Long title | An act to condemn gross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, and calling for an end to arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment of these communities inside and outside China. |
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Nicknames | Uyghur Act |
Enacted by | the 116th United States Congress |
Effective | June 17, 2020 |
Citations | |
Public law | Pub. L. 116–145 (text) (PDF) |
Legislative history | |
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The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 (S. 3744) [1] is a United States federal law that requires various United States government bodies to report on human rights abuses by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese government against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China, including internment in the Xinjiang re-education camps. [2] [3]
On September 11, 2019, a version of the bill—the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019 [4] —was passed in the United States Senate by unanimous consent. [5] [6] [7] On December 3, 2019, a stronger version of the bill—the UIGHUR Act—was passed by the US House of Representatives by a vote of 407–1.
On May 14, 2020, the Senate introduced and approved what would be the current 2020 bill. [3] [6] [8] On May 27, 2020, the House passed the amended bill by a vote of 413–1, sending it to then-President Donald Trump for approval. [9] The bill was signed by Trump into law on June 17, 2020. [10]
On September 11, 2019, a version of the bill—S. 178, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019—passed in the US Senate by unanimous consent. [4] [6] [7]
On December 3, 2019, a stronger, amended version of the bill—the Uighur Intervention and Global Humanitarian Unified Response Act (or UIGHUR Act)—was passed by the US House of Representatives by a vote of 407 to 1. [3] [11] [6] [12] The sole "no" vote was cast by Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky. [12]
On the afternoon of May 14, 2020, a new version of the bill—S. 3744, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020—passed in the United States Senate by unanimous consent. [13] The House approved the bill by a vote of 413–1 on May 27, 2020. [9] The following month, on June 17, then-President Donald Trump signed the bill into law. [10] [14] [15] [16]
The bill directs: (1) the Director of National Intelligence to report to Congress on security issues caused by the Chinese government's reported crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang; (2) the Federal Bureau of Investigation to report on efforts to protect Uyghurs and Chinese nationals in the United States; (3) the US Agency for Global Media to report on Chinese media related issues in Xinjiang; and (4) the United States Department of State to report on the scope of the reported Chinese government crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang. [2]
The President has to submit a report to Congress within 180 days. The report shall designate Chinese officials and any other individuals who are responsible for carrying out: torture; prolonged detention without charges and a trial; abduction; cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment of Muslim minority groups; and other flagrant denials of the "right to life, liberty, or the security" of people in Xinjiang. Persons identified in the report would then be subject to sanctions which include asset blocking, visa revocation, and ineligibility for entry into the United States. Imposing sanctions against the officials can be declined by the President if he determines and certifies to Congress that holding back on sanctions is in the national interest of the United States. [17] [18]
The bill also calls on the President to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act on Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, which would be the first time such sanctions would be imposed on a member of China's politburo. [19] [20] On July 9, 2020, the Trump administration imposed sanctions and visa restrictions against senior Chinese officials, including Quanguo, as well as Zhu Hailun, Wang Mingshan ( 王明山 ), and Huo Liujun (霍留军). With sanctions, they and their immediate relatives are barred from entering the US and will have US-based assets frozen. [21]
On the same day that then-President Trump signed the Act into law, former National Security Advisor John Bolton claimed that Trump had, on two occasions, told Chinese leader Xi Jinping to go forward with plans related to Uyghur internment. [17] [22]
Editorials in The New York Times and The Washington Post supported the passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act. [23] [24] Opinion pieces written in various publications also supported the passage of the Act. [25]
The CCP claim of deradicalization drew criticism in an article by the Deccan Chronicle , [26] while an article written by Srikanth Kondapalli made criticisms of the PRC's grand strategy for Xinjiang. [27] Analysts cited in an article by Reuters said that mainland China's response to passage of the Uyghur bill could be stronger than its reaction to the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act , [19] while the BBC's China correspondent said that if the bill became law, then it would mark the most significant international attempt to pressure mainland China over its mass detention of the Uyghurs. [28]
On December 3, 2019, a World Uyghur Congress spokesman said that the House bill is important in opposing "China's continued push of extreme persecution," and that the organization looks forward to Trump signing the bill. [19] [28] Various Uyghur activists, think tank analysts, and political representatives called on various governments to sanction mainland Chinese officials for their perceived involvement in the Xinjiang conflict. [29]
Uyghur-American lawyer Nury Turkel—who is a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, the co-founder of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, and a former President of the Uyghur American Association—thanked Trump for signing the Act and further wrote that, "It's a great day for America and the Uighur people." [30] Turkel would also go on to say that the American government must use the new bill to impose sanctions on Chinese officials for religious persecution. He also urged Congress to pass a second bill, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act , which would direct US Customs and Border Protection to presume that any goods produced in Xinjiang are the product of forced labor. [31] [32]
The Chinese government have called the bill a malicious attack on China and demanded that the United States prevent it from becoming law, warning that it would act to defend its interests as necessary. [19] On December 4, 2019, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said that the bill "wantonly smeared China's counter-terrorism and de-radicalization efforts." [3] Four days later, Ëziz Eli (艾则孜·艾力)—County Magistrate of Niya County and Vice Secretary of the Niya County County Communist Party Committee—and Perhat Roza (帕尔哈提·肉孜)—Vice Secretary and Commissioner of the Kashgar Prefecture Communist Party Committee—penned criticisms of the Act. [33] [34]
In December 2019, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates defended China's actions in Xinjiang and condemned the bill as a "blatant interference by the US in the internal affairs of the People's Republic of China." [35]
The Uyghur American Association is a prominent Uyghur American non-profit advocacy organization based in Washington, D. C. in the United States. It was established in 1998 by a group of Uyghur overseas activists to raise the public awareness of the Uyghur people, who primarily reside in Xinjiang, China, also known as East Turkestan. The Uyghur American Association is an affiliate organization of the World Uyghur Congress and works to promote the Uyghur culture and improved human rights conditions for Uyghurs.
Nury Ablikim Turkel is an American attorney, public official and human rights advocate based in Washington, D.C. He is currently Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2012, intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009 and also to grant permanent normal trade relations status to Russia.
The Xinjiang conflict, also known as the East Turkistan conflict, Uyghur–Chinese conflict or Sino-East Turkistan conflict, is an ongoing ethnic geopolitical conflict in what is now China's far-northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang, also known as East Turkistan. It is centred around the Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group who constitute a plurality of the region's population.
The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 (HKHRDA) is a United States federal law that requires the U.S. government to impose sanctions against mainland China and Hong Kong officials considered responsible for human rights abuses in Hong Kong, and requires the United States Department of State and other agencies to conduct an annual review to determine whether changes in Hong Kong's political status justify changing the unique, favorable trade relations between the U.S. and Hong Kong. The passage of the bill was supported by pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, and in 2019 received near-unanimous support in Congress.
The East Turkistan National Movement also known as the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement is a non-profit human rights and political advocacy organization established in June 2017 in Washington D.C. Salih Hudayar, a Uyghur American consultant and graduate student founded the group after pre-existing Uyghur organizations failed to openly call for East Turkestan independence deeming it "controversial".
The Xinjiang internment camps, officially called vocational education and training centers by the government of China, are internment camps operated by the government of Xinjiang and the Chinese Communist Party Provincial Standing Committee. Human Rights Watch says that they have been used to indoctrinate Uyghurs and other Muslims since 2017 as part of a "people's war on terror", a policy announced in 2014. The camps have been criticized by the governments of many countries and human rights organizations for alleged human rights abuses, including mistreatment, rape, and torture, with some of them alleging genocide. Some 40 countries around the world have called on China to respect the human rights of the Uyghur community, including countries such as Canada, Germany, Turkey and Japan. The governments of more than 35 countries have expressed support for China's government. Xinjiang internment camps have been described as "the most extreme example of China's inhumane policies against Uighurs".
In May 2014, the Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched the "Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism" in the far west province of Xinjiang. It is an aspect of the Xinjiang conflict, the ongoing struggle by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese government to manage the ethnically diverse and tumultuous province. According to critics, the CCP and the Chinese government have used the global "war on terrorism" of the 2000s to frame separatist and ethnic unrest as acts of Islamist terrorism to legitimize its counter-insurgency policies in Xinjiang. Chinese officials have maintained that the campaign is essential for national security purposes.
The Xinjiang papers are a collection of more than 400 pages of internal Chinese government documents describing the government policy regarding Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region. In November 2019, journalists Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley at The New York Times broke the story that characterized the documents as "one of the most significant leaks of government papers from inside China's ruling Communist Party in decades." According to The New York Times, the documents were leaked by a source inside the Chinese Communist Party and include a breakdown of how China created and organized the Xinjiang internment camps.
The Chinese government is committing a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang that is often characterized as persecution or as genocide. Beginning in 2014, the Chinese government, under the administration of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping, incarcerated more than an estimated one million Turkic Muslims without any legal process in internment camps. Operations from 2016 to 2021 were led by Xinjiang CCP Secretary Chen Quanguo. It is the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II. The Chinese government began to wind down the camps in 2019. Amnesty International states that detainees have been increasingly transferred to the formal penal system.
The China Cables are a collection of secret Chinese government documents from 2017 which were leaked by exiled Uyghurs to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and published on 24 November 2019. The documents include a telegram which details the first known operations manual for running the Xinjiang internment camps, and bulletins which illustrate how China's centralized data collection system and mass surveillance tool, known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, uses artificial intelligence to identify people for interrogation and potential detention.
Rushan Abbas is a Uyghur American activist and advocate from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. She is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Campaign for Uyghurs. Abbas became one of the most prominent Uyghur voices in international activism following her sister's detainment by the Chinese government in 2018.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is a United States federal law that changed U.S. policy on China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with the goal of ensuring that American entities are not funding forced labor among ethnic minorities in the region.
Salih Hudayar is a Uyghur-American politician known for advocating for East Turkistan independence. He founded the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement and has since been leading the movement calling for the "restoration of East Turkistan's independence."
The East Turkistan Government in Exile, officially the Government in Exile of the Republic of East Turkistan, is a political organization established and headquartered in Washington, D.C. by Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other peoples from East Turkistan (Xinjiang). The ETGE claims to be the sole legitimate organization and a parliamentary-based government in exile representing East Turkistan and its people on the international stage.
The Uyghur Human Rights Project is a research-based advocacy organization located in Washington, D.C. that promotes human rights for Uyghurs. According to the UHRP, its main goal is "promoting human rights and democracy for Uyghurs and others living in East Turkistan" through research-based advocacy.
Xinjiang is the leading producer of cotton in China, accounting for about 20% of the world's cotton production and 80% of China's domestic cotton production. Critics of the industry's practices have alleged widespread human rights abuses, prompting global boycotts. China rejects accusations that any human rights abuses occur either within the Xinjiang cotton industry or within China overall.
The Uyghur Tribunal was an independent "people's tribunal" based in the United Kingdom aiming to examine evidence regarding the ongoing human rights abuses against the Uyghur people by the Government of China and to evaluate whether the abuses constitute genocide under the Genocide Convention. The tribunal was chaired by Geoffrey Nice, the lead prosecutor in the trial of Slobodan Milošević, who announced the creation of the tribunal in September 2020.
Rayhan Asat is a Uyghur lawyer and human rights advocate. Since 2020, she has led a public campaign for the release of her brother, Ekpar Asat, who has been held in the Xinjiang internment camp system since 2016, and on behalf of the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China. In 2021, she joined the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council as a Nonresident Senior Fellow and became a Yale World Fellow. Asat is also a Senior Fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and President of the American Turkic International Lawyers Association.
The OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China is a report published on 31 August 2022 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) concerning the treatment of Uyghurs and other largely Muslim groups in China. The report concluded that "[t]he extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity." Human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet released the report shortly before leaving the office.
Meanwhile, bipartisan legislation aimed at holding the Chinese accountable, sponsored by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), has cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is in committee in the House. Hopefully it will pass both chambers soon.
But what can the U.S. do? The U.S. will struggle to hold Chinese Communist Party officials accountable through international institutions...domestic options are more promising. Congress is poised to pass the Uighur Intervention and Global Humanitarian Unified Response (UIGHUR) Act of 2019, which calls upon the President to sanction Chinese officials, prohibits selling certain goods to China that it could use to suppress human rights, and mandates that the State Department report to Congress on conditions in Xinjiang.
In Congress, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act (S.178 and H.R.649) has been teetering for almost one year. It is time to pass the measure. Other countries should follow this model of accountability and not China's turn toward totalitarianism.
Here in the US, folks can call or write to their representatives to let them know this is a humanitarian crisis they care about and want to see political action on. They can show support for the Xinjiang Uyghur Human Rights Act, a bipartisan bill that recommends considering several responses to China's crackdown, including imposing sanctions on Chinese officials involved in the camps.
Calling the US action a political move aimed at damaging its international image, China says it is running a deradicalisation programme to mainstream its communities. The Chinese claim has not been verified by independent sources and mystery shrouds its deradicalisation or re-education programme. China needs to demonstrate to the international community that it has inserted human rights safeguards in its deradicalisation measures ... It is interesting that at a time when exclusionism, supremacism, and hyper-nationalism tendencies are globally on the rise, China has decided to launch its own version of 'harmonising' society. This thinking might appear to negate the global trends but in essence, its objectives are similar, and it has little space for accepting diversity.
To begin with, Australia should simply call out Beijing's actions in Xinjiang for what they are — systematic violations of the human rights of the Uighur people — much as US Congressional leaders and some members of the European Union have done.
In the face of such an unrelenting repressive campaign, the government should consider applying such targeted sanctions against Chinese officials involved in the detention of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. U.S. lawmakers are currently exploring the possibility of applying such measures in the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act.
DER SPIEGEL: A group of Senators and Representatives is pushing for the White House to slap entry bans on those responsible for the Xinjiang policy and to freeze their assets in the U.S., if they have any. Do you believe Germany and Europe should do the same? [Adrian] Zenz: Yes, I do. Not because of the financial or economic consequences of such measures, but because of the political message it would send: What is happening to the Uighurs is a crime against humanity. China's government would, of course, react strongly to such measures, just as they have struck back against the results of my research. But they would understand the message. For as long as our efforts to defend our values cost us nothing, they mean nothing to China's government. China is a culture in which talk is cheap.