US House passes Uygur Human Rights Policy Act that would target Chinese officials – but Donald Trump still needs to sign it

Name: US House of Representatives sends Uygur Human Rights Policy Act to Trump’s desk for approval
Uploaded: 2020-05-27T21:50:28.000Z
Duration: 3 min 21 s
Description: US House of Representatives sends Uygur Human Rights Policy Act to Trump’s desk for approval

The legislation calls for sanctions against Chinese officials that would see their US-held assets frozen and entry to the US barred

The decision now falls on Trump to either enact or reject it, though a veto would be met with resistance from a united Congress

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At a rally in Washington on April 6, 2019, demonstrators call on the US to take action against the Chinese government over its treatment of Uygurs and other ethnic minority group members. Photo: Owen Churchill

Owen Churchill

Published: 5:50am, 28 May 2020Updated: 1:41pm, 29 May 2020

A bill directing the Trump administration to sanction officials in China over the treatment of ethnic minority groups in the country’s northwest breezed through the US House of Representatives on Wednesday, setting up its passage to the White House for US President Donald Trump’s consideration.

The chamber passed the legislation, called the Uygur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, by an overwhelming 413-to-1 majority, following the Senate’s approval two weeks ago.

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US House of Representatives sends Uygur Human Rights Policy Act to Trump’s desk for approval

The legislation is named for the Uygur people, who, along with other predominantly Muslim ethnic minority groups, have been targeted in recent years by “re-education” programmes that Beijing says are aimed at wiping out religious extremism. The campaign has led to mass internment of around one million people in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), according to United Nations estimates.

Condemning what it calls the “arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment” of ethnic Turkic Muslims in China, the legislation calls for sanctions against Chinese officials that would see their US-held assets frozen and entry to the US barred.

The Chinese government, which considers the legislation to be a violation of its sovereignty, has previously vowed retaliation but has not specified what form those countermeasures would take.

Following Capitol Hill’s passage of the bill, the decision now falls on Trump to either enact or reject it. Speaking at a briefing on Tuesday, Trump did not answer a reporter’s question about whether he was willing to sign the bill into law, but said: “We’re taking a look at it very strongly.”