After a number of bipartisan members of Congress last week urged the U.S. Administration to consider granting refuge to the Uighur people of Xinjiang, a cross-party group of lawmakers has introduced a resolution characterizing the human rights violations of the Uighur Muslim minority in China as genocide.
Republican Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the lead Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led a bipartisan group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers in introducing a new resolution on Monday (October 26) that would characterize China’s human rights violations against the Uighur minority in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) as genocide. These resolutions would hold the Beijing authorities accountable under the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and to cooperate with the international community to coordinate efforts to stop human rights violations and abuses.
These resolutions would hold the Beijing authorities accountable under the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and initiate a coordinated and cooperative international effort to halt human rights violations and abuses.
Also co-sponsoring the resolution were Senator Jim Risch (R-ID), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Acting Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR).
“For far too long, the Chinese government has engaged in a despicable campaign of genocide against millions of Uighurs and other Muslims,” said Senator Cornyn, who sponsored the resolution, in a statement. “This resolution recognizes these crimes for what they are and is a step toward holding China accountable for these horrific acts. The first step.”
Senator Menendez also said in a statement, “There is no doubt that the People’s Republic of China has committed genocide against the Uighur people of Xinjiang. Stopping the genocide is consistent with our national security as well as our values, and we start by standing up and speaking out for it.”
“I hope President Trump and Secretary Pompeo will join us in calling this genocide in their names and respond to it along with our partners in the international community,” Menendez continued in the statement.
If the resolution passes and the Senate uses the term “genocide” to set the tone for human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the result will likely be a further escalation of tensions between the United States and China, and the U.S. government may be able to take new legal action against the Chinese government.
According to the UN definition, genocide includes acts such as killing, preventing births, and “with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.
The U.N. says genocide is a crime under international law.
The campaign of Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who is making a last-ditch effort to get out the vote for next week’s presidential election, used the term “genocide” in August to describe the Chinese government’s human rights oppression in Xinjiang when referring to human rights issues there. The Biden campaign also mentioned that “the Democratic candidate opposes this in the strongest possible terms.”
The Trump administration has also considered classifying human rights abuses in Xinjiang as genocide, but has yet to make an official announcement. However, the Trump administration has so far issued a series of sanctions against Chinese officials implicated in Xinjiang’s detention camps and has blacklisted companies suspected of using forced labor in Xinjiang.
Last Friday, Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL) led a bipartisan group of 31 members of Congress in a letter to Secretary of State Pompeo and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, calling on the administration to expedite visa processing for Uighurs from Xinjiang and to consider providing first-priority refugee asylum to Uighurs. The Uighur population in the U.S. is not only eligible for refugee status, but is also subject to increased overall refugee restrictions and protection.
The issue of human rights abuses by Beijing authorities in the detention of the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang is receiving increased attention around the world.
Last week, the International Human Rights Committee of the Canadian House of Commons issued a statement in a report strongly condemning the Chinese government’s series of human rights abuses against the Xinjiang Uighur people and calling on the Canadian government to characterize them as “genocide” and to impose sanctions under the Magnitsky Act.
In a statement after co-sponsoring the resolution, Rubio, who also co-chairs the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said, “As more evidence emerges of the heinous crimes committed by the Chinese government and the Communist Party against the Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang, we must understand the true nature of these atrocities.
“Free nations must hasten to unite and urge (China) to end these crimes and to pursue accountability and justice,” Rubio said in the statement.
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