立竿見影！中方制裁打痛英國頂尖大律所 sina.com.tw - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sina.com.tw Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The BBC s long-serving China correspondent has fled to Taiwan after facing threats of legal action, obstruction and intimidation from Chinese authorities.
John Sudworth said he and his family left in a hurry on March 23 after being under surveillance - and were followed by plainclothes police all the way to the airport .
China s foreign ministry said they never threatened Mr Sudworth, adding that they don t know why he left because he didn t say goodbye .
The BBC said Mr Sudworth is still their China correspondent and said his work exposed truth the Chinese authorities did not want the world to know .
It comes amid rising tensions between the BBC and China over the latter s condemnation of the corporation s reporting on Xinjiang, Covid-19 and Hong Kong.
China has imposed sanctions on more than two dozen European and British lawmakers, academics and think tanks. The move comes after the European Union and the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Chinese officials for human rights abuses in China s Xinjiang region.
China contends that its sanctions are tit for tat morally equivalent retaliation in response to those imposed by Western countries. This is false. The European sanctions are for crimes against humanity, whereas the Chinese sanctions seek to silence European critics of the Chinese Communist Party.
The current standoff is, in essence, about the future of free speech in Europe. If notoriously feckless European officials fail to stand firm in the face of mounting Chinese pressure, Europeans who dare publicly to criticize the CCP in the future can expect to pay an increasingly high personal cost for doing so.
Too late.
Essex Court Chambers has distanced itself from an opinion which resulted in China imposing sanctions on the set.
Essex Court is one of ten UK-based organisations and individuals targeted by China for spreading lies and disinformation about human rights atrocities in Xinjiang.
A 105 page opinion produced by four Essex Court human rights lawyers for The Global Legal Action Network, a non profit group, concluded that there was a very credible case that crimes against humanity were being committed against the Uyghur population in China s Xinjiang region, including enslavement, torture, rape, enforced sterilisation and persecution, and the crime of genocide .
China s Threat to Free Speech in Europe gatestoneinstitute.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gatestoneinstitute.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.