(Minghui.org) “In 2019 religious freedom conditions in China continued to deteriorate,” wrote the 2020 Annual Report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) published on April 28, 2020. The report again recommended designating China as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) like the past 21 consecutive years.
The 2020 report highlighted China’s massive surveillance of its people. It stated, “The Chinese government has created a high-tech surveillance state, utilizing facial recognition and artificial intelligence to monitor religious minorities.”
The report moves on and discusses China’s suppression of religions, including Falun Gong. “Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were arrested during 2019 for practicing the movement’s meditation exercises or distributing literature about their beliefs. Human rights advocates and scientists presented evidence that the practice of harvesting organs from prisoners—many of whom are believed to be Falun Gong practitioners—continued on a significant scale.”
USCIRF Commissioner Johnnie Moore believes that “China is the world’s foremost violator of human rights and religious freedom.” and “It cannot be compared to any other country in the world not only because of its inexcusable actions, but because of the way it aids and abets similar actions by other countries all around the world.”
Moore also pointed out that other countries in pursuit of self-interest, continue to let China play by its own rules, and especially at the United Nations. “This is absolutely inexcusable,” he says.
He warned the countries who ignore China’s malevolence, “May eventually find themselves subservient to it. It is past time for our world bodies and our liberal democracies to demand more from China.”
The Committee suggested the U.S. government to “impose targeted sanctions on Chinese government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom … by freezing those individuals’ assets and/or barring their entry into the United States.”