A leading Catholic voice has called on Pope Francis to speak out against China’s brutal suppression of its Uigher Muslim minority, and its authoritarian crackdown on Hong Kong.

Writing in the Washington Post, George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said that in the past, under Pope John Paul II, the Holy See was uncompromising in defense of fundamental human rights.

Two years ago, the Holy See signed an accord with China, but the situation of believers seems to have deteriorated rather than improved. State efforts to ‘Sinicize’ religious communities have intensified, with Catholic and other churches now compelled to teach the thought of Xi Jinping. Church buildings continue to be stripped of external religious symbols. Catholic schools in Hong Kong have been ‘advised’ to extol the virtues of the new national security law Beijing recently imposed on the city. “Even more gravely, a horrific persecution of more than 1 million Muslim Uighurs is being conducted in Xinjiang, using concentration camps, forced sterilizations and other terrors that reek of Nazi practice.”

As the Chinese-Vatican accord is up for renewal, Weigel says the Holy See negotiators should press their Chinese interlocutors on Hong Kong, the genocide of the Uighurs, the persecution of Protestant house-church Christians and Falun Gong devotees, and the continuing assault on Tibetan Buddhists.