Uyghur Genocide on the Pre-Text of Counter-Terrorism

Background and purpose

Recent reports assert that the Chinese governments’ treatment of the Turkic minorities in Xinjiang is coordinated towards genocide. Based on these reports, the US, Canada, and now UK parliament have declared the Chinese treatment of Uyghur as genocide. Engaging with Uyghurs, this article collects massive empirical evidence to empirically verify that if Chinese government’s counter-terrorism policies (including repressive birth control policies) towards Turkic minorities fall under the defination of UN Genocide Convention.

Methodology

This qualitative study provides the primary evidence of genocidal acts from over 100 exiled families of victims of Chinese treatment of Turkic minorities, survivors of the Chinese camps and jails, and from eye witness accounts of non-Chinese citizens (primarily Pakistani husbands of Uyghur women) who left Xinjiang from 2016 to 2020. Indepth unstructured Interviews were conducted face to face in Turkey and Canada, and over the internet in Pakistan, Egypt, United States, Western Europe, Scandanavia, and Australia. The interviews were conducted in English, Urdu, and Uyghur (through translator). The massive primary data based on unstructured interviews is analyzed under the themes identified. The narrative research methods were used to determine whether the current Chinese government crackdown on Uyghur on the pretext of counter-terrorism, which is legally sanctioned by counter-terrorism legislations, falls under the definition of genocide under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.

Findings

Our findings confirm previous leaked reports and suggest that after the implementation of 2017 regional counter-terrosim / dereadicalization regulations, the strike hard Campaign against Uyghurs, which had already continued since 2014, intensified exponentially. Detained individuals are prosecuted secretly, and if they are found guilty of extremism according to the official definition of extremism, they are given heavy sentences ranging from 5 to 20 years. Those acquitted without charge are sent to re-education camps for one to three years. The majority of those released from camps are moved to forced labor camps. Whether the individuals are detained in camps, sentenced for violating counter-terror regulations, or released from camps, moved to forced labor camps, or never detained, they are under strict surveillance and can not practice their religion or culture or travel freely. Employers are ordered to deny employment to them. These counter-terrorism measures are consequently breaking the family structure of the Turkic-speaking population to an extent that their birth rate has fallen to fifty percent in just two years. Over one million individuals are separated from their families during detention in re-education and forced labor camps. Also, thousands of exiled Uyghurs are not able to join their families because of ongoing repression.

Conclusions

From the above findings based on massive empirical evidence, along with secondary evidence of moving children to state-run orphanges, forced marriages, banning Uyghur history books, demolishing Uyghur architecture, pressurizing foreign governments to deport exiled Uyghurs, incentivizing Han migration and birth rate in Xinjiang, author concludes that CCP is determined for full-scale genocide of Turkic minorities even without mass killing. International intervention is required to save the Uyghur nation from genocide.