First independent report into Xinjiang genocide allegations claims evidence of Beijing's 'intent to destroy' Uyghur people
Hong Kong (CNN)The Chinese government's alleged actions in Xinjiang have violated every single provision in the United Nations' Genocide Convention, according to an independent report by more than 50 global experts in international law, genocide and the China region.
The report,
released Tuesday by the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy
think tank in Washington DC, claimed the Chinese government "bears state
responsibility for an ongoing genocide against the Uyghur in breach of
the (UN) Genocide Convention."
It
is the first time a non-governmental organization has undertaken an
independent legal analysis of the accusations of genocide in Xinjiang,
including what responsibility Beijing may bear for the alleged crimes.
An advance copy of the report was seen exclusively by CNN.
Up
to 2 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are believed to have
been placed in a sprawling network of detention centers across the
region, according to the US State Department, where former detainees allege they were subjected to indoctrination, sexually abused and even forcibly sterilized. China denies allegations of human rights abuses, saying the centers are necessary to prevent religious extremism and terrorism.
A Chinese flag flies outside the east gate of the Old City in Kashgar, Xinjiang, on November 8, 2018.
Speaking at a press conference on March 7, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said allegations of a genocide in Xinjiang "couldn't be more preposterous."
On January 19, the outgoing Trump administration declared the Chinese government was committing genocide in Xinjiang. A month later, the Dutch and Canadian parliaments passed similar motions despite opposition from their leaders.
Azeem
Ibrahim, director of special initiatives at Newlines and co-author of
the new report, said there was "overwhelming" evidence to support its
allegation of genocide.
"This is a major global power, the leadership of which are the architects of a genocide," he said.
This
photo taken on June 4, 2019 shows a facility believed to be a
re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained,
north of Akto in China's northwestern Xinjiang region.
Genocide Convention
The four-page UN Genocide Convention
was approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948
and has a clear definition of what constitutes "genocide." China is a signatory to the convention, along with 151 other countries.
Article
II of the convention states genocide is an attempt to commit acts "with
an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial
or religious group."
There
are five ways in which genocide can take place, according to the
convention: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or
mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions
of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or
in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Since
the convention was introduced in 1948, most convictions for genocide
have occurred in the International Criminal Tribunals held by the UN,
such as those for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, or in national courts. In 2006, former dictator Saddam Hussein was found guilty of genocide in a court in Iraq.
However
any establishment of an International Criminal Tribunal would require
the approval of the UN Security Council, of which China is a permanent
member with veto power, making any hearing on the allegations of
genocide in Xinjiang unlikely.
While
violating just one act in the Genocide Convention would constitute a
finding of genocide, the Newlines report claims the Chinese government
has fulfilled all criteria with its actions in Xinjiang.
"China's
policies and practices targeting Uyghurs in the region must be viewed
in their totality, which amounts to an intent to destroy the Uyghurs as a
group, in whole or in part," the report claimed.
A
separate report published on February 8 by Essex Court Chambers in
London, which was commissioned by the World Uyghur Congress and the
Uyghur Human Rights Project, reached a similar conclusion that there is a "credible case" against the Chinese government for genocide.
No
specific penalties or punishments are laid out in the convention for
states or governments determined to have committed genocide. But the
Newlines report said that under the convention, the other 151
signatories have a responsibility to act.
"China's
obligations ... to prevent, punish and not commit genocide are erga
omnes, or owed to the international community as a whole," the report
added.
'Clear and convincing'
Yonah
Diamond, legal counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights,
who worked on the report, said a common public misunderstanding about
the definition of genocide was it required evidence of mass killing or a
physical extermination of a people.
"The
real question is, is there enough evidence to show that there is an
intent to destroy the group as such -- and this is what this report lays
bare," he said.
All
five definitions of genocide laid out in the convention are examined in
the report to determine whether the allegations against the Chinese
government fulfill each specific criterion.
"Given
the serious nature of the breaches in question ... this report applies a
clear and convincing standard of proof," the report said.
The
Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy was founded in 2019 as a
nonpartisan think tank by the Fairfax University of America, with a goal
to "to enhance US foreign policy based on a deep understanding of the
geopolitics of the different regions of the world and their value
systems." It was previously known as the Center for Global Policy.
Vehicles
stand in a parking lot as a large screen shows an image of Chinese
President Xi Jinping in Kashgar, Xinjiang autonomous region, China, on
Thursday, November 8, 2018.
Thousands
of eyewitness testimonies from Uyghur exiles and official Chinese
government documents were among the evidence considered by the authors,
Diamond said.
According
to the report, between 1 million and 2 million people have allegedly
been detained in as many as 1,400 extrajudicial internment facilities
across Xinjiang by the Chinese government since 2014, when it launched a
campaign ostensibly targeting Islamic extremism.
Beijing has claimed the crackdown was necessary after a series of deadly attacks across Xinjiang and other parts of China, which China has categorized as terrorism.
The
report details allegations of sexual assaults, psychological torture,
attempted cultural brainwashing, and an unknown number of deaths within
the camps.
"Uyghur
detainees within the internment camps are ... deprived of their basic
human needs, severely humiliated and subjected to inhumane treatment or
punishment, including solitary confinement without food for prolonged
periods," the report claimed.
"Suicides
have become so pervasive that detainees must wear 'suicide safe'
uniforms and are denied access to materials susceptible to causing
self-harm."
The
report also attributed a dramatic drop in the Uyghur birth rate across
the region -- down about 33% between 2017 and 2018 -- to the alleged
implementation of an official Chinese government program of
sterilizations, abortions and birth control, which in some cases was
forced upon the women without their consent.
The
Chinese government has confirmed the drop in the birth rate to CNN but
claimed that between 2010 and 2018 the Uyghur population of Xinjiang increased overall.
During
the crackdown, textbooks for Uyghur culture, history and literature
were allegedly removed from classes for Xinjiang schoolchildren, the
report said. In the camps, detainees were forcibly taught Mandarin and
described being tortured if they refused, or were unable, to speak it.
Using
public documents and speeches given by Communist Party officials, the
report claimed responsibility for the alleged genocide lay with the
Chinese government.
Researchers
cited official speeches and documents in which Uyghurs and other Muslim
minorities are referred to as "weeds" and "tumors." One government
directive allegedly called on local authorities to "break their lineage,
break their roots, break their connections and break their origins."
"In
sum, the persons and entities perpetrating the enumerated acts of
genocide are State organs and agents under Chinese law," the report
said. "The commission of these enumerated acts of genocide ... against
the Uyghurs are therefore necessarily attributable to the State of
China."
Rian
Thum, a report contributor and Uyghur historian at the University of
Manchester, said in 20 years, people would look back on the crackdown in
Xinjiang as "one of the great acts of cultural destruction of the last
century."
"I
think a lot of Uyghurs will take this report as a long overdue
recognition of the suffering that they and their family and friends and
community have gone through," Thum said.
'The lie of the century'
The Chinese government has repeatedly defended its actions in Xinjiang, saying citizens now enjoy a high standard of life.
"The
genocide allegation is the lie of the century, concocted by extremely
anti-China forces. It is a preposterous farce aiming to smear and vilify
China," Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a news conference on February 4.
The
detention camps, which Beijing refers to as "vocational training
centers," are described by officials and state media as being part of
both a poverty alleviation campaign and a mass deradicalization program to combat terrorism.
"(But)
you can simultaneously have an anti-terrorism campaign that is
genocidal," said report contributor John Packer, associate professor at
the University of Ottawa and former director of the Office of the OSCE
High Commissioner on National Minorities in The Hague.
World
Uyghur Congress' UK director Rahima Mahmut, who was not involved in the
report, said a lot of countries "say (they) cannot do anything, but
they can."
"These
countries, the countries that signed the Genocide Convention, they have
an obligation to prevent and punish ... I feel every country can take
action," she said.
While
the report team avoided making recommendations to maintain
impartiality, co-author Ibrahim said the implications of the its
findings were "very serious."
"This
(is) not an advocacy document, we're not advocating any course of
action whatsoever. There were no campaigners involved in this report, it
was purely done by legal experts, area experts and China ethnic
experts," he said.
But
Packer said such a "serious breach of the international order" in the
world's second-largest economy raised questions about the global
governance.
"If this is not sufficient to instigate some kind of action or even to take positions, then what actually is required?" he said.
No comments