The Call To Action

The threat of the Chinese Communist Party is very real.

To protect our freedom, democracy, our values and our Australian way of life, we all must stop these human rights perpetrators and corruption from using Australia as a safe haven.

Please join us in this fight by signing this petition and share it as widely as possible within your circles for Australia to promptly join the International Magnitsky laws sanctions by enacting the Magnitsky-style Act immediately without delay.

#MagnitskyActNow

The Real Threat

Through its enormous economic power and covert influence operations, China is now weakening global institutions like the United Nations and aggressively targeting Western corporations and forcing them to succumb to its censorship. It is also threatening freedom of expression in the arts, theatre, book publishing and academic journals in Europe and North America. Some prestigious cultural institutions in the West have been won over and now practice artistic censorship. 

“Fighting alone is not the way to deal with it” echoed by Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, who advised Australia to gather international support to resist the “tremendous pressure” China was putting it under.

Lord Chris Patten (the British Governor for Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997) said: “What is happening in Australia is important for us in Europe if we want to defend our own rule of law and our own values as open societies and democracies...We can’t let the wolf warriors, as they’re called, to actually win because it will be a less secure world, it’ll be a less prosperous world, and will have sacrificed some of the things that really matter to us along the road.”

Professor Clive Hamilton, an Australian academic, recently wrote two books exposing CCP's threat to the world: Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World (2020), written in collaboration with German sinologist Mareike Ohlbergm, and Silent Invasion (2018). In which Prof. Hamilton pointed out that the CCP is determined to mould the world in its own image. The Party's hostile to western ideologies, including democracy, press freedom, judiciary independence, religious freedom and universal human rights just to name a few. Having divided the world into ‘friends’, ‘enemies’ and ‘those who can be won over’, the CCP is constantly propagating its authoritarian political system as superior to liberal democracy.

The Evidence

If there’s one country that is subverted the most by the CCP through democratic ways and processes, it is Australia. Using free speech and through power, Australian system is undermined. Australia has seen the worst form of CCP invasion. The Dragon has conquered Australian landmass through silent invasion, without firing a single bullet.

• Port acquisition:  Despite the Federal Government of Australia said “no” to the CCP's Belt & Road Initiative, the CCP turned to state's infrastructure funding deal too good to refuse. The 99-year lease of the most strategic port of Darwin in Northern Territory by the Shandong Landbridge Group’s subsidiary in Australia with a bid value of A$506m. The deal that was never formally investigated since Australian law doesn’t require formal review when a State or Territory is involved with a private company.
• Farmland ownership: CHINESE investors have continued to be  the largest foreign entities with an interest (leasehold and freehold - around 2.4%) in Australian farmland for a second consecutive year (2020).
• Subversion of free speech: Chinese students when in Australian Universities, are used as diplomatic weapon by local Chinese diplomats propagating the CCP’s narrative on political matters like Taiwan, Uyghurs, Hong Kong, Tibet & others.

The onslaught of Myanmar’s military coup, oppression of Thai pro-democracy activists, Hong Kong’s ever-escalating political prosecutions, the Uyghur genocide, the cultural genocide in Tibet, China Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, and innumerable cases of human rights violations and crimes against humanity across the globe are all evidence that an Australian Magnitsky-style Act is needed now more than ever.

In "Silent invasion", Professor Hamilton warned that the CCP is engaged in a systematic campaign targeting Australia’s elites to exert political influence and interference operations in Australia. Parts of the large Chinese-Australian diaspora have been mobilised to buy access to politicians, limit academic freedom, intimidate critics, collect information for Chinese intelligence agencies, and protest in the streets against Australian government policy and any opposition the CCP considers a threat.

Political, business and academic elites across the globe have been lured to Beijing’s corner, while others are weighing up a devil’s bargain. Recent cases in Australia of universities restricting academic freedom to keep Beijing happy are chilling reminders of how even those who declare a commitment to free speech can find reasons to bend their principles.

Why we need to enact the Magnitsky Act NOW?

The onslaught of Myanmar’s military coup, oppression of Thai pro-democracy activists, Hong Kong’s ever-escalating political prosecutions, the Uyghur genocide, the cultural genocide in Tibet, CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, and innumerable cases of human rights violations and crimes against humanity across the globe are all evidence that an Australian Magnitsky-style Act is needed now more than ever.

We call upon the Australian Parliament to enact the Magnitsky-style legislation without delay, because:

• It will significantly strengthen Australian and broaden international efforts to deter gross human rights violations and significant corruptions worldwide;
• It will ensure targeted sanctions against human rights violators, their family and organisations, as well as other corrupted participants;
• The existing legal avenues and tools are not adequate nor effective in deterring further human rights' wrong doings and violations; and
  Australia is at risk of becoming the migration destination for human rights violators as the only country not protected by a Magnitsky Act among its allies (UK, US, EU and Canada).

We strongly believe that the Australia Magnitsky-style Act is a must and is crucial in both defending human rights and protecting Australia from becoming violators’ safe haven.

Collectively signed by the following participating organisations:

The Australian and New Zealand Alliance for the Victims of the Chinese Communist Regime

Adelaide – Stand with Hong Kong

Australia-Hong Kong Link

Australian Tibetan Community Association National

Australian Uyghur Association

Brisbane International Student Solidarity with Hong Kong (BISSHK)

Cambodian Act Group

Canberra Hong Kong Concern

Chinese Democracy Movement Alliance n Australia (Melbourne)

Falun Dafa Association of Australia Inc.

Federation for a Democratic China

Hong Kong International Alliance Brisbane

Human Rights Relief Foundation (HRRF)

Myanmar students' Association Australia

Perth – Anti CCP Association

Sydney Network for Democracy in China (SN4DC)

Tan Dai Viet Party

The Alliance for Democracy in Vietnam

The Australian Alliance for Thai Democracy

The International Youth Movement for Human Rights

The Vietnamese Australian Literature Art Association

The Vietnam League of Ex-Prisioners of Conscience & Victims of Communism in Australia Inc (NSW Chapter)

Uyghur Association of Victoria

Victoria Hongkongers Association (Australia)

Viet Liberty

Vietnamese Australian Lawyers' Association

Vietnamese Community in Australia NSW Chapter

Vietnamese Community in Australia VIC Chapter

Vietnamese Women's Association in NSW

VOICE Australia