During Q1 2022, we recorded 80 incidents of FoRB violations, involving at least 300 individuals and seven faith groups.
On 4 February 2022, the world watched while performers representing China’s 56 ethnic groups carried the national flag and a female Uyghur athlete lit the Olympic cauldron. These scenes were supposed to “boast ethnic unity” in China and prove that abuses against the Uyghurs are “lies”, in the words of a Foreign Ministry spokesman of China. However, memories from the last Beijing Olympics – and numerous reports of what has been happening in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) since – suggest otherwise.
As in 2008, China’s ruling party was determined to keep all potential “destabilising factors” at bay to ensure the success of these Games. The authorities intensified its harassment of Falun Gong practitioners and surveillance on Catholic and Protestant church leaders, and tightened controls in Uyghur and Tibetan areas.
Download China Voices January-April 2022
