Chinese Human Rights Monitor 2021 l May Edition

This is the May 2021 Edition!

Dear readers,

At ISHR, the word of the quarter, and the theme you’ll see throughout this Monitor, is ‘equality’.

Equality is most often not simply granted by a government, but instead, the result of the hard work and courage of human rights defenders: in this edition, we write about lawyer Yu Wensheng, whose struggle for rule of law and equal rights for all Chinese citizens earned him the 2021 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.

Equality in practice is still, sadly, often a distant dream for women and girls, or for minority groups, or for those living in poverty or in rural areas. When governments sign a treaty like the CEDAW on women’s rights, or the ICESCR on economic, social, and cultural rights, it means they should be taking on the hard work of making equality a reality, and learning from best practices to do so.

We also honour the work of:

• defenders in the United States combatting systemic racism and police violence;
• activists in Egypt shedding light on the government’s crackdown on human rights for all;
• and citizens of Myanmar who have come together despite their backgrounds, education or jobs to resist the military coup rolling back their fight for democracy

At ISHR, we believe that equality cannot be fully achieved without justice and accountability. This is why at the UN Human Rights Council, including its latest 46^th session in March, we continue to work hard to push for monitoring, reporting, and accountability for international crimes committed by the Chinese government in the Uyghur and Tibetan regions. We also urge the Council’s members to protect and uphold Chinese human rights defenders who face repression for working to ensure that everyone –  no matter one’s ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, or political opinion –  can enjoy full and equal access to basic rights and freedoms.

For this, we hope you will enjoy reading our latest China Human Rights Monitor, and that it can help you in your individual and collective struggle for equality, in China and elsewhere.

The PDF version of this CHRM (in Chinese) can be downloaded here.

This edition is comprised of:

1) The UN needs you! Upcoming opportunities to protect human rights at the UN (May 2021 update)

2) Latest UN developments

China | UN experts ask hard questions about ESC rights, women’s rights

HRC46 | Principled action needed as China steps up efforts to rein in accountability

HRC46 | Council debate on poverty shows progress but approach to ‘win-win’ cooperation polarises

3) Supporting human rights defenders

Yu Wensheng is the 2021 Martin Ennals Award Laureate

HRC46 | China’s rights record demands action from the UN and solidarity with defenders

If you want to review past publications, please click here to look for past Chinese Human Rights Monitors. You can also find here all ISHR articles in Chinese.

Thank you very much for your support and attention!

Help us improve our work!  Is the CHRM useful to your work? What kind of content do you want to read more about? Please feel free to share with us ideas and suggestions. For any additional information or comments, please contact Sarah M Brooks (at [email protected] ; or on Twitter at @sarahmcneer)，or Raphael Viana David (at [email protected] ; or on Twitter at @vdraphael).

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