1. Millions of #Uyghurs are in prison camps, women forcibly sterilised, people used for slave labour, horrific torture & sexual violence reported /
The evidence is there, & increasingly experts recognise it as genocide. Why are you doing this to Uyghurs & why won't you allow international, independent monitors to visit unrestricted?/
2. Why have you torn up an international treaty, lodged at the UN, valid until 2047, in which you promised to protect #HongKong's autonomy, freedoms, rule of law and basic human rights? Why has your regime destroyed #HongKongers' freedoms?
3. Why are you afraid of the #DalaiLama, why are you repressing #Tibet's religion and culture, and why does an atheist regime think it is qualified to decide who is reincarnated as the next Dalai Lama?
4. Why are you terrified of #FalunGong, whose principles are "truthfulness, compassion and forebearance"?
Is it because your #CCP regime is scared of the truth, hates compassion and is weak and insecure?
5. Why is your regime conducting worst persecution of Christians since Cultural Revolution, destroying thousands of crosses & churches, forcing Christians to display #XiJinping's image & #CCP propaganda in church, retranslating the Bible?
Is it because you're scared of truth?
6. Why won't you tell us where is #GaoZhisheng, what has happened to other human rights defenders in #China, and why won't you free #ZhangZhang?
Is it because you're afraid of people who defend rights or question the #CCP's judgment?
7. Do you think it is ethically acceptable to forcibly remove human organs from prisoners of conscience, killing them in the process, to sell them for transplant?
Why won't you respond to the China Tribunal's clear judgment on this? chinatribunal.com
8. Why won't you allow citizen journalists, bloggers & civil society activists any space to comment & advocate?
Your regime used to, in the early 2000s, until #XiJinping came along
What scared #CCP so much that now it locks up or disappears anyone who appears not to be in line?
9. What on earth is #XiJinping Thought and why are you making it a compulsory subject in the curriculum in schools?
Wouldn't it be better for students to concentrate on Chinese, English, history, mathematics, science, geography ...?
10. What do you have to hide about #COVID19 origins, why did you repress the truth instead of the virus at the beginning, why did you silence doctors and whistleblowers, why were you slow to alert the world, and why do you refuse an independent inquiry now?
What are you hiding?
Those are my ten questions for now, Mr Ambassador.
I have many more, but these are good as a starting point.
THREAD: I am writing this thread on "democratic values", because there is some profound misunderstanding & some utterly stupid wrongheaded thinking around which needs to be knocked on the head. Otherwise we're all in real trouble. /
Let me start which two principles:
1. Among us who defend "democratic values" around the world, NO ONE I know wishes to impose anything on anyone;
2. Supporting "democratic values" is NOT about dropping a Westminster-style Parliament or US Congress in the middle of the desert/
Instead, support for "democratic values" is about SUPPORT for those around the world who wish to live in freedom, with human dignity, without fear and with the chance to pursue their potential.
Note: it's about supporting those aspirations, NOT imposing them!/
1. If #CCP had kept its promise to allow "one country, two systems" & "#HongKong people running HongKong" & upheld basic freedoms, human rights & rule of law, we would not see the tragedy we see today/
2. If your quisling regime had not introduced the idiotic extradition bill in 2019, we might not be where we are today
3. If your quisling regime had listened to the millions of totally peaceful #HongKongers in 2019, we would not be where we are today
THREAD: Yesterday we commemorated 4 anniversaries:
- 100th birthday of Chinese Communist Party
- 24th anniversary of #HongKong handover
- 1st anniversary of #NationalSecurityLaw
- 1st anniversary of #BNO policy
3 that represent death & destruction, one which offers a lifeline/
So for the four anniversaries, I wrote three op-eds and chaired one webinar
"China is undermining human
rights in #HongKong through it’s
oppressive national security law and
committing genocide against #Uyghurs
in Xinjiang. I have repeatedly
called for the @MayorofLondon to use
City Hall’s influence to stand up to
China"
"City Hall’s extensive links to Beijing means that this is an action well within the Mayor’s remit. I will implement City Hall sanctions on China. I will end the twinning arrangement between London and Beijing"/
Most governments have made mistakes in handling #COVID19
A few - especially #Taiwan - have been exemplary. We should learn from them
But there's one which more than any other is responsible for unleashing this pandemic upon us all: the Chinese Communist Party regime
First, they tried to cover up the truth
They repressed the whistleblowers - the doctors and citizen journalists who were trying to alert the world
Then, they failed to inform the WHO & the world in a timely way
Then, they refused offers of help from the United States
Then, they insisted #Taiwan - which was one of first to warn of danger & has handled the pandemic in exemplary way - be excluded from the WHO for petty political reasons
Why are we buying PPE, ventilators, from Chinese Communist Party which gave the world the pandemic in the first place?
First they send us the disease to kill us
Then they sell us - at high price - equipment to protect us?
We need to make masks, ventilators, PPE, food, other sources of daily survival ourselves
But also we need to invest in and trade with countries that don't commit mass atrocities, breach international treaties or inflict pandemics on the world