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China has violated every single provision of the UN Genocide Convention with respect to the Uyghur minority, according to an independent report by more than 50 global experts on human rights, war crimes and international law.
The document, released Tuesday by the Washington-based think tank Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, says the Chinese government is responsible for an “ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs.”
This is the first time a non-governmental organization has conducted an independent legal analysis of allegations of possible genocide in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to a Muslim minority.
As many as 2 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are believed to have been moved to an extensive network of detention centers across the region, according to the U.S. State Department, where former detainees allege they were subjected to indoctrination, sexual abuse and were even sterilized.
Donald Trump’s outgoing administration had claimed in January that the Chinese government was committing genocide in Xinjiang. A month later, the Dutch and Canadian parliaments passed motions to that effect.
Azeem Ibrahim, Director of Special Initiatives at Newlines and co-author of the new report, said there was “overwhelming” evidence to support these allegations of genocide.
“This is a major world power whose leadership are the architects of a genocide,” Ibrahim said.
The United Nations Genocide Convention was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948 and has a clear definition of what constitutes “genocide.” China is a signatory to the convention, along with 151 other countries.
Article II of the convention states that genocide is an attempt to commit acts “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
While violating a single act in this convention would constitute evidence of genocide, the Newlines report asserts that the Chinese government has met all criteria with its actions in Xinjiang.
Another report released on February 8TH by Essex Court Chambers in London, which was commissioned by the World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur Human Rights Project, reached a similar conclusion that there is a “credible case” against the Chinese government for genocide.
The Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy was founded in 2019 as a nonpartisan think tank by Fairfax University of America, with the goal of “improving U.S. foreign policy based on a deep understanding of the geopolitics of different regions of the world and their value systems.”
