China has denounced the second round of a Uyghur Tribunal scheduled to begin Friday in London to investigate whether the government\u2019s alleged rights abuses targeting ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in its far-western Xinjiang region constitute genocide.<\/p>\n
More than 30 witnesses and experts testified about torture, rape, and other human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) during the first set of hearings in early June. Uyghur exiles described forced abortions, arbitrary arrests, and forced labor, while international legal experts weighed in on the applicability of laws on genocide and other statutes.<\/p>\n
Such evidence and other credible documentations of abuse have formed the basis of genocide accusations against Beijing laid by several Western governments and legislatures, including the United States.<\/p>\n
The allegations, if proved, could implicate China in a campaign to deliberately destroy the Uyghurs, and constitute the commission of genocide as defined in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention of 1948.<\/p>\n
The independent people\u2019s tribunal was set up because it is not possible to bring China before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Though China has signed and ratified the Genocide Convention, it has entered a reservation against ICJ jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
Though the London panel has no state backing and any judgments will be nonbinding on any government, it aims to galvanize international action to hold China accountable for the abuse.<\/p>\n
Another group of witnesses and experts have been lined up to provide testimony during the second round of hearings on Sept. 10-13.<\/p>\n
China has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has subjected Muslims living in the XUAR to severe rights abuses. As it did during the first session, Beijing has condemned the tribunal and smeared its participants ahead of the start of the second round.<\/p>\n
Responding to a question about the Uyghur Tribunal at a news conference in Beijing on Thursday, China\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian blasted the panel as a \u201ckangaroo court\u201d that \u201chas nothing to do with law, justice or truth, and is just another farce staged to smear and attack Xinjiang.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zhao noted that the tribunal is funded mostly by the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which he said is an \u201corganization dedicated to separating Xinjiang from China.\u201d The WUC is an international organization based in Germany that represents the collective interests of Uyghurs in the XUAR and abroad.<\/p>\n
Zhao discredited WUC president Dolkun Isa as a \u201cterrorist listed by the Chinese government\u201d and prominent British lawyer Geoffrey Nice, who chairs the nine-member tribunal, as a \u201cveteran British agent notorious around the world for filing frivolous lawsuits on human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Political farce,\u2019 \u2018pseudo-court\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The Foreign Ministry spokesman also took aim at Adrian Zenz, an independent researcher with the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit organization Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, branding him an \u201canti-China swindler.\u201d<\/p>\n Zenz testified at the first round of hearings about China\u2019s policy to reduce Uyghur population growth in the XUAR. He has also produced reports documenting China\u2019s use of birth control and population transfer policies to reduce the Uyghur population, the forced sterilization of Uyghur women, and the detainment of Uyghurs in internment camps in the XUAR.<\/p>\n The Uyghurs are a predominantly Muslim group estimated at more than 12 million people in the XUAR. China has held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of detention camps since 2017, though Beijing says the facilities are vocational training centers meant to deter religious extremism and terrorism.<\/p>\n In a report published in August, Zenz concluded that China\u2019s plans to reduce the ethnic minority population may constitute genocide under the U.N. Genocide Convention by presenting empirical evidence that the Uyghurs are being destroyed as a people.<\/p>\n \u201cThese so-called \u2018Chair,\u2019 \u2018experts,\u2019 and \u2018witnesses\u2019 have deplorable track records and are habitual liars, who have become a laughing stock in the international community a long time ago,\u201d Wang said. He accused Zenz of hurling \u201cabsurd accusations\u201d and fabricating \u201clies and rumors.\u201d<\/p>\n An article in China\u2019s state-owned newspaper Global Times<\/em> on Thursday also took aim at the Uyghur Tribunal with a grim nod to the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S.<\/p>\n \u201cThe political farce and the pseudo-court of the so-called Uyghur Tribunal will have its second \u2018hearing\u2019 starting Friday, just one day before September 11, a time which should be used to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks in the U.S.,\u201d the article said.<\/p>\n Kristian Petersen, an assistant professor of religious studies at Old Dominion University, who has written about Islam in China, wrote in an op-ed for Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the U.S. embrace of Chinese claims about Uyghur terrorism has facilitated the repression of the minority group.<\/p>\n Following the terrorist attacks, \u201cthe Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defined Uyghur resistance as part of the worldwide \u2018terrorism\u2019 emergency and not as a local issue of \u2018separatism\u2019 as it used to in the past,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n After the series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed in the U.S. in 2001 by militants linked to the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda, Chinese authorities increasingly portrayed its repression of Muslim minorities in the XUAR as part of the Global War on Terror to destroy terrorist groups.<\/p>\n Petersen cited the U.S. government\u2019s addition of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) on its list of terrorist organizations in 2002 in exchange for Beijing\u2019s support for efforts to overthrow the Taliban in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks by the Afghanistan-based militants.<\/p>\n \u201cWith official international support of \u2018war on terror\u2019 proponents, the legal and political apparatus had already been set in motion to frame and justify the CCP\u2019s crackdown on any Uyghur dissent as an anti-terrorism effort,\u201d Petersen wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ETIM\u2019s designation as a terrorist organization thus became the linchpin of U.S. complicity in the CCP\u2019s oppression of Uyghurs.\u201d<\/p>\n In October 2020, however, the U.S. State Department removed the ETIM from its designated terrorist list, with a U.S. official saying that there had been no credible evidence in a decade that the group still existed.<\/p>\n 'This brutal regime'<\/strong><\/p>\n Dolkun Isa of WUC told RFA that the scheduling of the second round of Uyghur Tribunal hearings on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks was profoundly significant because China used the tragedy as a pretext to launch a war on the Uyghurs \u201cculminating with today\u2019s genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn the 20th anniversary of 9\/11, the international community must understand that China hasn\u2019t fought and isn\u2019t fighting so-called terrorism in East Turkestan,\u201d he said using the Uyghurs\u2019 preferred name for Xinjiang.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s eradicating an ancient people whose country was occupied and colonized by this brutal regime. The international community must show its political will and action to stop this ongoing Uyghur genocide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The tribunal is expected to issue a final verdict on whether China is committing genocide or crimes against humanity in December.<\/p>\n Reporting and translation by Alim Seytoff of RFA's Uyghur Service.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \n \n
\r\nThis content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia<\/a> and was authored by By Roseanne Gerin.
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