Press Release – For immediate release
7 December 2020
Contact: World Uyghur Congress www.uyghurcongress.org
+49 89 5432 1999 or [email protected]

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) welcomes the adoption of the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime by the Council of the European Union on Monday. The sanctions regime will allow the European Union (EU) to target individuals, bodies, and entities who are responsible for, or otherwise associated with, serious human rights violations, irrespective of where they occur. This is of major importance for the Uyghur people, as for the first time, the EU possesses a concrete mechanism to hold perpetrators of the atrocities against Uyghurs to account. 

With the adoption of a sanctions regime, the EU follows the example of the United States, which has targeted human rights abusers via its Global Magnitsky Act. The EU sanctions regime allows for applying travel bans to individuals, and asset freezes of both individuals and entities. Moreover, it forbids persons and entities from the EU to make funds available, directly or indirectly, to those listed under the sanctions regime. The framework for these targeted measures applies to acts such as genocide, crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations or abuses, including torture, slavery, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests or detentions. 

These human rights violations – without exception – have all been perpetrated against the Uyghur people in East Turkistan by Chinese officials and entities. Since 2017, between 1.8 and 3 million Uyghurs and other Turkic muslims have been arbitrarily detained in mass internment camps, where they are subjected to various other human rights violations, including torture, sexual abuse, forced labour, and killings. This mass arbitrary detention, facilitated by utopian surveillance technology, can be seen as part of a rigorous campaign of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to attack every expression of a distinct ethnic, cultural and religious Uyghur identity. This includes a ban on the teaching of the Uyghur language, the destruction of cultural heritage such as mosques, shrines and graveyards, the separation of children from families, and the criminalization of everyday forms of religious practice. Furthermore, in an effort to diminish Uyghur birthrates in the region, Chinese authorities have subjected Uyghur women to forced abortions, sterilizations and other anticonceptive measures.

Taken together, these atrocities carried out against the Uyghur people constitute a genocide as defined under the United Nations (UN) Genocide Convention. Though the EU does not yet recognize the Uyghur crisis as such, all the separate human rights violations that are part of it make the sanctions regime applicable to the Uyghur crisis. It is therefore of paramount importance that the new sanctions regime is rigorously applied to target those who are responsible for the atrocities against the Uyghur people. “The adoption of a EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime is an extremely important development that finally presents the EU with an opportunity to put its words into action”, WUC President Dolkun Isa said. “Whereas the EU has repeatedly voiced its concern over the atrocities against Uyghurs, it now has the possibility to take concrete measures and hold those responsible to account”. 

While the adoption of the sanctions regime is a significant development, it is important to ensure it is appropriately applied to the Uyghur crisis. As enforcing the sanctions regime depends on a proposal from the EU’s high representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, or any EU member state, the WUC calls upon Mr. Borrell and European leaders to formally request including Chinese officials and entities responsible for Uyghur human rights violations on the sanctions list. This includes officials such as Chen Quanguo, one of the main architects of a police state in East Turkistan, and Shohret Zakir, governor of the Uyghur region. The EU has shown its willingness to act against human rights abuses with the adoption of the sanctions regime. What matters now is that it is enacted accordingly.