EU lawmakers find ‘serious risk of genocide’ in China’s crackdown on Uyghurs — Radio Free Asia
On Thursday, members of the European Parliament easily passed a resolution calling the Chinese government’s systemic human rights abuses against the predominantly Muslim Uyghur minority “crimes against humanity and a grave risk of genocide”.
The EU condemned “in the strongest possible terms that the Uyghurs have been systematically oppressed through brutal measures, including mass deportation, political indoctrination, separation from families, restrictions on religious freedom, cultural destruction and the intensive use of surveillance”.
The resolution said “credible evidence on birth prevention measures and the separation of Uyghur children from their families constitute crimes against humanity and pose a serious risk of genocide.”
Lawmakers also passed a separate resolution to ban products made by forced labor from the EU market, due to come into force in September, and pushed for new sanctions against senior Chinese officials responsible for the politics in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Parliament also demanded that UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, who recently visited Xinjiang, release a long-awaited report on human rights abuses in the region, saying that she “did not clearly hold the Chinese government accountable”.
The move followed the release of “Xinjiang Police Files,” which leaked police files from XUAR internment camps with details of more than 20,000 Uighurs detained. The files were released in May by German researcher Adrian Zenz, who is an expert on internal Chinese government documents and the Xinjiang internment campaign.
“The Xinjiang police files have clearly been a wake-up call for the European Parliament to feel the urgency of the situation and the need for effective action,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC ), in a statement released Thursday. “The EU and its Member States must now follow up on these calls and do all they can, in cooperation with governments and civil society around the world, to put an end to the Uyghur genocide.”
The actions of MEPs follow declarations by the United States and other Western governments that the Chinese crackdown in Xinjiang is a crime against humanity and meets the legal definition of genocide.
“Uyghurs around the world – we stand with you, so we have a strong resolution today in this parliament, so stay strong,” said German MEP Engin Eroglu, co-sponsor of the resolution, after the vote. “We fight with you for human rights.”
“It’s very important to name the crime, and so today is a historic day, and not just because of the genocide resolution, but also because we voted for the import bans,” the official said. French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, another co-sponsor of the resolution. .
“We are going to deal a heavy blow to this repression machine of the Chinese Communist Party, and this is only the beginning of the fight,” he said. “You are not alone. We are with you. Europe is on your side.
‘What are they waiting for?’
At least 1.8 million Uighurs and other Turkish minorities have reportedly been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017, allegedly to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activity.
Beijing has declared the camps to be vocational training centers. The government has denied repeated allegations from multiple sources that it tortured people in the camps or mistreated other Muslims living in Xinjiang.
“Today we feel we are not alone,” Dolkun Isa told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, after the vote. “We have a lot of supporters”
US-based Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) said it supported “robust, direct and strong action by the European Parliament to hold the Chinese accountable for their genocide” in Xinjiang.
“The Chinese regime’s claims that so-called vocational training centers are for rehabilitation are proven false by ‘Xinjiang police records,'” CFU executive director Rushan Abbas said in a statement. communicated.
“Uyghurs and other Turkic groups in East Turkestan have been subjected to totalitarian oppression for years, as evidenced by the evidence in these most recent articles,” she said, using the Uyghurs’ preferred name. for Xinjiang.
Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), based in the United States, called on EU member states to take steps to ensure that atrocities are subject to relevant international accountability mechanisms.
“There is no better time to finally take the case to an international tribunal to rule on evidence of atrocities,” said Omer Kanat, executive director of UHRP. “The European Parliament has just affirmed the EU’s own obligation to prevent genocide – what are they waiting for?”