The U.S. State Department’s annual report on international human rights, published this week, has identified communist China as one of the world’s most egregious human rights abusers and religious liberty violators.

According to the report, China engaged in “[g]enocide and crimes against humanity” throughout 2024, particularly targeting “Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.” Ethnic and religious minorities in China were subjected to extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary or unlawful arrest and imprisonment. The report notes that Uyghurs in particular have been arrested and incarcerated en masse in “extrajudicial internment camps,” where they are often subjected to forced labor, torture, and execution. China’s government “did not take credible steps or action to identify or punish officials who committed human rights abuses,” the report states.

Extrajudicial killings have become increasingly common under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with political dissidents and religious minorities sometimes being tortured to death. One individual named in the report, Sun Renze, was abducted by CCP police and tortured to death over the course of at least seven hours via “waterboarding and other physical abuse,” which the CCP officers filmed. The report also notes that many Uyghurs either discovered that their arrested family members had died in prison camps or else watched their loved ones die shortly after release due to injuries and illnesses sustained during internment. The State Department classifies the scale of China’s extrajudicial killings, particularly targeting Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs, as genocide.

The CCP has also long utilized forced abortions as a means of population control. “Through law and policy, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government limited the right of parents to choose the number of children they have,” the report states. The notorious “one-child” policy was adjusted in 2015 to address declining birth rates, allowing for Chinese parents to have two children, and again in 2021 to allow three children. However, coercive and often violent population control measures are still weaponized against minority groups. “Ethnic and religious minority women, particularly Uyghurs, were often subjected to coercive population control measures not applied to Han Chinese,” the report observes. Some of those coercive population control measures included “forced abortions, forced sterilizations, involuntary intrauterine device insertions, and pregnancy checks occurring at detention centers in the region and targeting minority groups, primarily Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs.”

Chinese citizens will also be “forcibly disappeared … at a nationwide, systemic scale.” Anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people have been abducted, primarily by government agencies, throughout China over the years, and subjected to torture, rape, starvation, forced isolation, and various forms of physical and psychological abuse. Those forcibly disappeared, often labeled a “national security” threat, are detained for months or sometimes even years. The report details:

“Former prisoners and detainees reported they were beaten, raped, subjected to electric shock, forced to sit on stools for hours on end, hung by the wrists, deprived of sleep, force-fed, forced to take medication against their will, and otherwise subjected to physical and psychological abuse. Although prison authorities abused ordinary prisoners, they reportedly singled out political and religious dissidents for particularly harsh treatment.”

Unsurprisingly under such a violently oppressive regime, freedom of speech is also severely restricted, according to the State Department report. Newspapers, television and radio stations, and websites are often controlled by the CCP. “Authorities maintained tight control of all print, broadcast, electronic, and social media and regularly used them to propagate government views and CCP ideology. Authorities censored and manipulated the press, social media, and the internet, particularly around sensitive anniversaries and topics such as public health,” the report notes. It continues, “Those who made comments deemed politically sensitive in public speeches, performances, exhibitions, academic discussions, or remarks to media, or who posted sensitive comments online, were subject to punitive measures, as were members of their families.”

The CCP closely monitors Chinese citizens and their communications, especially online, and takes “harsh action against citizens who questioned the legitimacy of the CCP or criticized General Secretary Xi.” Writers and reporters who are critical of the CCP or who even discuss “sensitive topics,” such as COVID-19, are frequently charged with “espionage” and imprisoned for years. In some cases, the CCP will target the family of reporters overseas: some Uyghur journalists working outside of China and reporting on the CCP’s human rights abuses had their families in China abducted or “disappeared” by CCP agents.

Propaganda and censorship are also both commonly used by the CCP. “Journalists faced the threat of demotion or dismissal for publishing views that challenged the government,” the report states. When it comes to print, broadcast, or online media, the “CCP and the government [have] unchecked authority to mandate if, when, and how particular topics were reported or to order they not be reported at all.” The report additionally clarifies, “The government’s propaganda department issued daily guidance on what topics should be promoted in all media outlets and how those topics should be covered.”

The report notes that the CCP has been actively engaged in the oppression and brutalization of religious minorities, but did not go into detail on the subject, instead referring to previously published reports on the subject.