China’s efforts to turn its far-western Xinjiang into a manufacturing powerhouse could force more Uyghurs to work against their will and make it harder to track whether the country’s exports are made with forced labour, according to a new report from a Washington, DC-based research group, th media reported.
The Centre for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), which studies global conflict and trans-national security issues, said China is establishing industrial parks, providing more financial assistance from state-owned enterprises, and connecting manufacturers within its borders as part of a long-term objective to bolster supply chains, RFA Uyghur reported.
“The Chinese government is undertaking a concerted drive to industrialize the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), which has led an increasing number of corporations to establish manufacturing operations there,” the report says.
“This centrally-controlled industrial policy is a key tool in the government’s efforts to forcibly assimilate Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples through the institution of a coerced labour regime,” RFA Uyghur reported.
The report, analyses publicly available data and case studies to detail the political nature of China’s industrial transfer in the Xinjiang, the patterns through which it takes place, and the scale at which abuses in the region are embedded within Chinese and global supply chains.
“Forced labour is a major component of these human rights abuses,” the report says.
“It occurs not only within extrajudicial detention centers and through the placement of detainees in factories but also through the threat of detention to pressure Uyghurs into jobs across XUAR and throughout China.
“Both state-owned and private corporations are significant perpetrators of human rights abuses, implementing coercive working conditions, indoctrination and mass surveillance.”
The main mechanism for the central government’s industrialisation drive in the XUAR is a program to pair Xinjiang counties and municipalities with wealthier provinces and municipalities on the east coast. The effort began 25 years ago and was expanded in 2010, the report says, RFA Uyghur reported.
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.
In the spring of 1990, Baren Township, near Kashgar, in Chinese Occupied East Turkistan, suffered under a reign of Chinese terror unlike any other….reports Asian Lite News
Members of the East Turkistani or Uyghur diaspora, led by the East Turkistan Government in Exile, in Istanbul, the Washington DC metropolitan area, and the Canadian cities of Toronto and Edmonton peacefully demonstrated to commemorate Baren Revolution that erupted on April 5, 1990, which became to known as the Baren Massacre.
In the spring of 1990, Baren Township, near Kashgar, in Chinese Occupied East Turkistan, suffered under a reign of Chinese terror unlike any other. As part of its decades-long campaign of colonization, forced assimilation, and population control, China’s government was forcing Uyghurs and other Turkic women to abort their babies.
The villagers of Baren finally had enough. At the time they had suffered under 41 years of Chinese colonization and occupation and they have just seen 250 local women robbed of their babies. So they peacefully protested and when that failed they took up arms to defend themselves from the Chinese invaders.
The Chinese occupation forces responded by flooding Baren Township with People’s Liberation Army soldiers, and they began a massive massacre of innocent civilians, including women and children. According to different sources, anywhere from hundreds to thousands of innocent Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples were massacred with heavy weaponry and airstrikes.
Dozens of East Turkistan in Istanbul condemned the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for remaining silent against China’s ongoing genocide and urged Turkey and the Turkish people to act against China’s genocide in East Turkistan.
“We condemn the silence of the Muslim world and Muslim organizations like the Organization for Islamic Cooperation for not only standing silent but also supporting China’s genocide of the Muslim majority Turkic peoples of Occupied East Turkistan,” said Fatmagul Cakan, the Istanbul Representative of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. “We call on the Turkish state and the Turkish people to act against the genocide of their fellow Turkic brothers and sisters in East Turkistan,” she added.
In Washington, DC, the East Turkistan Government in Exile along with the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement held a demonstration with over a dozen Uyghurs in front of the White House where they urged the U.S. to act against China’s genocide in East Turkistan as well as the growing Chinese hegemony.
“Governments, including the Government of the United States must pressure the International Criminal Court to start investigations before UN Human Rights Commissioner Michele Bachelet’s visit to East Turkistan in May. Furthermore, governments, especially the U.S. Government must also file a parallel case at the International Court of Justice,” said Prime Minister Salih Hudayar of the East Turkistan Government in Exile.
“We again urge the U.S. Government to uphold its commitments to freedom and human rights by supporting East Turkistan and its peoples by recognizing East Turkistan as an Occupied Country, accepting more Uyghur refugees and being a voice of freedom and justice on the international stage. We urge the U.S. Government and its allies across the world to support East Turkistan in the same way that they are supporting Ukraine,” he added.
In Toronto, Canada, the East Turkistan Government in Exile along with the East Turkistan Youth Association of Canada held a march to commemorate the Baren Massacre and urged the Canadian Government to act to end China’s campaign of colonization, genocide, and occupation in East Turkistan.
“We urge Canada to uphold its treaty obligations and act against China’s ongoing genocide in East Turkistan,” said Haji Mahmut, the Deputy Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. “We also call on Canada’s Government to secure the immediate release of Uyghur Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil who has been unlawfully imprisoned by China for the past 16 years,” he added.
The East Turkistan Government in Exile honours all those killed during the Baren Revolution of April 1990 as martyrs and sees it as a symbol of East Turkistan’s will to restore their independence. (ANI)
Uyghurs are now using used 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing opportunity in order to draw the world’s attention towards the massacre….reports Asian Lite News
The 1997 Ghulja massacre incident in Xinjiang is seen as a harbinger of the Chinese brutality against Uyghurs Muslims.
Gulchehra Hoja, writing in Radio Free Asia (RFA) said that even after 25 years of the incidence, Uyghurs are still pushing for accountability.
Young Uyghurs on that day staged a protest to call for an end to religious repression and ethnic discrimination resulting in the death of many people.
As many as 200 hundred people may have been killed in the massacre — one report said thousands may have died — but it received little international attention at the time, said Hoja.
Uyghur
Uyghurs are now using used 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing opportunity in order to draw the world’s attention towards the massacre.
They are using the anniversary of Ghulja to press for an international investigation into what transpired that day and to seek accountability for those behind the bloodshed, reported RFA.
“Twenty-five years ago, the Ghulja massacre was exemplary of the treatment of the Uyghur people by the Chinese authorities and its crackdown on freedom of expression and assembly,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), in a statement issued February 4.
“Now, the Chinese government’s genocidal policies are ensuring to prevent the Uyghur people from ever speaking out again,” added Dolkun Isa.
Today, nearly 2 million Uyghurs are thought to have been sent to mass internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) by a government desperately trying to maintain control of an ethnically and religiously diverse population.
Meanwhile, China has continued to hunt down Uyghurs connected to the incident. Many arrested for participating in the protest and in other demonstrations ended up in China’s “re-education” camps — what Uyghurs say are concentration camps.
China began its mass internment campaign in the region in 2017. An estimated 1.8 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been detained in an extensive network of hundreds of camps since then.
Witness testimonies and investigative reports have since alleged that the Chinese government has tortured detainees, sterilized Uyghur women, and conscripted Uyghurs for work in factories.
Behtiyar Shemshidin, who was a police officer during the Ghulja Massacre but later resigned and left Xinjiang, told the WUC and other rights groups that Chinese authorities opened fire on unarmed protesters, reported RFA.
An Uyghur rights activist now in Canada, Behtiyar said the protesters were arrested and tortured. Many detainees, including the demonstration’s leader, Abduhelil Abdulmejid, were tortured to death in prison, Behtiyar said. The violence continued for weeks, he said.
Uyghur activist organizations remain steadfast in calling on the international community to hold China accountable for the massacre.
“This year the commemoration coincides with Beijing Winter Olympic Games, so we have raised an awareness of the Ghulja Massacre along with our other activities on the international stage,” said Gheyur Qurban, a WUC spokesman in Germany.
“The incident is not only important in the recent history in East Turkistan but also important internationally to raise awareness of Uyghur rights violations perpetrated by the Chinese regime,” added Gheyur Qurban. (ANI)
Chinese netizens’ tsunami of anger was reflected in the comments left on Intel’s Chinese Weibo account, with majority of them demanding Intel should apologise …reports Asian Lite News
Chinese state media has slammed US tech company Intel following the latter’s recent statement requiring all its supply chain not to source goods or services or use labour from Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Analysts said that Intel’s discriminative stance against Xinjiang, coming at a time when the US government intensified crackdown on Chinese technology companies, is a calibrated “cunning” move that aims to please the US government, while the move will only cause limited harm to its business, Global Times reported.
But some analysts warned that Intel’s discrimination against China’s Xinjiang region will backfire among Chinese customers and end users, and taint its international image, adding that the move will eventually take a toll on Intel’s sales in China, its largest source of business revenue, the report said.
Chinese netizens’ tsunami of anger was reflected in the comments left on Intel’s Chinese Weibo account, with majority of them demanding Intel should apologise and clarify its statement about Xinjiang.
According to a policy statement released by Intel earlier this month, the company said that “multiple governments have imposed restrictions on products sourced from the Xinjiang region. Therefore, Intel is required to ensure our supply chain does not use any labour or source goods or services from the Xinjiang region”, while stressing that the company prohibits “the use of any human trafficked labour, such as forced, debt-bonded, prison, indentured or slave labour.
China has remained Intel’s top revenue generator since 2015, according to its annual financial statements, the report said.
In 2020, Intel generated $20.26 billion from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong market in total.
Analysts said that Intel’s competitors such as Qualcomm have done a better job in forging closer ties with Chinese market players, the report said.
An online petition has been launched asking Morocco to cancel the extradition order of Idres Hasan, an Uyghur man, to China and immediately release him…reports Asian Lite News
The petition said at the current moment, millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims including many family members of Uyghurs across the global diaspora are currently locked up in Chinese concentration camps tortured, killed and sentenced to long term imprisonment.
Morocco Urged to Reject China Plea To Extradite Uyghur Activist
Harm of Chinese persecution is not limited to the people inside East Turkistan, Uyghurs around the world are facing persecution by the countries who had close economic and diplomatic relationship with China as China labelling every Uyghur Muslims as a terrorist.
Hasan, a 34-year-old computer software programmer and father of three young children, was arrested on July 23 while travelling from Turkey to Morocco and taken to prison near to the Tiflet town.
In 2017, Ziyawudun was arrested, forced by police officers to turn over her passport and taken to a prison camp about 30 minutes from her village….reports Asian Lite News
An Uyghur woman, who was arrested in northern Chinas Xinjiang region, has recalled the physical torture she endured during her detention at a labour camp, saying that she was gang raped and her my “private parts were tortured with electricity”, the New York Post reported.
“You’re left with marks on your body that make you not want to look at yourself,” the newspaper quoted Tursunay Ziyawudun as saying.
Her story is, tragically, not uncommon for members of the minority Uyghur community, with Turkish roots, in President XI Jinping’s China, the report said.
“They gave me sterilisation pills,” said Ziyawudun. “I am pretty sure that is why I cannot have a baby now.”
Since around 2016, the Uyghurs have been pulled off streets and sent to re-education camps, where reports have surfaced about people being tortured, raped and even killed. They are sent there under the auspices of learning a trade and having their patriotism reinforced, the New York Post said.
In 2017, Ziyawudun was arrested, forced by police officers to turn over her passport and taken to a prison camp about 30 minutes from her village.
There, she was made to sing communist songs of patriotism and repeatedly told that her Muslim religion does not exist, the report said. After a month, she developed stomach issues, fainted and was released.
“They sent me to the hospital,” Ziyawudun, who came to the US as a political refugee in 2020, said. “If they hadn’t I might have died.”
The year after she was arrested, she was summoned to a police station and told that she needed to complete her training.
She was sent back to the “re-education” camp, where her hair was shorn, likely to be sold as a wig, and her earrings were ripped out.
“They pulled it so hard that my ears were bleeding,” Ziyawudun recalled. “I was being treating like an animal.”
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)
The Uyghur Tribunal said on Wednesday that China by the imposition of measures to prevent births intended to destroy a significant part of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as such, has committed genocide…reports Asian Lite News
The UK-based independent Tribunal said that torture of Uyghurs attributable to China is established beyond reasonable doubt. Crimes against humanity attributable to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is established beyond reasonable doubt by acts of: Deportation or forcible transfer; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty; torture; rape and other sexual violence; enforced sterilisation; persecution; enforced disappearance; and other inhumane acts.
‘China committed genocide against Uyghurs’
The Tribunal is satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts is proved.
Satellite imagery identified the destruction of, or damage to, approximately 16,000 mosques or 65 per cent of the previous total in the region, evidence matched by direct observations of witnesses.
In addition, cemeteries and other sites of religious significance have been destroyed. Uyghurs are punished by imprisonment and torture for displays of religious adherence, including attending mosques, praying, wearing of headscarves and beards and not drinking alcohol or not eating pork.
The Tribunal is satisfied that the PRC has implemented a comprehensive policy of destruction of physical religious sites, and conducted a systematic attack on Uyghur religiosity for the stated purpose of eradicating religious ‘extremism’.
The Tribunal received evidence which it could include within this category including the forcible imposition of Han people into Uyghur family homes, the pervasive surveillance systems installed throughout the region, rendering it an open-air prison, destruction of mosques and cemeteries, repression of religious and cultural expression and forced or coerced marriages.
The number of Uyghurs detained, the number of mosques and graveyards destroyed or rendered unfit for purpose, the sterilisations and abortions, the repression of use of language and practice of religion, the separation of Uyghur children from their parents all show that there was, indeed, an attack on the Uyghurs wholly without justification, even if some of them had sought separation from China and even if some Uyghurs had perpetrated acts of violence, as happened by way of example as in the years 1997 to 2000 and later Urumchi in 2000 and in the Kunming train attack of 2014.
Between 2017 and 2019, Chinese government figures record a 43.5 per cent increase to 880,400 primary and middle Uyghur school children being placed in Han-run and Han-staffed boarding schools. This policy was, according to the Xinjiang Education Department, deliberately designed to isolate children from the influences of their families.
Parents have been unable to resist the policy and involuntary separation has been widespread, in part because some families have suffered the internment of one or both parents.
The Tribunal is satisfied that China embarked on a deliberate policy of separating children from their families into state care for the purpose of eradicating their Uyghur cultural identity and connections.
The Tribunal is satisfied that the PRC has affected a deliberate, systematic and concerted policy with the objective of ‘optimising’ the population in Xinjiang by means of a long-term reduction of the Uyghur and other ethnic minority populations to be achieved through limiting and reducing Uyghur births.
The tribunal has received evidence, including by means of satellite imagery of the construction or conversion of hundreds of very large factories, in some cases co-located with internment camps. According to state media, hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs have been inducted into labour programmes, including 611,500 in Hotan alone in 2018. The transfers have been within the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and also into ‘mainland’ China.
The Tribunal is satisfied that China has built a very extensive network of detention and penal institutions, that it has imprisoned hundreds of thousands and maybe a million and more of Uyghurs without substantive cause and without any recognisable or legitimate legal process.
The family expected him to come back home on June 22, but he did not return, and no notice has been received regarding an extension of his jail term…reports Asian Lite News
A person from the Uyghur minority community was not been released by the Chinese authorities even after the end of his ‘sentence’ and his family has no knowledge of his whereabouts.
Ilham Iminjan’s release was scheduled for June 22 after serving fifteen years of imprisonment on unknown charges. He is the second-oldest male in a family of five sons, four of whom have been detained by authorities, Radio Free Asia.
“The family expected him to come back home on June 22, but he did not return, and no notice has been received regarding an extension of his jail term,” a source told RFA.
Ilham was jailed when he was just 21. The entire golden period of his life was spent in prison and the family was planning his wedding as soon as he was released, the sources informed adding that Ilham is from China’s Xinjiang region.
The Uyghurs are facing discrimination in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) under Beijing’s rule, and the Chinese authorities are also trying to assimilate the ethnic group by restricting religious practices and the use of the Uyghur language.
China has held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of detention camps since 2017, RFA reported.
Beijing has been rebuked globally for cracking down on Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities, and subjecting them to abuse including forced labour.
Lockdown in Xinjiang’s Ghulja city
Chinese authorities have imposed lockdown and other COVID-19 restrictions in Ghulja city as a response to the hike in the cases of deadly infection prompting ‘bread and butter’ difficulties for Uyghurs in the region.
People living in Ghulja, a city in far northern Xinjiang, took this to social media and expressed their concern about the COVID-19 measures inflicting more hardship on them given that many families have already been devastated by the impact of China’s system of internment camps that have deprived them of their breadwinners, Radio Free Asia reported.
Uyghur
Residents in Ghulja also informed that their doors have been locked from the outside and they have been trapped in their homes for at least a week.
“The doors are locked, sealed, and we are sitting at home without leaving,” a resident said.
Meanwhile, the sudden imposition of lockdown by the Chinese authorities has also made it difficult for people to go out and shop for food, Radio Free Asia reported.
“Be brave, my people of Ghulja, who have been trapped in their homes since October 3rd. … Especially the people who depend on daily income. Be patient, there is wisdom in everything,” wrote a person from the Uyghur community on social media.
Weeks back, China’s Fujian province had also reported over 150 cases of COVID-19 cases pushing authorities to shut down schools in multiple cities, in order to phase stricter epidemic prevention and control measures, reported Global Times. (ANI)
