China has been indulging in repressive activities year after year and 2024 was no exception. The Xi government further curtailed the freedoms of both people and the media.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) World Report 2025 strongly condemned the Xi government for maintaining its systematic suppression of human rights across the country in 2024.
The HRW report, which is taken seriously by governments worldwide, highlighted how China used repressive measures in Tibetan areas and against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
It also pointed out that the authorities continued to dismantle Hong Kong’s basic freedoms.
The voluminous 546-page report, now in its 35th edition, reviewed human rights practices in China and other countries.
HRW’s Associate China Director, Maya Wang, stated, “From freedom of expression to religious freedoms, the Chinese government has maintained a chokehold over the country throughout 2024.”
Women’s rights activist Li Qiaochu was sentenced to nearly four years in prison in March for comments on the prevailing detention conditions faced by fellow activist XuZhiyong.
She added, “The Chinese government has further tightened abusive laws, imprisoned critics and rights defenders, and made it increasingly difficult to report on government abuses across the country.”
The report also criticized the government for viewing Tibetans and Uyghurs, who are culturally and ethnically distinct, as threats, subjecting them to particularly harsh repression.
Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs remained imprisoned as part of the government’s crimes against humanity in the region. It also highlighted the erosion of civil liberties in Hong Kong.
In Tibet, China intensified its control over information and responded with repression to public concerns about issues such as mass relocations, environmental degradation, and the marginalization of the Tibetan language in primary education.
Authorities arbitrarily took action against individuals who posted unapproved content online or had online contact with Tibetans outside China.
In February and March, hundreds of monks and villagers in Derge County, Sichuan, were detained for protesting the construction of a hydroelectric dam that would submerge historic monasteries and numerous Tibetan villages.
In Xinjiang, half a million people have been sentenced to long prison terms without due process during the “Strike Hard Campaign,” and many remain imprisoned, including RahileDawut, Gulshan Abbas, PerhatTursun, AdilTuniyaz, YalqunRozi, and EkparAsat. Prominent Uyghur scholar IlhamTohti has spent 10 years in prison as part of his unjust life sentence for “separatism.”
A HRW report also found that global car brands are increasingly at risk of exposure to Uyghur forced labor in their aluminum supply chains, contributing to a growing body of research showing that Uyghur forced labor taints industries worldwide, including in solar panels, cars, apparel, seafood, and critical minerals.
Since the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entered into force in 2022, the U.S. government has blocked $750 million worth of goods linked to forced labor in Xinjiang. The European Union, in December, also passed a law prohibiting the import and export of goods tied to forced labor.
In line with the draconian National Security Law, the Hong Kong government introduced the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (SNSO), which criminalizes peaceful activities, expands police powers, and replaces the colonial-era sedition law, raising the maximum sentence for “sedition” from two to seven years.
Since 2020, more than 300 people have been arrested for allegedly violating the National Security Law, SNSO, and the now-revoked sedition law.
Of them, 176 were charged, and 161 convicted. According to Hong Kong police, 10,279 people were arrested in connection with the 2019 pro-democracy protests, with 2,328 facing legal consequences, including convictions, many for non-violent crimes such as “unlawful assembly.”
The Hong Kong government has further curtailed media freedom. Media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s national security trial, which began in December 2023, is still ongoing.
He has been in solitary confinement since December 2020. In September, two journalists from the now-defunct Stand News were sentenced to 21 and 11 months respectively for “sedition.”
The Hong Kong government has repeatedly harassed the Hong Kong Journalist Association.
In 2024, a radio station and a media outlet closed their Hong Kong offices. In June, police arrested at least nine people for holding placards, lighting candles, or turning on their phone flashlights near Victoria Park, where Tiananmen Massacre commemorations took place before 2020.
Xi government has failed miserably to protect the human rights of ordinary Chinese citizens.
Human rights defenders in China are frequently harassed, tortured, and imprisoned, with police also targeting their families, including children.
Noted lawyer GaoZhisheng and activist PengLifa, known as the “Bridge Man” for his public anti-government displays, remain forcibly disappeared.
Yu was sentenced to three years in prison, and Xu received 21 months. They were taken into custody while on their way to meet the European Union delegation to China in April 2023.
Women’s rights activist Li Qiaochu was sentenced to nearly four years in prison in March for comments on the prevailing detention conditions faced by fellow activist XuZhiyong.
She was released in August after completing her sentence, having been detained since 2021.
Chinese authorities also arrested citizen journalist Zhang Zhan for creating disturbances in the past six months.
Zhan had spent four years in jail for reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic and was released in May.
In October, human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife, rights activist Xu Yan, were convicted of “inciting subversion of state power.”
Yu was sentenced to three years in prison, and Xu received 21 months. They were taken into custody while on their way to meet the European Union delegation to China in April 2023.
President Xi Jinping has been consistently centralizing control, resulting in heightened repression across the country.
There is no independent civil society, nor freedom of expression, association, assembly, or religion.
Human rights defenders and other perceived critics of the government are persecuted.
It is time for foreign governments to confront Beijing over its worsening human rights record.
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