Tag: Xinjiang

UK TO BAN XINJIANG PRODUCTS

British ministers are preparing to ban the government from buying health goods made in China’s Xinjiang region, amid mounting pressure from Conservative MPs over Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghur people

The British government will stop procuring goods from China’s Xinjiang region. The Government has accepted amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill to ban the import of goods from regions linked to slavery such as Xinjiang in China.

The Health and Care Bill 2021/22 outlines major changes to NHS rules and structures in England. The Bill is the largest legislative shake-up of the NHS in a decade and undoes many of the changes introduced by the Coalition government in the last round of major NHS legislation back in 2012.

British ministers are preparing to ban the government from buying health goods made in China’s Xinjiang region, amid mounting pressure from Conservative MPs over Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghur people, the Politico reported. Health Secretary Sajid Javid is pre-empting the threat of a major rebellion from his own party next week with an amendment to the bill that would seek the “eradication” of slavery from health care supply chains.

The legislation could require private companies obtaining NHS contracts to meet criteria on modern slavery grounds, potentially creating a blacklist of companies that have failed the U.K.’s test.

China has been accused of forced-labor abuses in Xinjiang. Uyghur campaigners and international experts say China is seeking to control the Muslim population there through forced sterilizations, brainwashing in camps and the destruction of mosques.

A parent sharing their woes with BBC journalist John Sudworth (TV Grab)

Anti-slavery campaigners, meanwhile, hailed the move as “the biggest advance in modern slavery legislation” since Britain launched its crackdown on the practice in 2015.

Responding to the news, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Layla Moran MP said: “This is long overdue. It should not have taken a pandemic to shine a light on the hugely concerning links between supply chains involving forced labour – including those in Xinjiang – and PPE and other items used in our healthcare sector.

“The Government cannot stop here. We need a concerted effort across to ensure that UK supply chains are not tainted by modern slavery. That starts by following the lead of the US, and banning goods from Xinjiang altogether. It is also beyond time for this Government to recognise the genocide taking place against the Uyghurs.”

Amazon Link

Amazon is reportedly employing suppliers in China with links to forced labour of ethnic minorities from the Xinjiang region.

A report from research group the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), has accused Amazon of continuing to work with these suppliers, despite evidence of their association with Uyghur labour camps.

“Amazon’s public list of suppliers, which produce Amazon devices and goods for Amazon’s private brands, includes five companies that have been linked directly or indirectly to forced labour of ethnic minorities from China’s Xinjiang region,” TTP said in its report that came out late on Monday.

Amazon last “comprehensively updated” its supplier list in June 2021, but details about the five suppliers’ links to forced labour were public before then.

The findings raise questions about Amazon’s exposure to China’s repression of minority Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and the extent to which the e-commerce giant is adequately vetting its supplier relationships.

Amazon says that its suppliers “must not use forced labour” and that it “does not tolerate suppliers that traffic workers or in any other way exploit workers by means of threat, force, coercion, abduction, or fraud”. But its supplier list tells a different story.

  In China, programmes euphemistically called “labour transfers” move workers from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a predominantly Muslim area in western China, to factories in other parts of the country.

  “Three Amazon suppliers are reported to have used forced labor directly: Luxshare Precision Industry, AcBel Polytech, and Lens Technology. Another two, GoerTek and Hefei BOE Optoelectronics, are themselves supplied by factories that have been implicated in forced labour,” the report mentioned.

  “Amazon continued to include one company, Esquel Group, on its supplier list for more than a year after the US government imposed sanctions on an Esquel subsidiary for involvement in forced labour in China,” the report noted.

In a response to The Information, Amazon said it expects all items sold in its stores to comply with its supply chain standards, adding that the company takes action if it receives proof of forced labour.

  “A month later, however, Amazon continued to include the Luxshare and AcBel subsidiaries on its supplier list,” said the TTP report.

  TTP also found an example of a Chinese seller on Amazon simply deleting references to “Xinjiang” from its description of bedding, with no discernible change to the underlying goods — raising questions about Amazon’s monitoring of such sellers.

  “Amazon’s continued use of companies with well-documented ties to forced labour in Xinjiang cast doubt on the tech giant’s stated intolerance of human rights abuses in its supply chain,” the report stressed.

April 22, 2022
UN Human Rights chief set to visit Xinjiang in May

Back in June last year, the UN rights chief had expressed hope to agree on terms for Xinjiang visit to look into reports of rights abuse against Uyghurs….reports Asian Lite News

United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet is set to visit China in May, including a trip to Xinjiang, after reaching an agreement with Beijing.

“My Office and the Government of China have initiated concrete preparations for a visit that is foreseen to take place in May of this year,” Bachelet said while delivering her annual report to the UN rights body. “Preparations will have to take into account COVID-19 regulations,” Bachelet said.

Back in June last year, the UN rights chief had expressed hope to agree on terms for Xinjiang visit to look into reports of rights abuse against Uyghurs.

Media reports said the approval for a UN visit has been granted, for a period, after the conclusion of the Beijing Winter Games. However, reports also add that Bejing has placed a condition that the trip should not be framed as a probe.

On Tuesday, some 200 rights groups demanded that Bachelet’s office release its long-postponed report on the rights situation in China’s Xinjiang province.

“The release of the report without further delay is essential – to send a message to victims and perpetrators alike that no state, no matter how powerful, is above international law or the robust independent scrutiny of your office,” the 192 groups, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty, wrote in an open letter.

HRW executive director Kenneth Roth said that rights groups have become increasingly concerned that the UN human rights office has still not published its long-awaited report on Xinjiang.

“It defies credibility to believe that China will allow meaningful unfettered access that will enable human rights defenders, or victims and their families, to speak to the High Commissioner safely, unsupervised and without fear of reprisal. Today’s announcement of a planned visit by the High Commissioner should not provide an excuse for her to avoid publishing her report on Xinjiang abuses without further delay, as she has repeatedly promised.”

China’s permanent representative to the UN Office at Geneva Chen Xu said China welcomes the visit by the UN rights office to China, including Xinjiang.

“We will work with the High Commissioner’s Office to make preparations for the visit,” Chen said at the ongoing 49th session of the HRC. (ANI)

ALSO READ: Wang Yi, Qureshi discuss Afghanistan, Ukraine crisis

March 9, 2022
UK High Court allows Uyghur forced labour case to proceed

Rights groups also argued that a 19th-century law prohibiting the importation of prison-made goods is being violated by the purchase of cotton goods produced by forced labour, reports Asian Lite News

The High Court of England and Wales on Wednesday allowed Uyghur rights advocacy group to proceed with a forced labour case against UK authorities for permitting the importation of cotton goods produced with Uyghur forced labour in China.

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) of Munich, Germany, and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) had registered a case against states and actors involved in human rights violations, alleging that cotton goods produced by Uyghurs in detention camps in Xinjiang are entering the UK, reported Radio Free Asia.

Roseanne Gerin, writing in Radio Free Asia said that rights groups also argued that a 19th-century law prohibiting the importation of prison-made goods is being violated by the purchase of cotton goods produced by forced labour.

GLAN said a court win would set a “world-first precedent” by confirming that the UK’s Proceeds of Crime Act — originally targeting money laundering and other illegal activities of organized crime — also applies to proceeds companies accumulate from so-called atrocity crimes, GLAN’s statement said.

Witness statements, leaked government documents, satellite imagery, a secret memorandum from within the textile industry, and documents that the Chinese government has attempted to remove from the internet will prove the case, GLAN said in a statement.

“All evidence points to cotton made using forced labour coming into the UK from the Uyghur region, East Turkestan,” Siobhan Allen, a GLAN legal officer, said in a statement.

“Living in a free country which upholds respect for human rights, it hurts so much to know that the products that are used in this country are the fruit of the enslavement of my people,” Rahima Mahmut, WUC’s UK Director, said in the statement.

Chinese authorities have used Uyghur forced labour in the cotton industry as part of its systematic persecution of the roughly 12 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities who live in Xinjiang.

China is the UK’s third-largest trade partner, with total trade in goods and services between the two countries amounting to Pound 93 billion (USD123 billion) in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021, according to government figures, reported Radio Free Asia.

Earlier this year the UK Parliament voted unanimously to declare that genocide and crimes against humanity were taking place against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, said Gerin.

In the US, Congress a week ago passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which will block the importation of goods produced by forced labour in Xinjiang. The White House has said that President Joe Biden will sign the legislation into law. (ANI)

December 18, 2021
China Fear Revival of Turkistan Islamic Movement Amid US Troop Pull Out

In November 2020, the former Donald Trump administration removed Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) from America’s terror list, saying at the time there was “no credible evidence” that ETIM still exists, reports Asian Lite News

Amid the ongoing US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, China is worried about the instability to come in the country, a revival of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), its cross-border agitation and terrorism in Xinjiang region, said scholar Salman Rafi Sheikh.

The ETIM, also known as the Turkistan Islamic Movement, is an ethnic Uyghur group active in Afghanistan that has long sought to achieve independence for Xinjiang, which it envisions as a future “East Turkestan.”

ALSO READ – US Military Mission in Afghanistan to End on Aug 31

The ETIM is also active in Syria’s civil war, where battle-hardened fighters have largely been grouped in Idlib and other northern regions. The United Nations has categorised the group as a “terror organisation” since 2002.

In November 2020, the former Donald Trump administration removed ETIM from America’s terror list, saying at the time there was “no credible evidence” that ETIM still exists.

In an opinion piece in Asia Times, Sheikh said as the Taliban surges north in the wake of America’s troop withdrawal, it seems likely only a matter of time before the group overruns Kabul and its US-backed government, and establishes in its place a new “Islamic Emirate”, as it has repeatedly said it aims to do.

“A Taliban takeover, analysts and observers believe, will open new space for groups like ETIM to recruit and radicalize Uyghur youth, many of whom are already reportedly deeply disaffected by reports of Beijing’s Uyghur “vocational camps” and authoritarian control of Muslim religious practices in Xinjiang,” Sheikh added.

He further stated that for Beijing, however, the concern is not merely the spread of radical ideas among Uyghur Muslims in neighboring Afghanistan. Rather, it is the threat a resurgence of extremism could pose to its strategic Belt and Road Initiative in the region, not least in Pakistan.

Four of China’s six so-called Silk Road networks, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), emanate from or pass through Xinjiang. Those roads aim to connect China with Russia, Central, Southern, and Western Asia, reaching the Mediterranean Sea.

Specifically, Silk Road networks other than the CPEC that run through Xinjiang include the China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor, the New Eurasia Land Bridge Economic Corridor, and the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor.

Sheikh said that while the departure of US and NATO forces from neighboring Afghanistan is no doubt broadly welcomed by China, it also puts Beijing in a new strategic quandary – one that could make or break its BRI ambitions in the region.

“Beijing’s concerns about the ETIM in Afghanistan are not simply an exaggerated threat assessment to justify its authoritarian control of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. In 2008, China’s Ministry of Public Security released a list of eight “terrorists” linked to ETIM with detailed charges against them, including threats to bomb the 2008 Beijing Olympics,” Sheikh added.

Citing the recent United Nations Security Council report, Sheikh said, despite the Trump administration’s denials ETIM not only exists and operates in Afghanistan but is also pursuing a “transnational agenda.”

According to the report, ETIM is among the “foremost” foreign terror groups operating in Afghanistan. The report said ETIM is situated mainly in Badakhshan, Kunduz and Takhar provinces and that Abdul Haq (Memet Amin Memet) remains the group’s leader, he said.

The report goes on to say approximately 500 ETIM operate in the north and northeast of Afghanistan, primarily in Raghistan and Warduj districts, Badakhshan, with financing based in Raghistan. Those northern areas connect with China through the narrow Wakhan Corridor, a potential passageway for Xinjiang-bound militants.

The UN report said ETIM collaborates with Lashkar-e-Islam and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, two banned Pakistani groups. It also said ETIM “has a transnational agenda to target Xinjiang, China, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as well as Chitral, Pakistan, which poses a threat to China, Pakistan and other regional states,” he said.

US soldiers prepare to depart from Kunduz, Afghanistan. (Brian Harris Planet Pix ZUMA_dpa_IANS)

Citing another report, Sheikh said that it indicates Beijing is trying to get a grip on the situation in Afghanistan. According to media reports, in December 2020, a Chinese spy ring was arrested in Afghanistan.

Although Beijing denied the allegation, Ahmad Zia Saraj, the chief of Afghanistan’s National Directorate Security, confirmed to the Afghan Parliament that the arrests had indeed been made. What information the reputed spies may have gathered and transmitted to Beijing before their apprehensions, however, is unknown, he added. (ANI)

ALSO READ – China Wants a Taliban Govt in Afghanistan

July 10, 2021
China Targets Uyghurs Living Abroad To Suppress Protest

According to a report, Beijing uses a number of methods to intimidate Uyghur people living in other countries, including everything from the use of spyware and hacking, to releasing red notices against targeted individuals through Interpol, reports Asian Lite News

China’s persecution of Uyghurs overseas has spread to nearly 30 countries around the world, largely because the governments of these host countries fear Beijing’s power and influence, claims a new report.

At least 28 countries across the world complicit in China’s harassment and intimidation of Uyghurs, with countries in the Middle East and North Africa as worst offenders, reported Voice of America (VOA), says the report compiled jointly by rights group Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs and the Uyghur Human Rights Project.

Titled ‘No Space Left to Run, China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs’, it argues that Beijing uses a number of methods to intimidate Uyghurs living in other countries, including everything from the use of spyware and hacking, to releasing red notices against targeted individuals through Interpol.

“Since 2017, the most common method for silencing overseas dissent is to threaten an individual’s relatives residing within China’s borders with detention, and in some cases, have a target’s close family issue public statements as part of government smear campaigns designed to undermine an activist’s credibility,” Bradley Jardine, research director at Oxus Society and one of the authors of the report, told VOA via email.

The majority of targeted Uyghurs are located in Muslim-majority countries including Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which have been called the largest offenders of transnational repression of the Uyghurs, according to Jardine. He said that some of these countries have no legal protections for vulnerable minorities and the rule of law tends to be weak or susceptible to political interference.

“This has made the Middle East fertile ground for China’s campaign of global intimidation,” Jardine added.

According to the report, the first such case happened in Pakistan in 1997, when the Pakistan government deported 14 Uyghurs to Beijing who were accused of being separatists. All of them were executed upon arrival in China, VOA reported.

Between 1997 and December 2016, China was involved in the detention or deportation back to China of more than 851 Uyghurs across 23 countries. Since 2017, Beijing’s actions have expanded dramatically, resulting in at least 695 Uyghurs detained or deported to China from 15 separate countries, the report said.

Additionally, upon Beijing’s request in 2017, Egyptian police detained scores of Chinese students of the Uyghur ethnic minority. Some had to flee to Turkey, others were sent back to Beijing.

The report indicated that often, these major offenders are economically dependent on China. They tend to use Uyghurs living overseas as bargaining chips when negotiating with Beijing.

China blames faith of Uyghur Muslims for concentration camps in Xinjiang. (source:uyghurcongress.org)

“The main motivations tend to be opportunism. The major offenders in the report tend to have very strong economic or security ties with China, cracking down on Uyghur minorities in exchange for investments, concessions or military hardware,” Jardine told VOA.

Close to two million Uyghurs are currently held in internment camps in Xinjiang. Rights organisations and former detainees refer to them as concentration camps, while Chinese officials maintain them as “vocational education centres established in accordance with the law in the face of frequent violence and terrorism in the past.”

China has been globally rebuked for cracking down on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps to undergo some form of forcible “re-education or indoctrination”.

Over the past four months, the Canadian, Dutch, British, Lithuanian, and Czech parliaments adopted motions recognising the Uyghur crisis as genocide. (ANI)

July 3, 2021
UK Parliament declares genocide in China’s Xinjiang

But the government has steered clear of declaring genocide over what it says are “industrial-scale” human rights abuses against the mainly Muslim Uyghur community in Xinjiang, reports Asian Lite News

Britain’s parliament called for the government to take action to end what lawmakers described as genocide in China’s Xinjiang region, stepping up pressure on ministers to go further in their criticism of Beijing.

But the government again steered clear of declaring genocide over what it says are “industrial-scale” human rights abuses against the mainly Muslim Uyghur community in Xinjiang. Ministers say any decision on declaring a genocide is up to the courts.

So far the government has imposed sanctions on some Chinese officials and introduced rules to try to prevent goods linked to the region entering the supply chain, but a majority of lawmakers want ministers to go further.

Beijing denies accusations of rights abuses in Xinjiang.

Lawmakers backed a motion brought by Conservative lawmaker Nusrat Ghani stating Uyghurs in Xinjiang were suffering crimes against humanity and genocide, and calling on government to use international law to bring it to an end.

The support for the motion is non-binding, meaning it is up to the government to decide what action, if any, to take next.

Also read – Uyghur movement needs more global support

Britain’s minister for Asia, Nigel Adams, again set out to parliament the government’s position that any decision on describing the human rights abuses in Xinjiang as genocide would have to be taken by “competent” courts.

Some lawmakers fear Britain risks falling out of step with allies over China after the Biden administration endorsed a determination by its predecessor that China had committed genocide in Xinjiang.

Chinese President Xi Jinping

Meanwhile, the US government, is under pressure to urge like-minded countries to independently investigate and formally determine whether the abuses in Xinjiang meet the definitions of genocide and/or crimes against humanity under international law, and work together to take measures to hold China accountable.

The US Congress should support legislation to promote religious freedom in China, including the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has recommended.

Also Read – Report on Xinjiang reveals China’s dark side

Last year, the report said, religious freedom conditions in China had deteriorated.

The government intensified its “sinicisation of religion” policy, particularly targeting religions perceived to have foreign connections, such as Christianity, Islam and Tibetan Buddhism.

The authorities also continued their unprecedented use of advanced surveillance technologies to monitor and track religious minorities, and the Measures on Managing Religious Groups became effective in February, further constricting the space in which religious groups could operate.

Quake-affected people have a meal at a temporary settlement in Jinghe County, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Li Jing/IANS)

In September 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute had identified 380 detention centres across the Uyghur region (otherwise known as Xinjiang), including new facilities built in 2019 and 2020.

This indicates that the Chinese government has continued to detain Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims despite claiming to have released all the detainees.

Also Read – The Deafening Silence of Taliban on Uyghurs

Since 2017, authorities have reportedly sent millions of Muslims to these camps for wearing long beards, refusing alcohol, or exhibiting other behaviours deemed signs of “religious extremism”.

Former detainees reported torture, rape, sterilisation and other abuses in custody. Experts raised concerns that the Chinese government’s ongoing actions in Xinjiang could amount to genocide under international law.

Demand for US to skip Winter Olympics

Meanwhile, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has asked the US government not to attend the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing if the Chinese government continues its crackdown on religious freedoms of minorities in China.

In its annual report, the USCIRF recommended the Joe Biden administration to redesignate China as a “country of particular concern”, or CPC, for engaging in systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA).

The Commission asked the US government to publicly express concerns about Beijing hosting the 2022 Winter Olympic Games and state that US government officials will not attend the games if the Chinese government’s crackdown on religious freedoms continues.

It has also recommended the US government to enforce to the fullest extent the existing US laws — such as the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act and Tibetan Policy and Support Act — and continue to impose targeted financial and visa sanctions on Chinese government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom.

Also Read – EU sanctions China over Uighur abuses

Also Read – The new US strategy to edge out China

April 23, 2021