Item 6: Adoption of China's UPR Outcome

Organisation: Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) 

Thank you Mr President, 

CSW acknowledges China’s participation in the UPR process, however we are concerned at the number of recommendations the government has either rejected as being based on ‘false information’ or attempted to claim have already been implemented. 

China claims to have already implemented the recommendation from Spain to ‘comply with international standards and recommendations on freedom of thought, conscience and religion and on freedom of expression and freedom of the press’.¹

This is not the case for hundreds of thousands of religious adherents across the country who continue to face harassment, intrusive surveillance, arrest, imprisonment, arbitrary detention and even torture on account of their religion or belief. 

It is not the case for Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, who has now spent over five-and-a-half years in arbitrary detention on trumped-up charges; nor is it the case for leaders and members of the church who continue to be subjected to power cuts, threatening phone calls, stalking and the stationing of police outside their homes – all in an effort to deter them from practicing their religion. 

It is not the case for Li Jie and Han Xiaodong, both preachers at Covenant Home Church in Linfen, who have been detained without trial since August 2022 and are currently facing unfounded fraud charges along with a third church member Wang Qiang who was detained in November 2022. 

It is not the case in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where over one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and members of other ethnic groups have been detained without charge in “re-education camps” since 2017; nor is it the case for the Tibetan Buddhist community which also faces disruptions to religious services, intrusive monitoring and surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture, the demolition of religious buildings and statues, and the forced closure of religious sites. 

It is not the case for Falun Gong practitioners who face arrest, imprisonment, torture and death in custody across the country.  

Nor is it the case for those who defend these fundamental human rights, such as the lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been disappeared since August 2017, or citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who was released from prison on 13 May 2024 after serving a four-year sentence for reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic. 

We call on China to stop attempting to mislead the international community and to demonstrate a genuine commitment to the recommendations it claims to have ‘already implemented’ by releasing all those detained or imprisoned in relation to the exercise of their fundamental human rights, and ensuring that these rights are fully respected for all citizens.  

Thank you. 

Footnote:

1. Recommendation 22.177.