June 2024

The Rights Practice is pleased to launch a new toolkit aimed to help overseas-based researchers, activists and NGOs research human rights issues in China. A Toolkit for Civil Society: Monitoring Human Rights in China compiles existing high-quality resources and presents them in a user-friendly format tailored to the unique challenges of China.

Remote monitoring of human rights in China has become increasingly important. Since the '709' Crackdown on Chinese rights lawyers and defenders in July 2015, the space for domestic civil society to work on human rights issues has further diminished. Access to information has also declined. It has become much harder for international researchers to travel to China to conduct human rights-related research, especially on politically sensitive issues. Independent access to the Uyghur region and Tibet, where Chinese authorities are committing gross human rights violations, is nearly impossible for most researchers. 

We hope this toolkit will provide helpful advice and introduce new tools for creatively monitoring human rights violations. We include guidance on research methodology, including how to plan effectively, and chapters on building resilience and maintaining good physical and digital security. We also provide a wide range of primary and secondary sources in both Chinese and English to strengthen you research. In each chapter, we reference key tools and further reading. 

This is a working document, and we welcome any comments and suggestions on how to improve it. 

CLICK HERE TO READ TOOLKIT