Human Rights Watch in its latest “2025 World Human Rights Report” pointed out that the Chinese authorities continue to suppress the human rights of the Chinese people without showing any signs of easing, with further escalation in the crackdown on Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong.
On January 16, the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) based in New York, USA, released a 546-page “2025 World Human Rights Report.” This is the 35th annual human rights report published by Human Rights Watch, focusing on the human rights situations in over a hundred countries worldwide.
Wang Songlian, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch China division, stated that the Chinese Communist authorities heavily suppressed human rights across China throughout 2024, ranging from freedom of speech to religious freedom.
Wang pointed out that the Chinese Communist authorities “implemented more severe laws infringing human rights, imprisoned critics and rights defenders, making it increasingly difficult to report on government violations of human rights nationwide.”
The report mentioned that the Chinese Communist authorities revised the “State Secrecy Protection Law” and issued its implementation regulations, further expanding the originally broad scope of application.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist authorities continue to detain human rights defenders, including human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife – human rights defender Xu Yan.
In March last year, the Chinese Communist regime enacted a new “National Security Law” in Hong Kong, which classified peaceful activities as criminal offenses under the guise of “upholding national security.”
The Chinese “National Security Law” expanded police powers and undermined due process. In November last year, Hong Kong courts handed down heavy sentences to 45 pro-democracy advocates.
The report highlighted that hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in Xinjiang are still arbitrarily detained, tortured, and mistreated by the Chinese authorities, which are part of the human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
In August last year, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights pointed out in a report that the “many problematic laws and policies” recorded in the UN’s 2022 human rights report are still being implemented by the Chinese Communist regime.
Video footage obtained by Tibetan exile media showed that hundreds of monks and villagers in Degê County, Sichuan Province, were arrested for protesting against a Chinese hydropower project. They are concerned that the hydropower station will submerge many ancient monasteries and Tibetan villages. There are still an unknown number of protesters forcibly disappeared by the Chinese authorities.
Human Rights Watch called on the Chinese authorities to immediately release Uighurs and other individuals detained for exercising basic human rights; revoke the two “National Security Laws” in Hong Kong; allow independent observers to visit Tibet and Xinjiang; and release all detained human rights defenders.