British independent body accuses China of genocide against Uighur minority

An independent and unofficial body formed by a prominent British lawyer to assess the evidence on alleged violations of rights of China against the Uyghur people concluded Thursday that the Chinese government committed genocide and crimes against humanity.

The court Uigur, made up of lawyers, academics and businessmen, does not have the backing of any government nor does it have the power to sanction or punish China. But organizers are hoping that the process of showing the evidence publicly will spur international action for the alleged abuses against the Uighurs, a large Muslim ethnic group.

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Chief Justice Geoffrey Nice said the group had confirmed birth control and forced sterilization measures against Uyghurs in western China’s remote Xinjiang province to reduce the Uighur population. Those abuses were part of a strategy linked directly to President Xi Jinping and the highest levels of the Chinese government, he said.

The Chinese embassy in London did not initially respond to a request for comment. Beijing Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Thursday that “the so-called forced labor and genocide in Xinjiang are totally evil rumors.”

Wang was responding to a question about a law passed Wednesday by the US House of Representatives to ban imports from Xinjiang over forced labor concerns. Wang accused the United States of using the Xinjiang issues to “spread rumors under the guise of human rights and engage in political manipulation and economic harassment.”

The Uyghur Court concluded that it was beyond doubt that crimes against humanity, including torture and rape, had been committed against dozens of people in large detention centers.

“Based on the evidence presented in public, the court is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the People’s Republic of China has committed genocide by imposing measures to prevent births, aimed at destroying a significant part of the Uighurs as such in Xinjiang, ”said Nice, a veteran lawyer who led the trial of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and has worked with the International Criminal Court.

Xi and other senior officials “bear primary responsibility” for what happened in Xinjiang, he said.

“This vast apparatus of state repression could not exist if a plan had not been authorized at the highest levels,” Nice said.

An estimated 1 million or more people – most of them Uighurs – have been confined to re-education camps in Xinjiang in recent years, according to researchers.

The hearings were a new attempt to hold China accountable for alleged rights abuses against Uighurs and other Muslim-majority and ethnic Turkic minorities.

Some 30 witnesses and experts presented evidence at a series of public hearings in central London this year, in which they denounced torture, rape and beatings by authorities in state detention centers in Xinjiang province.

The sessions also reviewed evidence such as leaked Chinese government documents detailing other policies, such as systematic and forced birth control, separation of young children from their families, forced labor and the destruction of mosques.

The US government has declared that Beijing’s policies against the Uighurs amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity. Legislatures in Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada have done the same.

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Deshawn