US declares China has committed genocide in its treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo makes the determination in a blow to Beijing just one day before Joe Biden takes office
- Pompeo’s move further escalates pressure against China’s government, which had already been voiced its displeasure with sanctions Washington has placed
Pompeo’s accusations include arbitrary imprisonment of more than a million Uygurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang, as well as torture and forced labour inflicted on these groups, and is consistent with comments President-elect Joe Biden has made.
“Since at least March 2017, local authorities [in China] dramatically escalated their decades-long campaign of repression against Uygur Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups,” Pompeo said.
“Their morally repugnant, wholesale policies, practices, and abuses are designed systematically to discriminate against and surveil ethnic Uygurs as a unique demographic and ethnic group, restrict their freedom to travel, emigrate, and attend schools, and deny other basic human rights of assembly, speech, and worship,” he added.
“Since the Allied forces exposed the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, the refrain ‘Never again’ has become the civilised world’s rallying cry against these horrors.”