EU To Blacklist Chinese Officials For Human Rights Abuses

• 18 Mar 2021

• European Union (EU) has agreed to blacklist Chinese officials for human rights abuses.
• It is the first sanctions against Beijing since an EU arms embargo in 1989 following the Tiananmen Square crackdown. The 1989 EU arms embargo on China, its second-largest trade partner, is still in place.
• EU ambassadors approved the travel bans and asset freezes on four Chinese individuals and one entity.
• EU diplomats said the Chinese officials were accused of human rights abuses against China’s Uighur Muslim minority.
• The EU has also called for the release of jailed ethnic Uighur economics professor Ilham Tohti, who was jailed for life in 2014. He was awarded the European Parliament’s human rights prize in 2019.