NEWS

World Leaders Speak with Xi Jinping at G20 Summit, Raise Uyghur Human Rights

This week, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia, several world leaders met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in person for the first time since he secured a third term in power in October and the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. These were also the first face-to-face meetings between Xi and most democratic G20 leaders since the release of the UN Uyghur Report and the wider global outcry over the Uyghur genocide. According to a readout of the White House, U.S. President Biden, expressed “concerns about PRC practices in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and human rights more broadly.”

Meanwhile, on November 15th, Politico reported that UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will abandon plans to declare China a “threat” to national security as part of a major review of British foreign policy. He softened his language on Beijing and twice refused to back his predecessor Liz Truss’ plans to elevate China’s status to that of a “threat” in an upcoming refresh of the U.K. government’s foreign and defence priorities.

Rahima Mahmut, U.K. director of the World Uyghur Congress, said: “I cannot find words for the disappointment. While our children are stolen from us and re-educated, our women sterilized, and products made through Uyghur slavery fill U.K. shelves, the prime minister can’t even bring himself to acknowledge the Chinese government for what it is: a clear and present danger to the U.K., and to my people.”

New German China Strategy To Focus More Strongly on Human Rights
On November 16th, Der Spiegel published a report on the German government’s new  strategy towards China. According to a leaked draft, human rights should be placed more strongly than before at the centre of Germany’s relationship with China. The paper states that human rights are “indivisible and cannot be relativised – neither culturally nor religiously”. The paper is harshly critical of China’s human rights atrocities, speaking of “massive human rights violations” in East Turkistan and in Tibet. Crucially, the observance of human rights is to be decisive in the future shaping of economic relations. The draft states that “economic development and human rights do not contradict each other”

New UHRP Report 

On November 17th, the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) published a new report, titled “Forced Marriage of Uyghur Women: State Policies for Interethnic Marriages in East Turkistan”. According to the report’s findings, the Chinese government systematically imposes forced interethnic marriages on Uyghur women, constituting a form of gender-based crimes which furthers the ongoing crimes again humanity and genocide. In the report, the UHRP examines the PRC’s role in promoting, incentivizing, and coercing interethnic marriage between Uyghur women and Han men in East Turkistan, showing evidence on the Chinese Party-State campaign of forcefully assimilating Uyghurs into Han Chinese society by means of mixed marriages.

Open Call from Civil Society for Access to EU Customs Trade Information 

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), together with 55 other civil society organisations, has urged European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, to ensure that the upcoming reform of EU Customs legislation will enable non-state actors to access trade information.

The role of accessible customs information in addressing Uyghur forced labour is a good illustration of how customs information can contribute to addressing human rights violations. It is partly through access to customs data that researchers and civil society organisations were able to provide evidence of the importance of the trade flows from East Turkistan, inform companies active in the garment, energy and food sector of their potential complicity with forced labour, and provide support to competent authorities responsible for the enforcement of relevant regulatory requirements, in particular in the USA.

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Support Uyghurs’ Genocide & Crimes Against Humanity Case in Argentina

The World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur Human Rights Project have launched a criminal case in the courts of Argentina in relation to the international crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity being committed against the Uyghur people. Please donate and be a part of this historical case.

Ask Volkswagen to Close its Plant in East Turkistan

Despite growing evidence of the ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs, Volkswagen continues to operate in East Turkistan. The World Uyghur Congress is collecting signatures to demand Volkswagen to close down its plant in Urumqi. Please sign here.