Source of Picture: pxhere
The US Department has spoken about the “crimes” of the Chinese government against its citizens, especially towards Muslim minorities and other ethnicities in Xinjiang, describing them as “genocide and crimes against humanity”.
The US Department published its annual report on human rights practices for the year 2023, addressing the Chinese government’s practices against minorities in the country. It discussed corruption in the government, respect for human rights and civil liberties, participation in the political process, and social violations occurring in China, in addition to workers’ rights.
The report documented human rights issues ranging from arbitrary or unlawful killings by the government, including the killing of 26 Uighur prisoners in the Tuoshuq prison whose bodies were returned to their families before the Eid holiday.
The report addressed enforced disappearances in China, indicating that many Uighurs, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang are still detained in the government’s arbitrary mass detention campaign, often considered to rise to the level of “enforced disappearance”, where families are often not provided information about the duration or location of the detention.
The report also spoke about over a million Uighurs and members of other predominantly Muslim minorities in extrajudicial internment camps, and an additional undisclosed number undergoing “re-education training” since 2017.
The report affirmed an increase in arbitrary privacy intrusions, including widespread and intrusive surveillance, and the punishment of family members for crimes alleged to have been committed by relatives, as well as imposing severe restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including criminal prosecution of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissenters, petitioners, and others.
The report addressed serious government restrictions and harassment against local and international human rights organizations, and discussed cases of forced abortion and sterilization, crimes involving violence targeting national, racial, and ethnic minorities (including Uighurs), human trafficking, and some of the worst forms of child labor.
The US Department provides reports on all recipient countries of assistance and all United Nations member states to the US Congress according to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974, covering internationally recognized individual civil and political human rights, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious, and Linguistic Minorities in Article 1 refers to minorities based on their national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or linguistic identity, and the duty of states to protect the existence of those minorities. The UN Declaration includes a list of rights enjoyed by persons belonging to minorities, including the right to declare and practice their religions, and the right to use their language.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes the protection of individuals from enforced disappearance, considering it a “crime against humanity”, and the signatory countries of the Declaration have pledged to prevent cases of enforced disappearance and combat impunity for perpetrators of enforced disappearance.
“Same Justice” emphasizes the necessity of protecting persons belonging to national and religious minorities, protecting them from civil, political, economic, and cultural violations based on discrimination, racism, and exclusion, and emphasizes the protection of individuals subjected to enforced disappearance, which violates international humanitarian law.
