{"id":4561,"date":"2018-11-21T18:55:56","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T18:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/11\/21\/lawmakers-want-hold-china-accountable-over-abuses-xinjiang-heres-what-know-play-video\/"},"modified":"2018-11-21T18:55:56","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T18:55:56","slug":"lawmakers-want-hold-china-accountable-over-abuses-xinjiang-heres-what-know-play-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/lawmakers-want-hold-china-accountable-over-abuses-xinjiang-heres-what-know-play-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers Want to Hold China Accountable Over Abuses in Xinjiang. Here’s What to Know Play Video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers are urging Washington to sanction Chinese officials over possible crimes against humanity the same week that Beijing legalized its policy of mass detentions of Uighur Muslims.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an annual report<\/a> released Wednesday, the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) said that Beijing\u2019s long-standing repression of the Uighur Muslim minority is worsening.<\/span><\/p>\n

As many as 1 million Uighurs in the western frontier region of Xinjiang may have been forced into a vast network of detention camps in what the commission calls \u201cthe largest incarceration of an ethnic minority population since World War II.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Until an <\/span>about face<\/span> this week, China had denied<\/a> the large-scale detention of minorities and rejected foreign criticisms as hyperbole. But on Tuesday, Beijing revised a law<\/a> to formalize the \u201cre-education\u201d of people the state perceives as religious extremists.<\/span><\/p>\n

The move comes as Washington doubles down on remonstrations over alleged abuses in Xinjiang. Last week, Vice President Mike Pence accused China<\/a> of trying to \u201cstamp out the Muslim faith\u201d and called for a reset America\u2019s relations with China.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Friday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Rep. Christopher H. Smith, co-chairs of the China commission, plan to introduce a bill<\/a> that will condemn the Chinese crackdowns in Xinjiang and urge the government to enforce financial sanctions.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the U.S. takes up the issue of accountability for Xinjiang, here\u2019s what to know about China\u2019s crackdown on its Muslim minority.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who are the Uighurs?<\/span><\/h3>\n

On the border of Central Asia, the autonomous region of Xinjiang is home to the Uighurs, a primarily Muslim ethnic group who make up around 40% of the frontier region\u2019s 19 million people<\/a>. Beijing has increasingly imposed discriminatory regulations on the group since Xi Jinping\u2019s rise to power in 2012. Over the years, Uighurs have faced heightened surveillance and increased restrictions, including bans on veils in public, the enforcement of family planning laws and orders to hand over passports<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A Uighur man drinks tea at a local tea shop in Kashgar City, in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on July 06, 2017.<\/span><\/div>\n

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What\u2019s happening with the camps?<\/span><\/h3>\n

In August, a U.N. committee called Xinjiang a \u201cno rights zone\u201d<\/a> where it believes China has put more than 1 million Uighurs into internment camps and subjected 2 million more to \u201cre-education\u201d programs.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to reports from former detainees, inside these centers<\/a> Uighurs are forced to pledge allegiance to Xi, renounce their faith, learn Mandarin and sing songs to the Communist party, <\/span>the<\/span> the Washington<\/span> Post<\/em> reports. Torture and deaths are not uncommon, according to an open letter from dissidents<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a major pivot this week, the Xinjiang government signed the camps into <\/a><\/span>law<\/span><\/a>as<\/span> \u201ceducation and transformation organizations\u201d that will stifle Islamic extremism, according to the Post<\/em>. The revised law marks the first time China has attempted to justify the existence of the extrajudicial detention centers.<\/span><\/p>\n

What action is the U.S. trying to take?<\/span><\/h3>\n

Rubio and Smith\u2019s bill recommends using the Magnitsky Act \u201cto levy financial sanctions or deny US entry visas\u201d to officials involved in the Uighur abuses.<\/span><\/p>\n

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