UIGHUR HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY ACT PASSED

At the end of May 2020, the US Congress overwhelming voted 413-1 to pass the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act. The bill requires various US government bodies to investigate and report on human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China, including the use of internment camps by the Han Chinese authorities. 

The bill now moves to President Trump to either veto or sign into law. If signed into law, the Trump Administration is compelled to impose sanctions on Chen Quanguo, the chief Communist Party official in Xinjiang, the area of China in which the Uighur camps are located. The Administration would also have 180 days to submit a report to Congress identifying any individuals involved in depriving the minority population of any human rights. Any individuals identified can have sanctions imposed on them, including actions of visa-blocking and property-blocking by the US Government. 

Alongside the investigation into individuals, the bill calls on the President to investigate any technology that enables the Chinese government to deprive the Uighurs of certain human rights. The areas of concern include:

1.     Conducting surveillance

2.     Monitoring and restricting an individual’s movement

3.     Monitoring and restricting access to the internet

4.     Identifying individuals through voice or facial recognition.

The bill also requires the State Department to provide a full report on the extent of human rights violations in Xinjiang, focusing in particular on the existence of forced labour camps. 

The bill was introduced by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and enjoyed wide bipartisan support. Speaker Nancy Pelosi welcomed the passing of the bill, calling the broad congressional backing evidence that “the United States Congress is taking a firm step to counter Beijing’s horrific human rights abuses against the Uighurs.” Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey, one of the sponsors of the bill, echoed the Speaker’s sentiment, calling for action as “Xi Jinping is smashing and obliterating an entire people.” 

BACKGROUND TO THE BILL 

Uighur Muslims are an ethnic minority group that reside primarily in Central Asia, with the largest population living in the Xinjiang region of China. Since 2017, the Han Chinese authorities have detained hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in internment camps, nominally with the purpose of “re-education.” In 2018, the UN Human Rights Committee stated that it had heard “credible” reports that at least one million Uighurs were being held in camps. Alongside this mass detention, the Uighur population has been subject to widespread surveillance, including facial and voice recognition, and arbitrary arrest. In response, human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have worked to raise awareness of the issue and have called upon the international community to intercede. 

The Trump Administration has been reticent to take action against China over the treatment of the Uighurs, in particular during the recent US-China trade talks. The President did, however, blacklist eight Chinese companies at the end of 2019 whose technology was used in the surveillance of Uighur Muslims. 

The US Congress has become increasingly hawkish in its attitude towards China, imposing sanctions in response to human rights violations in Hong Kong. The Uighur bill, with its bipartisan support, is evidence of this change in feeling. The spread of Coronavirus from China has also led to further anti-China sentiment within the wider US population.

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE 

Human rights activists widely welcomed the legislation, both in the US and globally. Nury Turkel, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom Commissioner and Uighur rights activist called the bill “the first major legislation focused on promoting the rights of Uyghur and other Muslims.”.  Looking forward, Turkel called on other countries to take the lead from the US and impose sanctions of their own on China. 

Dilnur Reyhan, a Uighur scholar and community leader, has praised the line taken by the US Congress, yet has bemoaned the lack of support shown to the Uighurs from Muslim countries. Reyhan believes the indifference shown by many Muslim countries to the plight of the Uighurs is primarily due to economic and technological reliance on China. In her view, there needs to be a wider global response to the human rights violations against the Uighurs, in particular from other Muslim nations.  

The Chinese government has yet to comment on the bill passing, but previously responded strongly to a previous version of the bill in 2019. At the time, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that the bill “wantonly smeared” China’s counter-terrorism efforts and government of Xianjiang. According to the Chinese government, the camps are “vocational education centres”, which aim to steer Uighur Muslims away from “religious extremism, terrorism, and separatism.” In a report, Human Rights Watch found these camps to be places of “forced indoctrination” and “torture.”

Annabel is currently a law student in London. She graduated with a BA in History from the University of Oxford. Previously, she worked in Equity Research at a large investment bank. Annabel hopes to pursue a career at the Criminal Bar; to contribute to ensuring that all receive equal and fair access to the justice system. She is also an editor at Human Rights Pulse.

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