More than 70 Harvard University societies issued a joint statement Jan. 1 calling on Chinese authorities to immediately release Xinjiang Uyghur entrepreneur and philanthropist Aikbayr Aiseti, who was arrested and sentenced after returning from an invitation to the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) in 2016.
The statement, led by the Harvard Law School Human Rights Defenders and co-sponsored by 75 clubs from Harvard Law School and other schools, says that as Harvard alumni, they support Harvard Law School graduate and Uyghur lawyer Raihan Aiseti, who practices in Washington, D.C., in her struggle for freedom and justice for her brother, Aikbayr Aiseti.
The statement calls on Harvard students to join a broad call for the U.S. government and the international community to demand that the Chinese government end its long history of systematic oppression of the Uyghur minority and hold it accountable for continued mass atrocities.
Aikbayr Aiseti is the founder of Bagdax, a well-known social media App in Xinjiang, and regularly hosts local charity events to benefit the elderly, young children and people with disabilities.
The statement said that Aikbayr Aiseti has been credited with promoting mutual understanding among different ethnic groups in Xinjiang. He was invited to the United States in February 2016 to participate in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. The program is the U.S. State Department’s premier professional exchange program. Through short-term visits to the United States, current and emerging foreign leaders in a variety of fields are able to experience the United States firsthand and build lasting relationships with their American counterparts.
Aikbayr Aiseti suddenly disappeared a few weeks after returning to Xinjiang on March 15 of that year. Only four years later, in January 2020, did his sister, Raihan Aiseti, learn from a U.S. congressman that his brother, Aqbal, had been arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of “inciting ethnic hatred and discrimination.
The statement said that Aikbayr Aiseti is just one of millions of Uighurs who have been systematically persecuted by the government for human rights in Xinjiang. According to the U.S. State Department and independent human rights organizations, Uighurs held in concentration camps have been subjected to systematic political brainwashing and physical, mental and sexual abuse, including forced birth control, torture, forced labor, and prolonged detention without judicial process.
The statement added that there is a growing international consensus that the Chinese government’s persecution of Uighurs has reached the level of genocide as defined by the United Nations, and that other products such as masks and clothing made by forced Uighur labor continue to “defile” the global supply chain.
The statement strongly calls on the U.S. Department of State to demand that the Chinese government immediately and unconditionally release Aqbal Aiseti, calls on the European Union and the United Nations to ensure direct access to internment camps in Xinjiang, and joins the international community and human rights groups in urging major international multinational corporations and countries to divest from Xinjiang, where Uyghur forced labor is used.
The arrest and sentencing of Aikbayr Aiseti upon his return to China has drawn close attention from the U.S. State Department, Congress, international organizations, and Harvard alumni and many people around the world who have been involved in U.S. State Department programs.
Previously, seven U.S. federal senators sent a letter to Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai in December 2019, stating that Aikbayr Aiseti was one of nine Chinese delegation members participating in the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program and one of the few Uyghur entrepreneurs and philanthropists invited to participate in this very prestigious international professional talent exchange program. The senators inquired about the whereabouts of Ekbal Aiseti and warned that his arbitrary imprisonment would undermine his contributions to the promotion of peace and harmony among the various ethnic groups within China and would be detrimental to the long-term relationship between the United States and China.
In June 2020, 85 Harvard Law School alumni from more than 50 countries wrote a letter to the Chinese government demanding the immediate release of Aqeel Aiseti and urging the Chinese government to immediately end all forms of oppression in Xinjiang and respect the dignity and freedom of Uighur citizens.
In recent years, the Chinese Communist authorities have imposed an iron fist on Xinjiang, cracking down on what the authorities call “separatists,” conducting full-scale electronic surveillance, including facial recognition technology, and setting up checkpoints everywhere.
UN experts, human rights groups and activists have accused China of holding at least 1 million Uighurs and other minority Muslims in “re-education camps” for brainwashing propaganda. Communist authorities initially denied the existence of the camps, but later argued that they were “vocational training centers” designed to eliminate extremist tendencies among the local population and to learn language and vocational skills.
However, many reports indicate that former “re-education camp” detainees have confirmed that they were subjected to political brainwashing and psychological torture, including being forced to renounce their Muslim faith and swear allegiance to the CCP and Xi Jinping. A large number of overseas members of the Xinjiang minority also reported that their family members or friends in Xinjiang had been forcibly detained, or that many had disappeared and their whereabouts were unknown.
China has faced increasing international condemnation for its harsh treatment of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.
President Donald Trump officially signed the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act on June 17 last year, allowing the U.S. executive branch to impose sanctions on Chinese officials who persecute Uighurs. According to the bill, the U.S. president will have 180 days from the date of the bill’s entry into force and annually in the future to publish a list of Chinese officials who have been inhumanely treating or imprisoning Uighurs for long periods of time, and to impose sanctions on them. The Secretary of State would also be required to submit future reports to Congress detailing human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
The sanctions available to the United States include freezing the assets of targeted individuals in the United States, denying them entry into the United States, and denying or revoking their visas. The bill also calls on the U.S. president to condemn China’s crackdown on Uighurs and calls on China to close all re-education camps in Xinjiang.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded on June 18 that the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act deliberately denigrates the human rights situation in Xinjiang, viciously attacks China’s policy of governing the border, and crudely interferes in China’s internal affairs.
Subsequently, on July 9, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on four current or former government officials in Xinjiang, China, for “serious violations of the rights and interests of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. The sanctioned officials include Chen Guanguo, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; Zhu Hailun, former Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee; Wang Mingshan, Vice Chairman of the Xinjiang Government and Secretary of the Party Committee and Director of the Public Security Department; and Huo Liujun, former Secretary of the Party Committee of the Public Security Department. The Xinjiang Regional Public Security Bureau is also on the sanctions list.
The Center for Global Policy, a U.S. think tank, released a new report on Dec. 14 revealing that at least 570,000 ethnic minorities in Xinjiang have been forced to perform the inefficient, high-intensity task of hand-picking cotton as a result of a forced labor transfer and poverty eradication program imposed by the government. The Chinese Foreign Ministry immediately denied the allegations.
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