New Delhi: From sexual abuse, illegal detentions to forced birth control, China is allegedly carrying out a genocide against its Uyghur population in Xinjiang province, a new report by a US-based think-tank has said.
According to the Washington DC-based Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, China is in breach of the 1948 United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which the country has signed along with 151 nations. It is the first time an independent, non-governmental organisation has analysed the allegations of genocide in Xinjiang.
First made public by CNN, the report has been authored by more than 50 global experts on international law, genocide, China’s ethnic policies, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
The report says there’s enough evidence to prove that the Chinese state intends to destroy the ethnic community in whole or in substantial part. It adds that China is guilty of all five counts, which Article II of the Genocide Convention states constitute genocide.
The five include killing members of a group, causing serious bodily harm, inflicting damage that can severely affect one’s life, imposing childbirth control measures on the group and finally, transferring children of the group to another.
The Uyghurs number 12 million in the North-Western region of Xinjiang and are predominantly Muslim. They speak their own language, similar to Turkish, and identify more with Central Asian countries.
According to the report, when Chinese President Xi Jinping declared a war on terror, he brought Uyghur-dominated areas to the frontline of the war.
The report adds that this was followed by high-level officials giving orders to “wipe them out completely … destroy them root and branch,” and “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins.” They also allegedly likened the mass internment of Uyghurs as the “eradication of tumours”.
The report also alleges that Han Chinese cadres reside in Uyghur homes as “monitors” and the state often coerces and actively promotes Han-Uyghur marriage.
Also read: ‘Ideological cure’ for Uyghurs, ‘no mercy’ — what leaked papers reveal about Xinjiang camps
Increasing detention centres
The report also alleged that Uyghurs are being sent to internment camps where they are being held in inhumane conditions.
“Uyghurs have been expelled from their homes and sent to internment camps en masse, where they are deprived of adequate food, clothing, medical care, and shelter, and often only then released directly into forced labour schemes,” reads the report. “Sleep deprivation, starvation, and unsanitary, dangerous, and overcrowded conditions are commonly reported in the camps.”
According to the report, 1-2 million people have been allegedly detained in as many as 1,400 extrajudicial internment facilities across Xinjiang. According to a first-hand account, sexual abuse and rape of Uyghur women have also become commonplace under the detentions.
The report also claims that researchers have verified over 380 detention sites across XUAR that were either newly built or have significantly expanded since 2017.
“While the (Chinese) government claims the new compounds are designed for ‘vocational education’, satellite imagery and analysis, government documents, and first-hand accounts clearly demonstrate that they are managed as prisons with varying levels of security,” reads the report.
The authors also claim to have accessed leaked reports that detail ludicrous grounds for detention in Xinjiang such as “being young” as in “born after 1980s”, “being generally untrustworthy”, “generally acting suspiciously”, “having complex social ties,” “having improper (sexual) relations”, and “birth policy violations”.
The detention centres and internment centres are also running on institutionalised forced labour, where detainees are transferred to work in cotton fields adjacent to camps or hundreds of kilometres away in Eastern China, the report claims.
Furthermore, 135 forced labour factories have been identified near the detention camps.
“Uyghur detainees within the detention sites are systematically tortured, subjected to sexual violence, including rape, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, deprived of their basic human needs, and severely humiliated,” the report says.
The Chinese Foreign Minister had on 7 March denied the allegations, saying that the charges of genocide against China are “ridiculously absurd” and “a complete lie”.
Forced birth control
The report further states that China has subjected Uyghur women to forced birth control.
According to the report, between 2017 and 2018, the percentage of infertile Uyghur women had increased to 124 per cent. In 2018, 80 per cent of all IUDs (intrauterine devices) in China were placed in the Uyghur region, a 77.5 per cent increase from four previous years, the report adds.
“Government documents from 2019 demonstrate plans for a campaign of mass female sterilization in rural Uyghur regions, targeting 14 and 34 per cent of all married women of childbearing age in two Uyghur counties in that year alone, with funding for these XUAR programs increasing,” says the report.
In September 2020, the XUAR Government had even sent a letter to CNN attributing a dramatic drop in the region’s birth rate from 15.88 per 1,000 people in 2017 to 10.69 per 1,000 people in 2018 to “the comprehensive implementation” of the family planning policy.
(Edited by Arun Prashanth)
Also read: Islamic nations shamelessly silent while others condemn China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims
Let’s not see everything in black and white. Chinese restrictions on practice of religion is deplorable no doubt.
However when all religions and their followers are obsessed with science and prosperity, unfortunately their exists followers of a religion who are shunning science and prosperity. They are also opposing POPULATION CONTROL in the name of religion.
This causes disharmony all over the globe. We must not forget that china is interested in education and science and prosperity and cannot let a community to oppose development on the basis of religion.
Even INDIA is facing this challenge on education and population control front, where a community is opposing everything obsessed by religion.
Silence of Indian muslims, Pakistan, Saudi, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, OIC is deafening.
Where are the usual condemnations, tweets, speeches, fatwas?
China knows how to deal with terrorism , other countries must learn from them.
Nice. Atleast china is doing that😂😂😂