an enormous crowd of opponents of the belarusian president, alexander lu kashenko, has gathered in minsk to demand his resignation. it comes amid growing anger over alleged poll—rigging, and police violence at subsequent protests. but the president has vowed to stay in power, claiming belarus is under threat from foreign forces. the speaker of the us house of representatives, nancy pelosi, has said that she will recall the chamber later this week to vote on legislation to protect the postal service. democrats have accused president trump of trying to hamstring the cash—strapped postal service to suppress postal voting in november's election. new zealand's prime minister has announced that general elections due to take place in mid—september have been postponed because of a fresh covid—19 outbreak. jacinda ardern said date has been pushed back to october the 17th, giving parties time to resume their suspended election campaigns.

now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk. 7 7 ?welcome to hardtalk. 7 7 7i'm stephen sackur. 7 7 7the chinese government goes 7 7 7to extraordinary lengths 7 7 7to control its own population. 7 7 7 perhaps the most extreme 777example, xinjiang, where muslim uighur people have faced 7 7 7systematic repression. 7 7 but the principal of authoritarian 7 7 7control runs much deeper. 7 7 7my guest today is wu'er kaixi, 7 7 7a political dissident in exile, 777part of the 1989 7 7 7tiananmen generation. 777he is himself a uighur. 7 7 7 has beijing effectively snuffed 7 7 7out the spirit of tiananmen7

77wu'er kaixi in taiwan, 7 7 7welcome to hardtalk. 7thank you very much. 7 7 7thank you for having me back. 7 7 7it is a pleasure to 7 7 7have you on the show. 777i think we must begin 7 7 7with what is happening in xinjiang, particularly 777to the uighur muslim 777communities in xinjiang. 7 7 7there is a rising level 7 7 7of international condemnation7 7 7 7at what the chinese 7 7 7government is doing. 7 7 7as you watch this 7 7 7situation very closely, 777do you see any sign china 777is modifying its policies? 7 7 7small signs here and there, 777but not in the general picture. 7 7 7 for instance, there is one 7 7 7country, turkey, being a muslim country and also, 7 7 7we share very common 7 7 7 7cultural and ethnic routes. 7 7 7the president of turkey has 7 7 7expressed his condemnation to 7 7 7 7china, perhaps one of the very 7 7 7few islamic country leaders

who 7 7 7 have done it. 7 7 7 because a large number 777of uighur live in turkey, 7 7 7it creates a tension domestically 7 7 7 in the turkish politics. 7 7 7therefore, the chinese 7 7 7government decided to calm turkey down by releasing some 7 7 7of the people in the camp who 7 7 7 have relatives in turkey. 7 7 7altogether, a few thousand perhaps. 7 7 7in comparison, we believe more 777than 1.5 million uighurs 7 7 7 in the concentration 7 7 7camp, that little change, 7 7 7without qualifier, your definition 7 7 7of changing the policy. 777i know you are one of the chairmen 777of one of the uighur 777campaigning groups that do so much 7 7 7work internationally. 7 7 70f course, many people around 7 7 7the world know you because of

your pro—democracy and freedom 7 7 7activities in china in1989, 7 7 7which led to your exile from 7 7 7the country after the tiananmen 7 7 7 protests ended in bloodshed. 7 7 7you now feel yourself, and identify 7 7 7 more as uighur than chinese7 777well, i'm a born uighur 777and my parents are both uighurs. 7 7 7i spoke their language 7 7 7at home when i was born and 777raised in beijing. 7 7 7when you are a member 777of a minority group in 777a large, overwhelmingly 777marginalised group, you 7 7 7do actually have a stronger sense 7 7 7of your birth identity. 7 7 7 discrimination against uighurs 777in china is everywhere. 777yes, i have a very strong sense 777of uighur, even back then when i 7 7 7was the leader of the chinese 7 7 7democracy movement.

7 7 7 democratizing china has no 7 7 7conflict or fighting for 7 7 7 uighurs‘ self identity rights. 7 7 7the 50 days of the 1989 student 7 7 7 movement perhaps is the only 50 7 7 7days that i felt absolutely no 7 7 7discrimination from my peers, 7 7 7from my classmates. 7 7 7it also gives us an interesting 7 7 7 perspective that when you fight 7 7 7for freedom, freedom 7 7 7 kind of brings equality. 7 7 7when you're concentrating 7 7 7on the concept of 7 7 7freedom, you forget to 7 7 7discriminate other people based 7 7 7on their ethnics. 777hang on. 7 7 7i have to interrupt 777you to point out that 7 7 7china isn't confronting 7 7 7activists fighting forfreedom. 7 7 7it is simply confronting what 7 7 7 it calls the three evil forces 7 7 7of separatism, 7 7 7terrorism and extremism. 7 7 7china argues it

conducts 7 7 7the policy across the country. gy777 77777 777it happens that the threat 7 7 7of extremism and 7 7 7separatism is at its greatest 7 7 7right now in xinjiang. if you keep trying to exploit wea ker if you keep trying to exploit weaker people from their self—identity, they want to get independent, yes, but they see independence is one of the ways to preserve their identity, their culture, so the separatism, if there are any, andi separatism, if there are any, and i do agree that there are separatism sentiments in the last 70 years, that's because of the chinese communist pa rty‘s of the chinese communist party's suppression. we would have, if chinese communist party had always treated us equally, we probably wouldn't have nearly this kind of

sentiments, we were part of the empire, we were happy with that, we were quite content with that only when chinese came to rule weaker people, they don't want to just rule, they don't want to just rule, they want to exploit us and that is unacceptable and that has led to the separatism. how satisfied are you with the international response we have seen7 international response we have seen? the bbc has done a great deal of reporting based on lea ked deal of reporting based on leaked documentation and secretly filmed video on the truth of what has happened and xin chang. recently we saw testimony from one detainee, who described he was among a whole group of people who were forced to wear leg shackles, a

headset, and others have talked about voluntary schools that are infact about voluntary schools that are in fact detention centres. we have seen the internment camps in terms of secret video. the international community doesn't really seem to have done very much in response. is that your view? as it is actually, i'd appreciate bbc‘s effo rts actually, i'd appreciate bbc‘s efforts and actually i appreciate british sentiment when it comes to this, that you do have a strong moral sense that you want to do something but at the same time, a media outfit like bbc also holding another stance that we need more evidence to report. let's not forget, during world war ii, the whole world only discovered the existence of holocaust just weeks before liberating berlin, so that happened, that went on for yea rs happened, that went on for years without the world knowing. isn't that a dangerous comparison7 because as soon as

you make that comparison with the death camps where more than 6 million people were exterminated, you are entering very dangerous territory. you may well be accused of massive, massive over exaggeration. this is also another fine character of your british people, including you, stephen, you do not want to go exaggeration, but the very idea, we don't wa nt to but the very idea, we don't want to go exaggerate, kind of limits you from reporting the truth, how can you ask that the suppressed people provide the evidence7 all these moral standards have somehow contradicted each other, but i'm glad at the end the sense of reporting from the bbc has ove i’co m e of reporting from the bbc has overcome and we also have two thank many ngo workers, people

who risk their lives to provide that little evidence the world are seeing today but the fact is much more overwhelming than what the world is seeing. may be the number is not happening, but this is 21st—century you are getting i million people in concentration camp, it is something the world should feel outrage when they discover the existence of the holocaust. in june of this year, donald trump was specifically asked why he hadn't enacted us treasury sanctions on us communist party based on evidence emerging from xin chang about the treatment of the uighurs and he said we are in the middle of a major trade deal. what do you make of that? the last 30 years, the

world is in a trade deal with china. united states is in a trade war, and great britain and europe and every other democratic country, free country, the whole world in the last 30 years, at the very least 30 years, decided to talk trade with china only, and then i called it, if i remember clearly, in your show last time when they appeared five years ago, eyes said, this is appeasement. donald trump is a businessman who became a world leader, but at least from his perspective, and he is seeing this business deal, this trade deal is not benefiting america either. so the whole world maybe it is time to realise to get out of this trade deal and talk about some basic human rights. isn't the truth that the space for political dissent

in china has become vanishingly small. china now has a system of surveillance monitoring and control, far beyond singeing which makes it impossible that the so—called spirit of tiananmen that you were a part of could ever be revived. do you agree? the spirit is very much there, it has just been suppressed and even with the level of that suppression that you have just described, level of that suppression that you havejust described, we still have people who are trying to stand up and challenge this regime, and we we re challenge this regime, and we were hoping the world could stand on the right side but that trade deal has kind of made us, the spirit of tiananmen feeling awfully lonely and china and in the streets of hong kong. but may

be, andi streets of hong kong. but may be, and i will put it bluntly, maybe you are out of touch? i'm looking at the words of a fellow tiananmen activist who said recently, overseas movements have tried to encourage the dissidents inside china, but the chinese authorities are forcing civil society groups to cease operations. the government there has been successful in breaking our connection to many chinese dissidents. is that your reality? yes. first of all, i have been living in exile for over 30 years, now. yes, i have been out of touch from china and out of touch of my parents, i haven't seen my pa rents for my parents, i haven't seen my parents for 30 some years, because chinese government decided that they put us in this position. morally, we should not be blamed for that.

the information flow outside of china is much, much more free than that is in china, so if we are out of touch, i can guarantee you, i billion chinese people, they are much more out of touch with the reality that we are. i just wa nt to reality that we are. i just want to quote to you the words ofa want to quote to you the words of a woman quoted in time magazine on this very question of whether chinese people are deeply unhappy from the element of authoritarian control in their society. she was a shopkeeper she described the tb surveillance cameras both inside and outside her own business and she said this: chinese people don't care about privacy. above all, we want security. for me, it is still not enough cameras. we want more. again, they do not have an option of having more or less. that's the thing. so

whatever narrative you asked a chinese people, you should bear that in mind. they are being forced into possession without any say. so their opinion, a red and american forum to say 85% or even higher numberfeel satisfied with their regime, it was a study conducted by an independent institution in the united states and they were shocked and asked me what is my reading of that. i'm pretty sure it is not accurate, because they describe it as the highest number in the world. i said because you haven't had a chance to conduct a survey in north korea stop if you do that, maybe north korea would be number one. so would that really give you a clear picture to interview chinese people, north korean people about their government7 north korean people about their government? that is a naive mistake the western world, free

world and bbc shouldn't make. me ask you about hong kong because i know as a freedom and democracy activist, you watch it closely and with the imposition of the national security law, including a high—profile media figure, fears that there is any space left for descent or pro—democracy activism. we spoke recently to nathan law, the young leader of the pro—democracy movement who has gone into exile. do you believe the pro—democracy activists inside hong kong are now going to face as much repression as in the rest of china? yes, yes. very much so. and then let's not forget it was a city some 20 something years ago that belonged to the free world, and then you lost one of your

cities to a totalitarian block. to the other side. you lost a city and the people in that city and the people in that city is fighting to survive. i think the united kingdom, we have learned. it's a little late. we should not have trusted china from the very beginning. that's the key. the world somehow decided from that trade deal, i'm sure that's come from, that china is a benign country and that is something, and we keep saying it's not, but we are dissidents. i think we were automatically filtered out because hey, they are dissidents. let me repeat what we have been telling the world and keep saying these days we

have told you so. the true character of the chinese communist party, chinese regime, is like they are greedy. they are not necessarily sophisticated or smart but they are extremely greedy and they only understand the one way to deal with them is to submit to them. the world has somehow felt that engagement can change china and the policy the world has had in the policy the world has had in the last 30 years have changed the last 30 years have changed the world, not china, so it's time to learn. the danger it seems to me, that you speak about the evils of the chinese communist party and encourage the international community to get real and impose tougher sanctions on china. the danger you face is that people inside your own home country of china, somebody betraying the nation,

nationalism is a potent force inside china and all of the words that you give to me run counter to much of the popular nationalist sentiment inside the country. it's a completely blocked, controlled environment. and in that environment, people can think with few options and that can change rapidly when it's liberated. when the flow of information is liberated. and i have seen it in many liberated countries from totalitarian regime to democracy and that shouldn't be the main concern of the world. it's not the main concern of mine and my government. i'd like you to address my specific point about nationalist sentiment. i am picking of ambassador lu xiaoming, who said, on hard tour, people in china live

better, happier, longer lives, we have achieved so much and people around the world should now understand china is not a country you can kick around and many ordinary chinese people feel that way as well, do they not7 feel that way as well, do they not? you can take that sentence out of the mouths of hip in 1930. out of the mouths of hip in i930. shouldn't that give the dish people especially a more sense of alertness7 yes. but the economic development in china happened because of the technology development, the direct investment, and they have been setting what they looted from the resolution —— revolution, that's not because of the communist party, the communist party gives a free society to chinese people from where7 from their own even more brutal ruling in the cultural revolution so should the

communist party be given credit for their lesser control, electing the money flow into it7 electing the money flow into it? i'm not asking the world to ta ke it? i'm not asking the world to take a tougher step, i'm asking the world to be more honest, that's it. people will form their own judgements about your comparisons of the government of china with hitler, and fascists. they will make their ownjudgements on that fascists. they will make their own judgements on that but i wonder if you are running a risk here. you sit in taiwan, there are many older and younger, particularly dissidents who have moved to taiwan. we have seen massive chinese military exercises in the chinese straight and we know the chinese government's position to quote xi jinping is ultimately unification of the chinese mainland and taiwan is inevitable. do not there is a very real prospect in the medium to long—term that china

may well move against taiwan because increasingly it will see taiwan as a nest of opponents of the communist pa rty7 opponents of the communist party? absolutely. the danger is always there. if you consider china as one of the biggest threats to the world civilisation we are living in, taiwan is in the blast zone. let me use taiwanese people sentiment to answer this question. these people live in this island. when they brace in and out, they know the air they are breathing in and out is called freedom and they earned it and they determined to defend it. this is what i am saying. taiwan deserves to be recognised as one of the greatest, most vivid democracies yet the world, the dishonest world decides to exclude taiwan from the club of democracy. why7 exclude taiwan from the club of

democracy. why? because china said so. they said they are going to reunify. taiwan was a lwa ys going to reunify. taiwan was always pa rt of going to reunify. taiwan was always part of china. taiwan was never really always part of china. taiwan has its own government, its own society. it's a free society as well. and then you may lose this partner is a free country. and you are losing hong kong. i hopeifs you are losing hong kong. i hope it's not too late to salvage. let me end with this question for you. you've been a pro—democracy activist and critic of beijing for a long time. if you are honest with yourself today, look at the relative strength, resolved and strategic vision of the united states, the so—called leader of the free world and then look at china, with its ambitions and strategic vision, which actually seems stronger right now. very same sentiment can be used to describe again in

19305. used to describe again in 1930s. just answer my question about today. being a dissident in china, for many years, we just urged the world, pushing china to a democracy, it's our responsibility, not yours but please don't take the wrong side but now i am telling through your programme, and thank you very much for giving me this platform, to tell the world that the chinese government is a threat to the whole world, it's a threat to the very civilisation we are living in and let's make that comparison. china and the world and if the world cannot reunify against china, like you want to say, what was the word that lord chamberlain decided, use peace, or appeasement, that's again. it's time for the world to really think from this perspective. and i've been saying, i've told you so,

please don't dismiss our voice because we are dissidents. we may have a good point because we are dissidents. wu'er kaixi, we are dissidents. wu'er kaixi, we have to end their but i thank you very much indeed for joining me on hardtalk. thank you very much. hello there. we had lots of thunderstorms across england and wales on sunday, but it's not every day you see one of these. yes, a waterspout that formed out in the bristol channel, and this was seen by a number of our weather watchers, actually, from north somerset. it was also spotted around the newport area

of south wales as well. that was all associated with this low pressure that's across northern france. we can see an occlusion. this band of cloud here that brought some thunderstorms across eastern england, and they were torrential. 28 mm of rain on sunday fell in bedford. looking at the weather picture at the moment, this system, essentially, is going to split into two bits, with this branch not really making much progress further north. that means the rain will continue to affect greater manchester, lancashire, merseyside along with wales for a time before easing later in the night. it won't really push that much farther north. that means the far north of england, northern ireland and scotland stay largely dry over the next few hours, but with low cloud. there'll be some mist and fog patches, and maybe a little bit of drizzle around some of the eastern coasts in scotland as well. for the rest of monday, the low pressure will continue to move its way in, and that will bring showers. this time, the showers will be affecting scotland and northern ireland through the afternoon, but it's further south

across england and wales that the day's heaviest showers are most likely to be. 20 or30 mm in the space of an hour. again, that's enough to cause some localised flash flooding. in between those showers in the sunshine, still feeling warm, still a little on the humid side. but we're not finished with the showery story just there, because tuesday will be another showery day. this time, the heaviest showers look more set to go in across northern england and scotland. lots of thunder and lightning, a bit of hail mixed in with some of these. fewer showers in the south. still one or two fairly pokey ones as we go into the afternoon. beyond that, some changes in the weather. this low pressure, slow—moving, will be with us for much of the rest of the week with fresher air following this cold front through. it means on wednesday many of us start off on a dry note, but cloud and rain will spread in across northern ireland, england and wales. eventually, it turns a fair bit windier across the south—west. gusts of around 30—a0 miles an hour, all the while staying largely dry in scotland through the afternoon with sunshine. fresher air arrives from thursday onwards, but that's not an end to the wet story. it stays unsettled with rain or showers to take us into next weekend.

this is bbc news: i'm sally bundock with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. more protests expected in belarus following sunday's huge gathering. president lukashenko remains defiant. house speaker nancy pelosi announces a vote to prevent changes in postal services ahead of the us election. rejecting the mask. why some europeans are refusing to wear them. australia suffers its worst coronavirus day as 25 die in the state of victoria.