Foreign ministers of EU member states on Monday (March 22) formally approved the blacklisting of Chinese Communist Party officials for human rights violations, an EU diplomat said, marking the first Time the EU has imposed sanctions on the Communist Party for human rights violations since it imposed an arms embargo on China following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.
Foreign ministers of EU member states on Monday approved a travel ban and asset freeze on four Chinese Communist Party officials and one entity, Reuters reported. The individuals and entity are accused of violating the rights of China’s Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.
Among those sanctioned is Chen Mingguo, head of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region’s Public Security Department. The EU said Chen Mingguo had committed “serious human rights violations.
In its official communiqué, the EU also accused Chen Mingguo of “arbitrary detention and degrading treatment of persons belonging to the Uighur and other Muslim minorities, as well as systematic violations of their freedom of religion or belief.
Other senior Communist Party officials sanctioned include Wang Mingshan and Wang Junzheng, and Zhu Hailun, a former deputy party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The sanctioned entity is the Public Security Bureau of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
The EU condemns the Communist Party’s mass detentions, particularly in the Xinjiang region.
In addition to sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party for human rights abuses, the EU on Monday formally approved sanctions against a number of individuals and entities in North Korea, Libya, Russia, South Sudan and Eritrea, according to a press release issued by the European Commission.
“These sanctions demonstrate the EU’s strong determination to defend human rights and to take tangible action against those who violate and trample on them,” The press release said.
EU diplomats said the measures were part of human rights sanctions targeting more than a dozen individuals. “This is a very important step, which shows our commitment (to human rights),” Slovak Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok said.
In response to the EU sanctions, the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday immediately imposed retaliatory sanctions on 10 EU personnel and four entities.
The measures were pre-approved by the EU-27 ambassadors last week. Earlier on March 11, representatives of EU member states tentatively agreed to activate the European version of the Magnitsky Act, to be adopted at the end of 2020, to impose sanctions on four Communist Party officials and one entity involved in the persecution of Uighurs.
The EU will also impose asset freezes and visa restrictions on 11 Burmese military government officials. These officials were responsible for last month’s military coup and crackdown on protesters.
On Jan. 19, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the Trump administration had found the Chinese Communist Party authorities guilty of “genocide and Crimes Against Humanity” for their crackdown on Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region.
In a Feb. 27 interview with Fox, Pompeo said, “If forced sterilization and forced labor, separating families, imprisoning a million people for the purpose of destroying non-Han people, if that’s not genocide, then the world has lost its way.”
The Trump Administration had offered sanctions last July for serious violations of the rights of Xinjiang people by the Chinese Communist Party. The sanctions included the Xinjiang Public Security Department and four Chinese Communist Party officials: Chen Guanguo, Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; Zhu Hailun, former Deputy Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; Wang Mingshan, Director and Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Public Security Department; and Huo Liujun, former Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Public Security Department.
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