HRIC Celebrates Human Rights Day
Today, HRIC joins people around the world in recognizing the inalienable rights that belong to every human being, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on this day in 1948. It is a day to celebrate the progress which has been made globally and recommit to upholding justice, equality, and freedom to which we are all entitled. However, as the world reflects, it ignores the escalating human rights crisis in China at its own peril.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has taken a sledgehammer to the principles of the UDHR. The regime has systematically eroded basic freedoms, intensified its system of surveillance, and silenced voices of dissent with precision and an increasingly cold brutality.
In 2024, the CCP’s human rights abuses reached chilling new extremes. Middle-class citizens are detained for private discussions of economic issues; casually discussing Xi Jinping can lead to arrest. Zhu Hengpeng, a deputy director at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was dismissed and detained for discussing the Chinese economy in a private WeChat group. Real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, imprisoned for 18 years after indirectly criticizing Xi in 2020, is now critically ill, and his family suffer further. This year, we learned that his son has also been sentenced to 9 years in prison—a grotesque act of collective punishment designed to terrorize.
The CCP’s strategy of repression is generational assault. Children of activists have faced relentless surveillance, harassment, and, as with the tragic case of Yu Wensheng’s son, have been driven to suicide. Lawyers’ families, such as those of Li Heping and Wang Quanzhang, have been forcibly evicted and left destitute, while their children are deprived of their right to education.
Prisoners of conscience bear the full brunt of the CCP’s venom. Activists Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi were condemned to staggering sentences of 14 and 12 years for dreaming of a freer and fairer China, and fighting for the rights of migrant workers’ children. The Hong Kong 47 faced devastating convictions in a mockery of justice. For many, imprisonment is not the end—recently released individuals, such as citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, are often re-arrested. The CCP severs the livelihoods of dissidents, stripping them of financial stability and access to social welfare. It rips them away from society.
The plight of those suffering under the CCP’s oppressive regime is not a distant issue—it is a direct affront to the principles of dignity, freedom, and justice that underpin the UDHR. A government which systematically and brazenly tramples on the UDHR also undermines the global order built on those values, and sends a message to the world that tyranny can prevail unchecked. This is a battle for humanity’s shared values, and it demands our collective attention and action.
To those suffering under the CCP’s brutality: we see you, we hear you, and we stand with you.
