China: RSF and global NGO coalition call for UN monitoring of human rights violations

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) together with a global coalition gathering over 320 NGOs yesterday urged the United Nations (UN) to establish an impartial and independent monitoring mechanism on China’s human rights abuses, following a similar request made in June by a group of 50 UN experts.

“It is high time that the UN officially monitors the human rights violations perpetrated by the Chinese regime for so many years, including the massive and repeated attacks on press freedom”, insists Cédric Alviani, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) East Asia Bureau head, who expects that “by centralizing facts and evidence, such a mechanism will facilitate the future work of national and international jurisdictions for justice to be rendered and perpetrators to be punished as they deserve”.

China is the world’s biggest captor of journalists with at least 118 detainees, often being held in life-threatening conditions. Since taking on the mantle of leadership in 2013, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has placed the media under even closer control and has augmented internet censorship and surveillance to unprecedented levels.

China ranks 177th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

Read the statement in its entirety.