CFU PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 20, 4:30 PM ET
Sabrina Sohail: sabrina@campaignforuyghurs.org
(650) 703-4523
https://www.campaignforuyghurs.org
On July 18, Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) submitted a detailed report for the fourth Universal Periodic Review of China, illustrating its genocide against the Uyghur people and other Turkic groups, and its crimes against humanity in East Turkistan.
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a United Nations process conducted under the auspices of the Human Rights Council with the aim of improving the human rights situation globally and addressing violations in all countries. Every member state of the United Nations goes through this comprehensive review of its human rights practices every five years.
Since its last UPR in 2018, the Chinese government has not only failed to uphold the commitments to which it has agreed, but it has also intensified its persecution of the people of East Turkistan at an alarming rate. This escalation of human rights abuses has prompted further international scrutiny of the crimes occurring in the region. In August 2022, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a report, concluding that the Chinese regime’s actions in East Turkistan “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” Additionally, in December 2021, the independent Uyghur Tribunal delivered its judgment, stating that the Chinese government’s actions constituted an act of genocide.
CFU Executive Director Rushan Abbas said that the organization’s submission presented evidence of various human rights abuses committed by the PRC. “These abuses include mass internment, arbitrary detentions, forced labor, digital surveillance, forced kinship, suppression of religion and destruction of religious sites, as well as violations of women and children’s rights—acts which, taken as a whole, point to the crime of genocide with the intent to destroy the Uyghur people,” Abbas underlined.
Abbas said that CFU’s report aimed at bringing to the attention of the international community the Chinese regime’s genocidal policy against the Uyghurs, in particular by highlighting the plight of women and children. “Uyghur and other Turkic women and children are at the epicenter of China’s extermination campaign because without them, there is no posterity,” Abbas underlined. “Campaign for Uyghurs has also outlined specific recommendations directed towards the Chinese government, aimed at putting an end to all forms of human rights violations against the people of East Turkistan.”
China’s human rights record will be reviewed at the 45th session of the UPR Working Group to be held between January and February in 2024.
Read our full submission here.
