{"id":25443,"date":"2021-02-03T22:28:07","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T22:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=158175"},"modified":"2021-02-03T22:28:07","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T22:28:07","slug":"lawmakers-urge-probe-of-xinjiang-genocide-amid-reports-of-systematic-rape-in-internment-camps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/03\/lawmakers-urge-probe-of-xinjiang-genocide-amid-reports-of-systematic-rape-in-internment-camps\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers Urge Probe of Xinjiang Genocide Amid Reports of \u2018Systematic\u2019 Rape in Internment Camps"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

International lawmakers have called on their governments to urgently probe allegations of genocide and crimes against humanity in northwest China\u2019s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in response to shocking new allegations of widespread rape by former internment camp detainees.<\/p>\n

A report by the BBC on Tuesday included interviews with several women who claimed they were \u201csystematically raped, sexually abused, and tortured\u201d while held in the XUAR\u2019s vast network of internment camps, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since early 2017.<\/p>\n

Tursunay Ziawudun spent nine months detained at a camp before she was able to flee the country and relocate to the U.S. She told the BBC that women were removed from their cells \u201cevery night\u201d and raped by masked Chinese men, and that she was tortured and later gang-raped on three occasions.<\/p>\n

Gulzira Auelkhan, and ethnic Kazakh who was held for 18 months in a camp, said she was forced to handcuff detainees to their beds, remove their clothes, wait outside the room while various Chinese men entered, and then help the detainee shower after they left.<\/p>\n

One woman described watching someone be gang-raped in front of around 100 detainees, while others detailed torture that included being penetrated and sodomized with electric batons, as well as receiving \u201cvaccines\u201d that left them sterilized.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Ziawudun told RFA additional details about her abuse in the camp, saying that the first time she was raped, four men came to get her from her cell.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t immediately start raping you. First, they interrogate you, coerce you, scream at you, threaten you, then rape you in turn with torture,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re Chinese men wearing masks and black clothes. I don\u2019t know what kind of people they are. During my three \u2018talks,\u2019 different people gang-raped me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ziawudun said that when she told her husband about the rape she enduring in the camp, he was \u201chorrified, but not surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he could sense what happened to me without me saying a single word. His tears fell and said he could never blame me for what happened,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see the intense hatred in the eyes of the Chinese police towards us. They believe they have a duty to torture us even to death. I think there\u2019s an order from above to destroy us. I can feel that they\u2019re ordered to destroy us one way or another, even though they\u2019re not publicly executing us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beginning in October 2018, Beijing acknowledged the existence of the camps, but described them as voluntary \u201cvocational centers,\u201d despite reporting by RFA which has found that detainees are mostly held against their will in poor conditions, where they are forced to endure inhumane treatment and political indoctrination.<\/p>\n

While former detainees have reported isolated incidents of rape and sexual abuse in the XUAR\u2019s camps, the BBC\u2019s investigation provides some of the most damning evidence that such practices occur on a systematic and widespread basis.<\/p>\n

And experts believe that while President Xi Jinping and other high-ranking members of the central government may not have ordered such abuses, it is extremely unlikely that they are not aware of them.<\/p>\n

Calls for probe<\/strong><\/p>\n

In response to Tuesday\u2019s report, members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC)\u2014a group of more than 200 lawmakers from across the globe\u2014noted that the international community has been too complacent about abuses in the XUAR and warned that \u201cthe time for mere words has long passed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIPAC is united in horror and in condemnation of sickening reports of the torture and rape of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the internment camps of Xinjiang,\u201d the group said in a letter signed by more than 30 lawmakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cEyewitness testimonies broadcast by the BBC have exposed depraved and dehumanizing treatment of those detained in several camps.\u201d<\/p>\n

IPAC called for a coordinated effort to hold China to account.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe again call for a U.N. led or international legal investigation of crimes against humanity and genocide that are taking place in Xinjiang, and in the meantime for individual states to respond to their obligations under the genocide convention and take collective urgent political action in response to this evidence,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n

IPAC\u2019s statement included signatures by U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, co-chair of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), and Robert Menendez, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as lawmakers from Australia, Canada, Denmark, the EU, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the U.K.<\/p>\n

The BBC report also prompted statements from human rights advocates, including Sophie Richardson, China director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, who echoed concerns that more must be done to confront China on the situation in the XUAR.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere. Is. The. Prosecution? Because the evidence of *persecution* just keeps coming,\u201d she said in a tweet.<\/p>\n

German researcher Adrian Zenz, who in a June 2020 report linked decreases in the birthrate and natural population growth rate in the XUAR in 2018 to forced sterilization and concluded that such measures amount to genocide under United Nations definitions, also weighed in, tweeting, \u201cIt\u2019s time our political leaders stopped pretending this isn’t a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Zenz\u2019s study came out, official Chinese media vilified him and said Beijing is \u201cconsidering suing\u201d him for libel, while the foreign ministry denounced him.<\/p>\n

But on Tuesday, the senior fellow at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and leading expert on China\u2019s policies toward Uyghurs doubled down, saying the BBC report \u201ccould tick another box of the U.N. Genocide Convention\u201d and pointing to criteria that include \u201ccausing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

US actions<\/strong><\/p>\n

The BBC\u2019s investigation follows the Jan. 19 announcement by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that he had \u201cdetermined\u201d China is \u201ccommitting genocide and crimes against humanity\u201d in the XUAR against Uyghurs and other ethnic groups, and that Beijing and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) \u201cmust be held to account.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pompeo\u2019s designation, which came on his last full day as top U.S. diplomat and marked the first time China\u2019s policies in the XUAR were labeled genocide by a foreign government, cited \u201cthe forced assimilation and eventual erasure of a vulnerable ethnic and religious minority group.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has endorsed the designation, suggesting that President Joe Biden\u2019s administration will pursue a more forceful approach in holding China accountable for its abuses in the region. Emily Horne, the spokesperson for Biden\u2019s National Security Council, told the Washington Examiner<\/em> over the weekend that \u201cPresident Biden has called the oppression of the Uyghurs a genocide, and he stands against it in the strongest possible terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Jan. 20, the first day of the Biden administration, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying slammed Pompeo\u2019s \u201cvenomous lies\u201d and called the determination \u201cnothing more than a piece of wastepaper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former President Donald Trump\u2019s administration in July leveled sanctions against several top Chinese officials deemed responsible for rights violations in the region, including regional party secretary Chen Quanguo, under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.<\/p>\n

The move, which marked the first time Washington had sanctioned a member of China\u2019s powerful Politburo, followed Trump\u2019s enactment in June of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 (UHRPA), which passed nearly unanimously through both houses of Congress at the end of May. The legislation highlights arbitrary incarceration, forced labor, and other abuses in the XUAR and provides for sanctions against the Chinese officials who enforce them.<\/p>\n

Reported by Gulchehra Hoja and Alim Seytoff for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Alim Seytoff. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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