UK parliament joins global chorus, declares China’s treatment of Uighurs ‘genocide’
DHARAMSALA, 23 April: Britain has become the latest country to declare China’s treatment of Uighurs as genocide as it joined the global chorus of calling out and condemning Beijing’s atrocities against the Uighurs in East Turkistan.
British Parliament passed a non-binding motion that declared the treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority in China a “genocide” on Thursday, reports the Guardian.
British MPs from the House of Commons passed a motion tabled by the Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani unopposed that declared that the Uighurs in East Turkistan “are suffering crimes against humanity and genocide.”
“The work does not stop here. We cannot continue business as usual with China while these atrocities continue. The government must now act urgently to ensure our supply chains are not tainted by goods made with Uyghur forced labour,” the author of the motion has said.
MP Nusrat Ghani was among the nine UK citizens(4 MPs) sanctioned by China last month for spreading what it called “lies and disinformation” about Beijing.
Meanwhile, China as expected has condemned the move by the British MPs calling it “the most preposterous lie of the century,” while accusing the UK of violating the “international law and the basic norms governing international relations.
“The unwarranted accusation by a handful of British MPs that there is ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang is the most preposterous lie of the century, an outrageous insult and affront to the Chinese people, and a gross breach of international law and the basic norms governing international relations,” read a statement issued by the Chinese embassy in the UK today.
The UK now joins the likes of Dutch, Canada and the US to declare that China is committing genocide, the most heinous of crimes against Uighurs and other ethnic minorities.
