The signatories of the letter accuse the Chinese leadership of numerous human rights violations.
In an open letter, 186 dissidents and other intellectuals critical of China asked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to cancel his planned trip to Beijing this week. One appeals to the conscience of people in Germany and around the world to raise their voices: “Mr Scholz, please do not travel to China,” said the letter published by digital media company Table.Media.
Signatories include former student leaders of the democracy movement, which was brutally suppressed in 1989, such as Wang Dan and Wu’er Kaixi, or Berlin-based 2012 German Book Trade Peace Prize winner Liao Yiwu.
complaints of human rights violations
Today’s China “is not just a centralized state” but is slowly falling into a “dictatorship based on the National Socialist model”, he said. The signatories of the letter accused the Chinese leadership of numerous human rights violations, including in the autonomous regions of Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, and also complained of “genocide”.
According to estimates by human rights groups, hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and other members of minorities have been sent to re-education camps in Xinjiang in recent years. There are allegations of torture, ill-treatment and indoctrination. The World Congress of Uighurs also asked Scholz to cancel his trip to China.
(APA/dpa)