The Uighurs are a Turkic ethnic group primarily living in the Chinese province of Xinjiang (also known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region). Their 4000-year history has been threatened for decades but has worsened under the rule of President Xi Jinping. Over three million Uighurs have been detained in “re-education camps” – these are essentially concentration camps where Uighurs are tortured, raped, and forcibly sterilized.
Constant Surveillance and Restrictions
The ~12 million Uighurs who are not imprisoned are under constant surveillance, with their daily lives controlled and their actions monitored for any signs of disobedience. The high-tech surveillance includes tracking any and all movements through facial recognition cameras, police checkpoints, and home visits. Forced collection of biometrics, DNA, and voice samples have also been known to be collected in order to track Uighurs more effectively.
Restrictions include what to wear, language, and even diet. If Uighurs are found praying, going to a mosque, or have grown a beard, they can be detained. This constant monitoring includes approximately 1 million Han Chinese citizens assigned to monitor Uighur households – mandatory homestays are used to ensure that no Uighur cultural practices take place. In fact, Uighur women are even forced to marry Han Chinese men in order to force assimilation, with all aspects of Uighur culture and identity being forcefully erased.
Global Response
While 22 countries including Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom have stood up for Uighurs by writing to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, many others have remained silent on the matter. Yet others have defended these atrocities – 37 countries, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, submitted a counterstatement.
This is especially troubling considering that this human rights violation constitutes as genocide. Described as the “intent to destroy, in whole on in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group,” genocide is the correct term used for the mass eradication of Uighurs. In addition to forced labor, torture, and systematic rape, there have been reports of mass sterilization, forced organ harvesting, indoctrination, and medical experiments conducted on inmates.
China has consistently denied these reports and has said that any crackdown on the Uighur population is to prevent terrorism and violence – yet the majority of inmates aren’t charged with any crimes. The main reason Uighur women end up in detention camps is because they have more children than allowed by the state. If any woman deigns to refuse an IUD or sterilization, they’re threatened with permanent detention.
Even the International Criminal Court has done nothing – despite a dossier of evidence submitted, the ICC has insisted that it cannot interfere because China is not a signatory.
However, recently, there has been increasing awareness on the topic, which has moved it to the front burner – the newly elected president of the United States of America, Joe Biden, has also condemned the Uighur genocide and has rejoined the UN Human Rights Council. The UK has taken an active role in this, with the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab set to testify before the UN Human Rights Council.
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