Examining the Violation of Human Rights in Xinjiang

tw: rape, sexual abuse, violence, torture, ethnic genocide

Since 2017, the Chinese government has run a campaign under the pretense of anti-terrorism efforts to carry out mass-systematic abuse against the Uyghur minority and other Muslim groups living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in China. This campaign reveals an intent to target Uyghurs based on ethnicity and religion to halt their Islamic and cultural practices. The government aims to indoctrinate Uyghurs to accept state-sanctioned views and behaviors to guarantee unwavering loyalty.

For the past several years, reports have detailed the Uyghur genocide occurring in the XUAR in China. The genocide has garnered international attention as ongoing reports of human rights violations are exposed to the public. President Joe Biden signed The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into legislation to push back against the treatment of the Uyghur minority and other Muslim ethnic groups. The law would ban goods coming from Xinjiang, as it presumes that all imports were produced through forced labor. Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley said that this act would "ensure American consumers and businesses can buy goods without inadvertent complicity with China's horrific human rights abuses."

Despite this legislation and ongoing coverage, the Chinese government has denied any wrongdoing and claimed the detention camps are vocational training schools that were established to combat religious extremism and terrorism. Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C., said that the act "is a severe violation of international law and norms of international relations, and a gross interference in China's internal affairs. China strongly condemns and firmly rejects it.&