Ill-treatment of Uyghurs by China to be investigated: ICC

Beijing [China], June 25 (ANI): In a radical step, a group of lawyers has knocked on the doors of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against China’s increasing atrocities toward Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim populations in the Xinjiang region. Subjecting minority groups to genocide, including mass arbitrary detention, forced labour, torture, forced sterilization, separation of children from parents and destruction of minority culture, China has been a major cause of human rights abuses against the community, reported local media.

However, Beijing has vehemently denied all accusations of human rights abuses in the region and says that all ethnic groups in Xinjiang live happily. The lawyers, who represent Uyghurs in exile, said that on Monday they presented the ICC with new evidence of Beijing’s efforts “to round up Uyghurs in neighbouring countries, including an ICC member state, and elsewhere, to force them back” to China. “It also very sadly shows what happens to them once back in detention camps,” lead lawyer Rodney Dixon said in a statement emailed to VOA.

The ICC has jurisdiction over these crimes that commence on ICC territory and continue into China, and is urged to act immediately to open an investigation, newsletter, global security.org stated. This is the third dossier of evidence submitted to the ICC by the legal team since it filed an initial complaint two years ago.

The complaint was submitted on June 6, 2020, and the submission of additional evidence took place on July 10, 2021; November 2021; and this past Monday, according to the legal team. After the first submission of evidence, ICC prosecutors said the court was unable to take up the case because the alleged abuses happened in China, which is not an ICC member state.

The last submission of evidence to ICC includes “firsthand evidence from a witness” who was deported to China, detained in internment camps and subjected to “interrogation and torture” before escaping from China in 2018, globalsecurity.org said, citing the lawyers. “It shows that the Chinese government is implementing a policy of rounding up Uyghurs and other ethnically Turkic people from outside China, including ICC member states such as neighbouring Tajikistan, and forcefully deporting them back to China,” the legal team said in a statement provided to VOA.

Other Uyghur witnesses who fled from Tajikistan to Turkey in 2018 described how China pressured police and immigration officials in Tajikistan to deport Uyghurs back to China. For over two decades, Uyghurs living outside China have faced efforts by Chinese authorities to pressure foreign governments to detain and forcibly transfer them back to China.

Research shows that more than 1,500 Uyghurs, including many who are human rights defenders, have been detained or forcibly returned to China where many have faced imprisonment and torture in custody. Since 2016, the Chinese government has intensified repression and carried out a policy of mass, arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, subjecting them to severe policies including the prohibition of most religious, linguistic, and cultural practices; state-sponsored forced labour; imprisonment; and forced sterilization and birth prevention policies. (ANI)

Biden under pressure to fight China’s forced-labour industry in Xinjiang

Beijing [China], June 26 (ANI): Though US President Joe Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to ban imports of any products connected to forced-labour practices in China’s northwest Xinjiang region, it came to light that some administration figures and business interests are fighting against the strict implementation of this law. With this, the Biden administration faces a crucial test of its will to not stay complicit in taking strict action against the human rights violations of the Uyghur comminity in China’s Xinjiang region.

The question remains whether Joe Biden will be able to confront this genocide in China. This is a lingering question as only this week, a new US law meant to cripple China’s ability to profit from the forced labor of Uyghurs and other persecuted minorities went into effect. Now, whether President Biden will fully implement it or squash off America’s best and perhaps last chance to end the complicity in these atrocities is yet to be determined.

US Congress passed and Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act last December. It bans imports of any products connected to forced-labor practices in China’s northwest Xinjiang region, part of what the Biden administration has determined to be an ongoing genocide.

However, Josh Rogin, writing for Washington Post said that several officials, congressional staffers and experts have told him that some administration figures and business interests are fighting against the strict implementation of the law. “The implementation will be contested, just as everything, Xinjiang-related was contested last year,” said Michael Sobolik, a fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council adding, “The mechanics are different, but the battle remains the same: climate interests pitted against human rights concerns.”

Another point of contention is climate change. Officials of the Biden administration, including State Department climate envoy John F. Kerry, have argued internally since last year that human rights concerns should not stand in the way of working with China on climate change.

It is interesting to note that Beijing has itself tried to deliberately link these two issues that have no correlation. Beijing demands the United States stop the criticism of the country’s human rights violations before it will walk the talk on climate change.

However, there is one thing which is different this year- the high inflation in US and the economic crisis. This crisis threatens Democratic control of Congress and his own reelection. This seems to be causing the White House to ease off its promise to combat Uyghur forced labor to the full extent of its ability.
One of the examples of this is the issuance of White House emergency declaration where it granted a 24-month tariff waiver for solar panels containing components from Xinjiang.

This move undermines an ongoing Commerce Department investigation. The new law requires that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detain any shipment that comes from Xinjiang or has components connected to Xinjiang, which are now presumed to be tainted with forced labor unless the importers can prove otherwise.

It is concerning whether the law that US put in place to put pressure on China for putting a stop on the human rights violations in Xinjiang will be properly implemented. Some US corporations are already complaining that the requirement is too onerous, because proving that the products are unconnected to abuses is near impossible.

If the White House provides enough wiggle room for China’s forced-labour industry to continue with business as usual, the entire effort will be rendered useless — and the prospects for the Uyghurs and other victims will further darken, as per the US-based media. (ANI)