US declares China committing genocide against Uighurs, other ethnic minorities
DHARAMSALA, 20 Jan: The US President Donald Trump’s administration has determined that China is committing genocide against Uighurs and other ethnic minorities.
“I have determined that the People’s Republic of China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, China, targeting Uyghur Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups,” the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said.
The Trump administrations’ chief foreign affairs adviser has stated in a statement calling out China’s atrocities in Xinjiang(East Turkistan) that over the past four years, this administration has exposed the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and called it what it is: a Marxist-Leninist regime that exerts power over the long-suffering Chinese people through brainwashing and brute force.”
“These acts are an affront to the Chinese people and to civilized nations everywhere. The People’s Republic of China and the CCP must be held to account,” he added.
The top US diplomat further says in the statement that “the US has led the world in holding the perpetrators of the most heinous human rights abuses accountable,” “given voice to those who have been silenced by evil, and stood with the living who cry out for truth, the rule of law, and justice.”
“We do so not because we are compelled to act by any international court, multilateral body, or domestic political concern. We do so because it is right.”
Pompeo, in his determination of crimes against humanity against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other members of ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang, he listed the arbitrary imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty of more than one million civilians, forced sterilization, torture of a large number of those arbitrarily detained, forced labour, and the imposition of draconian restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, and freedom of movement.
“I believe this genocide is ongoing, and that we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs by the Chinese party-state,” he said and concluded by calling out China to immediately right the wrong and urging “all appropriate multilateral and relevant juridical bodies, to join the US in our effort to promote accountability for those responsible for these atrocities.”
