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Weekly Brief September 6

Weekly Brief September 6

World Uyghur Congress, 6 September 2019

WUC Calls on German Chancellor to Oppose China on Uyghur Mass Internment

This week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel left for her twelfth visit to China. On September 6, she met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping. Ms. Merkel was accompanied by several delegations of German companies, who have so far signed eleven trade agreements with their Chinese counterparts.

The WUC called on the German Chancellor ahead of her trip to reject the business as usual approach, to demand the immediate release of the 1-3 million Uyghurs currently held in internment camps and to ensure that German businesses in China operate in conformity with human rights standards.

Fears That Uyghurs May Be Transferred From Internment Camp System to Prisons

Official data show that outside the internment camp system arrests and convictions to prison sentences in the Uyghur Region have skyrocketed in 2017 and 2018 in comparison to Mainland China. 87,000 defendants were sentenced to more than five years in prison in 2017, which is a tenfold increase compared to the previous year.

These findings are heightening fears that Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups are being transferred from internment camps to prisons after hasty sentences. On top of this unprecedented increase in arrests and convictions, basic legal procedural rights are being eroded; police, the public prosecution and judges are joining their forces to bring unfounded or exaggerated charges to guilty verdicts.

Uyghurs’ iPhones Hacked by Chinese Government Malware

The Chinese government targeted Uyghurs in East Turkistan by exploiting iPhone security flaws allowing hackers to access messages, passwords, and track their location. Google security researchers discovered malware on websites frequently visited by members of the Uyghur community which infected devices by simply visiting the site. These websites had reportedly been compromised for two years before the security gap was fixed by Apple.