According to a formal legal opinion newly published in the UK reported by the BBC, there is a “very credible case” that the Chinese government is carrying out the crime of genocide against the Uighur people.
This legal opinion which was commissioned by the Global Legal Action Network, the World Uighur Congress and the Uighur Human Rights Project says that there is a credible case that Chinese President Xi Jinping is himself responsible for these crimes against humanity. It states “the close involvement of Xi Jinping” in the targeting of Uighurs would support a “plausible” case of genocide against him.
The deliberate infliction of harm on Uighurs in detention includes measures to prevent women giving birth – including sterilisation and abortion – and the forcible transfer of Uighur children out of their community says the report. It concludes there is evidence of state-mandated behaviour showing an intent to destroy the largely Muslim minority in north-western China.
“On the basis of the evidence we have seen, this Opinion concludes that there is a very credible case that acts carried out by the Chinese government against the Uighur people in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region amount to crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide”, says the report.
The 100-page report is written by senior barristers at Essex Court Chambers in London, including Alison Macdonald QC and BBC reports that it to be the first formal legal assessment in the UK of China’s activities in Xinjiang.
China’s foreign ministry has consistently denied allegations of human rights abuses against the Uighurs in Xinjiang. The Chinese embassy in London accused anti-China forces in the West of fabricating “lies of the century” about Xinjiang.
Last week, BBC published a detailed story on the treatment of women in “re-education” camps for Uighurs set-up by China. The story alleged that women in China’s “re-education” camps for Uighurs have been systematically raped, sexually abused, and tortured, according to detailed new accounts obtained by the BBC.
Highlights of BBC report on inhuman acts against Uighurs Muslim women is below:
- Uighurs are mostly a Turkic minority Muslim community with a population of 11 million in China’s northwest Xinjiang province. The region borders with Kazakhstan.
- China has secretly organized several internment camps of Uighurs Muslims in Xinjiang region and called it ‘re-education camps’.
- According to an estimate, about 1 million women and men are under house arrest in these camps.
- Human rights organizations say that the Chinese government has taken away their rights and freedom including religious rights of these Uighurs Muslims.
- Repressive mass surveillance and forced sterilization are done by the Chinese government during detention. The camp is also squalid and not maintained neatly.
- Many of the rules at such camps were implemented after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visited Xinjiang in 2014.
- The New York Times had published a report during his visit alleging that President Xi Jinping had ordered the local authorities not to ‘show any kind of mercy’ to Uighurs Muslims.
- Tursunay Ziawudun (age 42), who arrived in the US after escaping from one such camp in Xinjiang, told the BBC that Uighur women were raped by more than one Chinese men wearing ‘masks’ every night.
- Tursunay Ziawudun narrated more than one incident of gang rape with the BBC.
- Xinjiang is known as Kunus among the Uighur Muslims. On the basis of the documents from 2017-18 obtained by the BBC, it is alleged that Uighur Muslims are being brainwashed in these camps in the name of education.
- The BBC also interviewed Kazakh women who lived in in these ‘re-education’ camps of Xinjiang for 18 months. These women told that their job was to forcibly disrobe Uighur women and to handcuff them. The women would be then left alone with Chinese men.
- It was a systematic process of rape and Kazakh women had no right to interfere in them.
- The BBC has also confirmed the disappearance of several women or women would never return, through Tursunay Ziawudun.
- Ziawudun narrates that women’s jewelry is confiscated at the camps and that they are not free to wear the clothes of their choice or make their own hair. She also told that even the elderly women are stripped of their clothes, leaving them only in their inner garments. .
- Ziawudun narrated an inhuman incident to the BBC involing her. “One night in May 2018, I and another Uighur women were forcibly taken to a dark room. Here we were given ‘electric shocks’ in our private parts”.
- In addition to teaching only the Chinese language in these camps, only programs related to Chinese President Xi Jinping are shown on TV at the facilities.
Satish Chogule 
Saisha Kamla Dudha 
Sahana A