wr2014_web_0

ASIAArbitrary arrest, torture, and “disappearance” of those deemed separatists areendemic and instill palpable fear in the population. In July, Ilham Tohti, aUyghur professor at Beijing’s Nationalities University published an open letterto the government asking for an investigation into 34 disappearance cases hedocumented. Tohti was placed under house arrest several times and preventedfrom traveling abroad.The government continues to raze traditional Uyghur neighborhoods andrehouse families in planned settlements as part of a comprehensive developmentpolicy launched in 2010. The government says the policy is designed tourbanize and develop Xinjiang.Hong KongDespite the fact that Hong Kong continues to enjoy an independent judiciary, afree press, and a vocal civil society, freedoms of the press and assembly havebeen increasingly under threat since Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereigntyin 1997. Prospects that election of the territory’s chief executive starting in2017 would be genuinely competitive dimmed after Beijing indicated that onlycandidates who did not “oppose the central government” would be able to run.Hong Kong has witnessed slow erosion of the rule of law in recent years, exemplifiedby increasingly strict police controls on assemblies and processions,and arbitrary Immigration Department bans on individuals critical of Beijing,such as members of the Falun Gong and exiled dissidents from the 1989democracy spring.Key International ActorsMost governments that have bilateral human rights dialogues with the Chinesegovernment, including the United States, European Union, and Australia, heldat least one round of those dialogues in 2013; most acknowledge they are oflimited utility for promoting meaningful change inside China.Several of these governments publicly expressed concern about individualcases, such as those of Xu Zhiyong or Liu Hui, or about trends such as restrictionson anti-corruption activists. Ambassadors from the US and Australia, as331