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London, United Kingdom – The Chinese government has committed genocide, crimes against humanity and torture against Uyghurs and other minorities in western Xinjiang province, according to an unofficial and independent court in the United Kingdom.
Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, head of the Uighur Court and a prominent human rights lawyer, said the Chinese government has targeted Uighur Muslims with birth control and sterilization policies to reduce the group’s population.
“The court is convinced that the People’s Republic of China has unjustifiably committed genocide by imposing measures to prevent births aimed at destroying an important part of the Xinjiang Uyghurs,” said Nice, who also headed the prosecution. Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic talks about war crimes and genocide.
He added that “this vast apparatus of state repression would not exist without a plan at the highest levels.”
The court has no government backing and no power to punish or punish China. But experts say the government around the world will help revive China by claiming responsibility for the abuses.
Chinese authorities have arbitrarily arrested one million Uyghurs and other minorities at 300 and 400 facilities in Xinjiang since entering World War II as part of an ethno-religious minority.
The United States and many other countries have called China’s actions a genocide. But the UK has refused to do so.
China has repeatedly denied the allegations
The Chinese government has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing by officials in Xinjiang, and has refused to allow them to conduct investigations or allow independent international observers.
The tribunal was set up in September last year with the support of the NGO Coalition for Genocide Response to investigate “ongoing atrocities and potential genocide” against Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Turkish Muslims.
Organizers say the court is necessary because of various obstacles to investigating allegations of human rights violations against China in the courts.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague announced in December 2020 that it would not investigate China because it is not its own court party. The International Court of Justice, the United Nations High Court, can only accept a case approved by the UN Security Council, on which China has veto power.
“Civil society had to move forward and create a tribunal, which is the Uighur tribunal,” said Luke de Pulford, founder of the Genocide Response Coalition and a consultant to the Uyghur World Congress.
The court has conducted “the broadest and most comprehensive assessment of the evidence of the Uyghur crisis that any body, including the government, has obtained,” de Pulford said.
A platform for survivors
One of the court’s “critical functions” was to provide a platform for survivors, said Sophie Richardson, director of China Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“It created a space for people to explain to the world what has happened and to raise awareness about these ongoing crimes against humanity,” he said.
More than 30 witnesses – including Uyghur refugees, lawyers and academics – have testified in three hearings this past year.
Their testimonies related to the detention, rape and torture detention centers in Xinjiang, home to millions of Uighurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities.
Muslim Uighurs have “suffered acts of cruelty, depravity and recklessness,” Nice said in a ruling on Thursday.
“In a 22-square-meter cell, 15 people are being arrested, they can’t lie on the concrete,” he said.
Nursiman Abdureshid, a 33-year-old Uighur refugee living in Istanbul, said in June that his father had been sentenced to more than 16 years in prison for “disturbing the social order and preparing for terrorist activities” and that his mother had been extradited. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison for allegedly preparing for “terrorist activities.”
He said he learned through the Turkish embassy in China that they had been imprisoned, “that they intended to commit a crime.”
“This means there is no crime, and my family has done nothing … The state randomly selects people and takes them from camps to prisons,” said Abdureshid, who has not been able to contact his family since 2017.
Abdureshid also described the pressure his brother-in-law felt on aborting his twin children, fearing the punishment he might already face because he had two children.
Adrian Zends, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in China, told the panel in November about a peer review of the implications of China’s birth control policy.
His study shows that these policies could reduce the population of ethnic minorities in southern Xinjiang by up to a third in the next 20 years.
According to official Chinese statistics, between 2017 and 2019, birth rates fell by 48.7 percent in Xinjiang’s ethnic minorities.
What’s next?
The Chinese government has not responded to the court’s requests to participate in the proceedings. Although it had no jurisdiction to enforce the courts, Beijing imposed sanctions on the court and its organizers, including Sir Nice, for spreading what he called “lies and misinformation” about the country.
Under pressure from the Chinese government, the witnesses decided not to give evidence because they feared reprisals against their families.
“CPR has deprived the court of its legitimacy from day one,” De Pulford said.
The Uighur court has called on the UK government to take action and take various measures, including imposing additional sanctions on China, imposing import controls on Uyghur slave labor products and publicly acknowledging the genocide in Xinjiang.
De Pulford said the ruling should become a “campaign tool” for governments to comply with their legal obligations under the Genocide Convention Act, an international legal instrument that requires states to prevent and punish the crime of genocide.
De Pulford said the ruling “removed excuses” for the government not to act.
More than five decades after the United Kingdom enacted the Genocide Convention Act, it has not allowed for continued genocide.
China’s international condemnation of human rights violations and the recent diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, recently announced by the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, are not enough to change China’s behavior, HRW’s Richardson said.
“It is imperative that China establish the kind of consequences required by human rights law,” he said.
“Failure to take responsibility for the crimes against humanity committed by the world’s second most powerful country guarantees further such abuses.”
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