A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
Human rights in China are poor, as per reviews by international bodies, such as human rights treaty bodies and the United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), their supporters, and other proponents claim that existing policies and enforcement measures are sufficient to guard against human rights abuses. However, other countries, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Human Rights in China and Amnesty International, and citizens, lawyers, and dissidents inside the country, state that the authorities in mainland China regularly sanction or organize such abuses.
The status of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) is a legal designation in the United States for free trade with a foreign state. The designation was changed from most favored nation (MFN) to normal trade relations by Section 5003 of the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. Permanent was added to normal trade relations some time later.
Free Tibet (FT) is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation, founded in 1987 and based in London, England. According to their mission statement, Free Tibet advocates for "a free Tibet in which Tibetans are able to determine their own future and the human rights of all are respected."
Freedom of religion in China may be referring to the following entities separated by the Taiwan Strait:
Shi Tao is a Chinese journalist, writer and poet, who in 2005 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for releasing a document of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to an overseas Chinese democracy site. Yahoo! China was later discovered to have facilitated his arrest by providing his personal details to the Chinese government. Yahoo! was subsequently rebuked by a panel of the U.S. Congress, settled a lawsuit by Shi's family out of court, and pledged to reform its practices.
Takna Jigme Sangpo was the longest-serving political prisoner of Tibetan ethnicity, having spent 37 years in a prison near Lhasa.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is a U.S. federal government commission created by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. USCIRF Commissioners are appointed by the President and the leadership of both political parties in the Senate and the House of Representatives. USCIRF's principal responsibilities are to review the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and to make policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and the Congress.
The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 was passed to promote religious freedom as a foreign policy of the United States, to promote greater religious freedom in countries which engage in or tolerate violations of religious freedom, and to advocate on the behalf of individuals persecuted for their religious beliefs and activities in foreign countries. The Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 27, 1998. Three cooperative entities have been maintained by this act to monitor religious persecution.
- An Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom within the Department of State, who is the highest-ranking US diplomat on international religious freedom, and who is tasked with carrying out the provisions of IRFA: the Annual Report, negotiations with foreign governments to bring about greater religious freedom, and the determination of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC's) under IRFA, which entails further actions.
- A bipartisan United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, designed to provide independent policy recommendations and fact-finding, and
- A Special Adviser on International Religious Freedom within the National Security Council.
Nury Ablikim Turkel is an American attorney, public official and human rights advocate based in Washington, D.C. He is a former chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, former chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, and former president of the Uyghur American Association.
Myanmar (Burma) and the United States had a diplomatic contact prior to the British colonial period. They established formal diplomatic relations in 1947 in anticipation of Burma's independence.
Human rights in Tibet has been a subject of intense international scrutiny and debate, particularly since the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China. Before the 1950s, Tibet's social structure was marked by inequality and described as a caste-like system or, controversially, as serfdom. Severe punishments, including permanent mutilation of body parts, were common, although capital punishment was banned in 1913. Muslim warlord Ma Bufang caused widespread destruction and deaths in Amdo, which is located northeast of Central Tibet.
The U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000 is an Act of the United States Congress that granted China permanent normal trade relations (NTR) status when China becomes a full member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), ending annual review and approval of NTR. It was signed into law on October 10, 2000, by United States President Bill Clinton. The Act also establishes a Congressional-Executive Commission to ensure that China complies with internationally recognized human rights laws, meets labor standards and allows religious freedom, and establishes a task force to prohibit the importation of Chinese products that were made in forced labor camps or prisons. The Act also includes so-called "anti-dumping" measures designed to prevent an influx of inexpensive Chinese goods into the United States that might hurt American industries making the same goods. It allows new duties and restrictions on Chinese imports that "threaten to cause market disruption to the U.S. producers of a like or directly competitive product."
The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC) is a bipartisan body of the United States House of Representatives. Its stated mission is "to promote, defend and advocate internationally recognized human rights norms in a nonpartisan manner, both within and outside of Congress, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant human rights instruments."
Allegations of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and other political prisoners in China have raised concern within the international community. According to a report by former lawmaker David Kilgour, human rights lawyer David Matas, and journalist Ethan Gutmann of the US government-affiliated Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, political prisoners, mainly Falun Gong practitioners, are being executed "on-demand" in order to provide organs for transplant to recipients. Reports have said that organ harvesting has been used to advance the Chinese Communist Party's persecution of Falun Gong and because of the financial incentives available to the institutions and individuals involved in the trade. A report by The Washington Post has disputed some of the allegations, saying that China does not import sufficient quantities of immunosuppressant drugs, used by transplant recipients, to carry out such quantities of organ harvesting. However, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation alleged that the Post's article made an “elementary statistical error” and omitted unofficial pharmacy data in Chinese hospitals.
The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 (HKHRDA) is a United States federal law that requires the U.S. government to impose sanctions against mainland China and Hong Kong officials considered responsible for human rights abuses in Hong Kong, and requires the United States Department of State and other agencies to conduct an annual review to determine whether changes in Hong Kong's political status justify changing the unique, favorable trade relations between the U.S. and Hong Kong. The passage of the bill was supported by pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, and in 2019 received near-unanimous support in Congress.
Robert A. Destro is an American attorney, academic, and government official who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from September 2019 to January 2021. In October 2020, he also became the United States Special Coordinator on Tibetan Issues. He previously served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights from 1983 to 1989 and as a professor of law at The Catholic University of America.
The Tibetan Policy and Support Act is a federal law that outlines United States policy on Tibet.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is a United States federal law that changed U.S. policy on China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with the goal of ensuring that American entities are not funding forced labor among ethnic minorities in the region. It was signed into law in December 2021 and took effect in June 2022.
Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC) is a Washington, D.C.–based nonpartisan, non-governmental organization advocating for Hong Kong's autonomy. Formed during the 2019 Hong Kong protests, HKDC was one of the largest groups of exiled activists following the imposition of national security law in 2020 by Chinese government.
