In an annual report, the organization revealed that the human rights situation in the northwestern region of Xinjiang remains “dire,” with authorities continuing to persecute ethnic minorities from Muslim backgrounds. “UN experts reiterated their concerns about government programs that are destroying the languages and cultures of ethnic groups, including Tibetans,” AI said. The organization highlighted the opacity and “persistent lack of transparency” of the communist regime in 2023 with the “sudden disappearance” of the former foreign and defense ministers, who were removed without any official explanation and have not been seen in public since. AI alleged that Chinese authorities “continued to severely restrict the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly,” by misusing laws, often under the pretext of protecting national security. China’s cyberspace regulator imposed “further restrictions” on social media users, raising concerns over the erosion of privacy rights, the report said. “The persecution of journalists continued, including in the context of geopolitical tensions,” AI said, noting that “the formal presence of Indian media outlets in China was terminated.” The organization stressed that throughout 2023, the Chinese government “continued to systematically target human rights defenders,” in an “attempt to crush dissent and shrink the space for civil society.” “Several individuals, including lawyers, intellectuals, journalists, activists and NGO workers, were prosecuted for endangering state security” during 2023, with “lengthy prison sentences handed down to activists,” AI said. The organization mentioned the cases of legal scholar Xu Zhiyong and lawyer Ding Jiaxi, who were convicted of “subversion of state power” in 2022 and sentenced in April last year to 14 and 12 years in prison, respectively. Another prominent case was that of Chang Weiping, a lawyer who was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for publicizing information about torture he said he suffered in detention in 2020. The report said that in April 2023, police detained lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife, Xu Yan, as they were on their way to meet with diplomats at the European Union delegation in Beijing. AI also mentioned the Chinese government’s crackdown on the LGBTI community, as evidenced by the closure of the Beijing LGBT Center, one of the largest and oldest LGBTI advocacy and support organizations in China. Social media accounts of several LGBTI groups, including Trans China Brotherhood, Beijing Lesbian Center and the Beijing branch of Trueself, were also banned without explanation. In 2023, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, an independent expert body, expressed concern about reports of intimidation, harassment and gender-based and sexual violence against women human rights defenders in China. AI recalled that the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was concerned about “the lack of safety and the widespread harassment in the workplace,” in particular “the sexual harassment of women and the inadequacy of labor inspection mechanisms to investigate complaints.” The organization also said that information on the death penalty in China is restricted, with data “on death sentences and executions continuing to be classified as state secrets.” The report expressed fears that a revised Counterintelligence Law could be used against human rights defenders, and that the crackdown on overseas dissent will intensify. Read Also: Desigualdade, racismo e violência afetam direitos humanos no Brasil (Portuguese version)