{"id":4482,"date":"2018-11-15T18:27:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T18:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/11\/15\/us-lawmakers-aim-hold-china-accountable-uyghur-abuses\/"},"modified":"2018-11-15T18:27:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-15T18:27:00","slug":"us-lawmakers-aim-hold-china-accountable-uyghur-abuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/us-lawmakers-aim-hold-china-accountable-uyghur-abuses\/","title":{"rendered":"US lawmakers aim to hold China accountable for Uyghur abuses"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bipartisan group of lawmakers <\/span>are<\/span> pushing legislation aimed at holding China accountable for reported human rights abuses against its Uyghur population.<\/span><\/p>\n

The legislation, introduced by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in the Senate and by Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Thomas Suozzi (D-NY), condemns the \u201cgross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic Muslims in <\/span>Xinjiang,<\/span> and calling for an end to arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment of these communities inside and outside China.\u201d Both House and Senate bills have a broad swath of bipartisan cosponsors.<\/span><\/p>\n

As many as 1 million of the minority Muslim population have been forced by the Chinese government into \u201cre-education camps\u201d<\/a> in the Xinjiang province. Former detainees say they were forced to endure intensive \u201c<\/span>brain washing<\/span>\u201d sessions including close study of Communist Party propaganda. The Chinese government has defended these camps as a means of fighting what they describe as a rising tide of extremism in Xinjiang.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States must hold accountable officials in the Chinese government and Communist Party responsible for gross violations of human rights and possible crimes against humanity, including the internment in \u2018political <\/span>reeducation<\/span>\u2019 camps of as many as a million Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim minorities,\u201d Rubio said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

The legislation urges President Donald Trump to condemn the abuses.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe President needs to have a clear and consistent approach to China, and not turn a blind eye as a million Muslims are unjustly imprisoned and forced into labor camps by an autocratic regime,\u201d Menendez said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The lawmakers <\/span>calls<\/span> for the State Department to consider Global Magnitsky Act and related sanctions on Chinese government officials \u201cincluding Xinjiang Party Secretary Chen Quanguo and other officials credibly alleged to be responsible for human rights abuses in Xinjiang.\u201d It also recommends the creation of a special coordinator for Xinjiang position at the State Department to arrange the diplomatic and political response to the violations against the Uyghurs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe internment of over a million Uyghurs and other Muslims in China is a staggering evil and should be treated by the international community as a crime against humanity,\u201d Smith said in a statement. \u201cAs a start, Chinese government officials should be held accountable for their complicity in gross violations of human rights and U.S. businesses should be barred from helping China create a high-tech police state in Xinjiang province.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The legislation compels the director of national intelligence, the FBI director, the CEO of the US Agency for Global Media and the secretary of state to produce reports for Congress related to security risks, protection of US citizens from intimidation, the Chinese disinformation efforts and scope of the abuses, respectively.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked about the bills, a State Department spokesperson said they do not comment on pending legislation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley have spoken out about the detention of the Uyghurs. During the US-China Security and Diplomatic Dialogue last week, Pompeo said he had a \u201cgood conversation\u201d with his Chinese counterparts on the issue. However, Chinese Politburo Member Yang Jiechi seemed to defend China\u2019s treatment of the Uyghur in Xinjiang as a matter of \u201cChina\u2019s internal affairs\u201d and <\/span>said<\/span> \u201cforeign countries have no right to interfere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWithin the confines of <\/span>law<\/span>, the government has taken steps to crack down on ethnic separatist activities and violent terrorist crimes to safeguard national security and life and property of the people,\u201d Yang said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source: CNN<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bipartisan group of lawmakers are pushing legislation aimed at holding China accountable for reported human rights abuses against its Uyghur population. The legislation, introduced by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-4482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4482"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=4482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}