“This genocide is ongoing and … we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy the Uyghurs by the Chinese party-state,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Tuesday, on the last full day of the Trump administration.
“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 people,” he said. declared Pompeo.
The US State Department has previously estimated that up to two million Uyghurs, as well as members of other Muslim minority groups, have been held in a vast network of internment camps in the region.
Former re-education camp inmates told CNN they had suffered political indoctrination and abuse inside the camps, such as deprivation of food and sleep and forced injections. CNN reports also revealed that some Uyghur women have been forced to use birth control and undergo sterilization as part of a deliberate attempt to lower birth rates among minorities in Xinjiang.
China denies allegations of such human rights violations in Xinjiang. He insisted that his re-education camps are needed to prevent religious extremism and terrorism in the region, home to around 11 million Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority who speak a language closely related to Turkish and have its own distinct culture.
Opinion pieces and reports in the Chinese state-controlled media have also argued specifically against applying the term “genocide” to the situation.
Washington-based advocacy group Campaign for Uyghurs hailed the designation as a step towards justice.
“This statement does not change anything immediately, but as any victim will tell you, having the eyes of the world community see us and recognize that our horror is real means everything,” CFU Director Rushan Abbas said on Tuesday.
“My own sister’s 20-year prison sentence for false charges is clearly linked to this genocidal intent of the Chinese regime. She, and all Uyghurs, deserve justice,” she added.
The concern about human rights issues in Xinjiang is a bipartisan issue in the United States. However, the announcement in the final hours of the Trump administration could further complicate the new Biden administration’s approach and relationship with Beijing.
The president-elect spoke out on human rights violations in China and in November 2019 called the mass internment of Uyghur Muslims “among the worst human rights violations in the world today”.
“The United States cannot be silent – we must speak out against this oppression and tirelessly defend human rights around the world,” Biden tweeted. In a statement to Politico in August, Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates called the crimes genocide.
“If the Trump administration indeed chooses to call it what it is, as Joe Biden has already done, the pressing question is what Donald Trump will do to act. He must also apologize for ‘to have tolerated this horrific treatment of Uighurs,’ 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 “ordered the US State Department to continue to investigate and collect relevant information on the ongoing atrocities in Xinjiang, and to make this evidence available to the public. competent authorities and 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 United Kingdom, signed a letter urging China to end its “mass arbitrary detentions and related violations” and called on Beijing to allow UN experts to access the region.
In December, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning China for allegations of forced labor. The British government also criticized Beijing and said earlier this month it would fine companies that hide connections to Xinjiang.
The new measures aim to ensure that all British organizations “are not complicit in and profit from human rights violations in Xinjiang,” according to the British Foreign Office.
Earlier this month, the United States also banned imports of cotton products and tomatoes produced in Xinjiang due to forced labor concerns.
