Christian Solidarity Worldwide has condemned the continuing human rights abuses in China in a statement on the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre.

While vigils and events are being held in Hong Kong, London, Washington DC and other cities around the world to mark the violent suppression of peaceful protests in June 1989, CSW said they are dismayed by the current human rights situation.

“Under President Xi Jinping there has been a pattern of increasing human rights abuses: a stranglehold over civil society; a heightened sensitivity to perceived challenges to Party rule; and the introduction of legislation that curtails civil and political rights in the name of national security”. They added: “There has also been a rapid and alarming decrease in freedom of religion or belief, marked by the closure of thousands of temples, churches and mosques, the detention and disappearance of religious leaders, and the stripping away of religious symbols and signs. An attack, as one pastor put it, on the soul”.