The Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy has released a report stating that the Chinese government has breached every single article of the UN genocide convention. The report based on China’s treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang also said the government bears responsibility for committing genocide.
The 25,000-page report published by the non-partisan US-based think-tank is the first independent, non-government legal examination of China’s treatment of Uighurs under the 1948 genocide convention.
Under the UN convention signed by 152 countries including China, a finding of genocide can be made if a party violates any one of five defined acts.
The five acts include “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Findings genocide
According to the report, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has violated all five acts. The think-tank accused the party of clearly demonstrating an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
“The intent to destroy the Uighurs as a group is derived from objective proof. Consisting of comprehensive state policy and practice, which President Xi Jinping, the highest authority in China, set in motion.”
As evidence, the think-tank cites reports of mass deaths, selective death sentences, as well as long-term imprisonment of elders. It also states the systemic torture and cruel treatment including sexual abuse and torture, interrogations and indoctrination of Uighurs.
Also, the report mentions the targeted detention of Uighur community leaders and people of childbearing age, forced sterilization and family separation. As well as mass labour transfer schemes and the transfer of Uighur children to state-run orphanages and boarding schools.
“The persons and entities perpetrating the above-indicated acts of genocide are all state agents or organs – acting under the effective control of the state – manifesting an intent to destroy the Uighurs as a group within the meaning of article II of the Genocide convention.”
In creating the report, all available and verifiable evidence was studied by dozens of experts on international law, genocide studies, Chinese ethnic policies and China, the institute said. It made no recommendations.
Beijing Response
Beijing has continually denied committing atrocities and abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority despite mounting evidence from different sources.
China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, told reporters that claims of genocide in Xinjiang “could not be more preposterous”. He also called the accusations “a rumour fabricated with ulterior motives and a total lie.”
Reports on the abuse of Uighurs have led to increasing international outrage and diplomatic and economic isolation. Similarly, the US administration has described the persecution of the Uighurs as genocide.
Newlines Institute’s report comes in the middle of the CCP’s most important annual political meetings, known as the “two sessions”. During the meetings, the major legislative body meets to approve new legislation and senior ministers front the press.
