Some companies and people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are suing German academic Adrian Zenz, accusing him of spreading “rumors about Xinjiang” such as forced labor, causing them to suffer damage to their reputation and financial losses, according to the official Xinjiang Tianshan website on March 8. They have suffered damage to their reputation and financial losses. The report said they have filed a civil lawsuit with the Xinjiang District Court, demanding an apology, restoration of reputation and compensation for damages.
Zheng Guo’en, a German expert on China, is said to be one of the first international scholars to disclose the issue of re-Education camps and forced labor in Xinjiang. In a report released last December, he noted that most cotton weaving in China is linked to forced labor of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Large numbers of Uyghur and other minority populations are forced to labor to pick cotton in almost all cotton-producing areas in Xinjiang, where more than 85 percent of China’s cotton comes from.
Zheng stressed that the study is based mostly on official Chinese and media reports that link forced labor of Uyghurs to poverty eradication policies, but that the actual income of these forced laborers is much lower than the figures claimed by the local government and official media.
“According to a report by Tianshan.com, some countries and enterprises have reduced or even stopped importing cotton and cotton products from Xinjiang due to the “misleading rumors,” and some cotton farmers and processing enterprises in Xinjiang have suffered large economic losses. Therefore, “do not rule out that there will be more damaged enterprises and individuals to file a lawsuit.
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