China’s Persecution of The Uighurs And Other Muslims In Xinjiang Is Cultural Genocide
Washington
Post Editorial Board
July 7,
2020
Workers
walk by the perimeter fence of what is officially known as a vocational skills
education centre in Dabancheng in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, on
Sept. 4, 2018. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)
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WHAT HAS
been known until now about China’s persecution of the Uighurs and other Muslims
in Xinjiang province has focused on cultural genocide: concentration camps
intended to eradicate their language, traditions and ways of life. This was
cruel enough. But new evidence has surfaced that China has also imposed on the
Uighurs a form of demographic genocide with forced sterilizations and other
measures aimed at reducing the population.
The
disclosure comes in an investigative report from the Associated Press and a new
research report by scholar Adrian Zenz for the Jamestown Foundation. The new
evidence shows that China is systematically using pregnancy checks, forced
intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion to reduce the population
of Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang. Moreover, having too many children is
being punished by incarceration in the camps. According to a set of leaked
data, obtained and corroborated by the AP, of 484 camp detainees listed in
Karakax county in Xinjiang, 149 were there for having too many children, the
most common reason for holding them. Detention in camps — which the government
claims is vocational education — is written policy in at least three counties for
parents with too many children.
The AP
reported that authorities have gone hunting for such parents, ripping them away
from their families unless they can pay huge fines.
Mr. Zenz
found that the Xinjiang authorities planned in 2019 to subject at least 80
percent of women of childbearing age in four rural southern prefectures to
intrusive birth prevention surgeries, intrauterine devices or sterilizations.
Moreover, in 2018, 80 percent of all new IUD placements in China were performed
in Xinjiang — despite the fact that the region makes up only 1.8 percent of the
nation’s population.
The
campaign to depress the Uighur population appears to be working. Birthrates in
the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar plunged by more than 60 percent
from 2015 to 2018, the latest year available in government statistics. Across
the Xinjiang region, birthrates continue to plummet, falling nearly 24 percent
last year alone, compared with just 4.2 percent nationwide.
China long
employed coercion in family life with its one-child policy, now abandoned. In
Xinjiang, it has sought to whitewash the horrors it is inflicting on people.
The new disclosures make it even more urgent that China’s leaders be pressed to
account for these atrocities. The measures fall within the definition of
genocide in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide, which includes “imposing measures intended to prevent births
within the group.” China is a signatory but rejects the jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court.
President
Trump has just signed a new sanctions law against individuals who are found
responsible for abuses in Xinjiang. But China’s treatment of the Uighurs is so
reprehensible that it calls into serious question whether China should be
permitted to proceed as host of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Why should
the world sports community honor a country that has committed genocide?
Original
Headline: What’s happening in Xinjiang is genocide
Source: The Washington Post
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