(TibetanReview.net, Aug22’26) – An Australian Senator has on Aug 20 called for targeted sanctions against Chinese leaders responsible for carrying out transnational repression against Tibetans and others under Beijing’s recently enforced Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress. This law on forced assimilation of Tibetans and other ethnic minority groups in the People’s Republic of China includes provision to punish those, whether within or outside the country, who oppose or criticize its implementation.
In his remarks in the Australian Senate, Senator Dean Smith raised concerns about China’s new “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law” and its potential impact on Tibetans living in Australia, said a Tibet.net report Aug 21.
Smith, who is the Co-Chair of the Australian Parliamentary Group for Tibet, has said that Australia is home to vibrant Tibetan, Uyghur, Hong Kong and other diaspora communities who come to this country seeking freedom, democracy and the protection of the rule of law. They should never have to fear that exercising those freedoms in Australia could place them or their families overseas at risk.
He has expressed alarm that for members of the Australian Tibetan community, simply voting in elections for the Tibetan government in exile, publicly supporting the Dalai Lama, or expressing their cultural and religious identity could potentially be interpreted by Chinese authorities as conduct falling within these sweeping laws.
He has therefore called on the Australian Government to recognise transnational repression as a genuine national security threat and to consider targeted sanctions, including Magnitsky-style sanctions, against individuals responsible for organising or directing overseas repression and intimidation.
The Magnitsky sanctions programme is a targeted US government initiative used to freeze assets and ban travel for foreign individuals and entities responsible for human rights abuses or major corruption. Named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the framework, initially passed by the Congress in 2012 to target Russia but expanded globally in 2016, provides for penalizing wrongdoers without targeting entire countries. Magnitsky was a Russian tax lawyer who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after he uncovered a massive, $230 million government corruption scheme.