US Sanctions Chinese Official for Role in Religious Persecution
13 May 2021
By VOA News
The United States has sanctioned a Chinese Communist Party official for involvement “in gross violations of human rights, namely the arbitrary detention of Falun Gong practitioners for their spiritual beliefs.”
The sanctions against Yu Hui, former office director of the Central Leading Group on Preventing and Dealing with Heretical Religions, of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, were announced as Secretary of State Antony Blinken unveiled the State Department’s 2020 annual report on International Religious Freedom.
“Yu Hui and his family are now ineligible for entry into the United States,” Blinken said at a Wednesday press conference.
The top U.S. diplomat added that China “broadly criminalizes religious expression, and continues to commit crimes against humanity and genocide against Muslim Uyghurs and members of other religious and ethnic minority groups.”