps surrounded by barbed wire where people are not allowed to leave. The strike hard campaign has also witnessed the systemic use of forced labor, which is now, unfortunately, entangled in Western supply chains to a degree that we do not fully understand, and perhaps our witnesses can enlighten us. The Communist Party has built an Orwellian surveillance State in Xinjiang that is gradually being adopted perhaps over--across China, and even worse may be a Chinese export. Last week the House passed the Uyghur Act.

The Dangers of Reporting on Human Rights - Hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations - The subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on the dangers of reporting on human rights. Today, we are here to highlight the dangers, the atrocities against journalists, press freedom, and to consider the various ways the international community can work to protect journalists. The seriousness of the threat to press freedom and global freedom, writ large, requires the United States to expand its alliances with fellow democracies and deepen its own commitment to democratic shared values. The world's democratic nations must show a united front and defend democracy as an international right in order to decrease the current authoritarian and anti- liberal trends across many places in the world. The Committee to Protect Journalists notes that the number of journalists killed on the job as reprisal murders for their work nearly doubled in 2018 from just a year earlier. CPJ also noted that the jailing of journalists also hit a high. The World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders shows that the number of countries regarded as safe where journalists can work in complete security continues to decline. Amnesty International regularly highlights countries are specific journalists who are harassed, threatened, detained, held without charge, are given extreme sentences for reporting on human rights. Human Rights Watch has highlighted Uganda's attempts to gag the media, Tunisian bloggers held for criticizing officials, the many journalists in Myanmar who face charges, Burundi's crackdown on media freedom including suspending the Voice of America and BBC operating licenses, the Digital Security Act passed in Bangladesh that strikes a blow to freedom of speech in that country, and many other instances of the increasing global crackdown on journalists. The difficult situation in Hungary where the government now controls 90 percent of the media outlets in the country. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, during the 10-year period between 1909 and 1918, there were a total of 602 journalists killed because of retaliation, exposure to combat, exposure to other dangerous assignments. In general, nondemocratic governments are traditionally more likely to engage in censorship, legal restrictions, or other actions that restrict media freedom.

This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

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