“This is about China actively extending its control beyond its borders.
Since he became president, Xi has presided over a dramatic deterioration in human rights over the past four years. A major crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists; the destruction of crosses and churches in Zhejiang province; continuing persecution of Uyghurs, Tibetans and practitioners of the Buddha-school spiritual movement known as Falun Gong; new restrictions on civil society and the erosion of Hong Kong’s basic freedoms — all point to a situation that many dissidents describe as the worst since the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. Those who defend human rights and advocate for the persecuted – like lawyers Li Heping, Jiang Tianyong, and Wang Quanzhang – are themselves detained, tortured, and disappeared.
In June last year, the U. K. Conservative Party Human Rights Commission published a damning report titled “The Darkest Moment: The Crackdown on Human Rights in China 2013-2016.” Speaking at the launch in Parliament were the former Governor of Hong Kong Lord Patten, Chinese-born Canadian actress and Miss World Canada Anastasia Lin, and Angela Gui, daughter of Hong Kong-based bookseller, Gui Minhai.
In October 2015, Gui Minhai disappeared from his holiday home in Thailand. Last Wednesday marked 500 days since his abduction. For three months there was no trace of him at all.
