“This genocide is underway and … we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs by the Chinese party state,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on the government’s last full day on Tuesday. Trump.
“Since at least March 2017, local authorities have dramatically stepped up their decades-long campaign of repression against Uyghur Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups, including Kazakhs and Kyrgyz ethnic groups,” Pompeo said.
The United States Department of State previously estimated that up to two million Uyghurs, as well as members of other Muslim minorities, have been held in an extensive network of internment camps in the region.
Former inmates at the re-education camp have told CNN they have faced political indoctrination and abuse in the camps, such as food and sleep deprivation and forced injections. CNN reports have also revealed that some Uyghur women were forced to use contraception and undergo sterilization as part of a deliberate effort to lower the birth rate among minorities in Xinjiang.
China has denied allegations of such human rights violations in Xinjiang. It has insisted that its re-education camps are necessary to prevent religious extremism and terrorism in the area, which is home to approximately 11 million Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority who speak a language closely related to Turkish and a culture of its own has.
Opinion pieces and reports in Chinese state media also specifically advocate against applying the term “genocide” to the situation.
Washington-based advocacy group, Campaign for Uyghurs, welcomed the designation as a step toward justice.
“This statement does not change anything immediately, but as any victim will tell you, when the eyes of the world community see us and recognize that our horror is real, it means it all,” CFU director Rushan Abbas said in a statement Tuesday.
“My own sister’s 20-year sentence on false charges is clearly linked to this genocidal intent of the Chinese regime. They, and all Uyghurs, deserve justice,” she added.
Concern about human rights issues in Xinjiang is a two-pronged issue in the US. However, the announcement in the closing hours of the Trump administration could further complicate the approach and dealings with Beijing by the incoming Biden administration.
The president-elect has spoken out on human rights violations in China, calling in November 2019 the mass internment of Uyghur Muslims “one of the worst human rights violations in the world today”.
“The US cannot remain silent – we must speak out against this oppression and ruthlessly defend human rights around the world,” Biden tweeted. In a statement to Politico in August, Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates labeled the crimes genocide.
If the Trump administration chooses to speak out for what it is, as Joe Biden has already done, the pressing question is what Donald Trump will do to take action. He must also apologize for approving this heinous treatment of Uyghurs, ”Bates said – apparently referring to a claim by former national security adviser John Bolton that Trump had previously encouraged Chinese President Xi Jinping to continue building detention camps in Xinjiang.
In his statement on Tuesday, Pompeo said he had “ instructed the US State Department to continue to investigate and collect relevant information about the ongoing atrocities taking place in Xinjiang, and to make this evidence available to the appropriate authorities and authorities. the international community to the extent permitted by law. “
The treatment of Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang has been widely condemned by the international community. In July 2019, twenty-two countries, including Japan and the UK, signed a letter urging China to end its “mass arbitrary detentions and related violations” and called on Beijing to allow UN experts access to the region .
In December, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning China over the allegations of forced labor. The UK government has also criticized Beijing, saying earlier this month that it would fine companies hiding ties to Xinjiang.
The new measures are designed to ensure that all British organizations “are neither complicit in nor benefiting from the human rights abuses in Xinjiang,” the British Foreign Office said.
Earlier this month, the US also banned imports of cotton products and tomatoes produced in Xinjiang over concerns about forced labor.
