New Zealand accuses China of human rights abuses but not genocide

Parliament unanimously passes Act party’s motion on treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang after genocide reference removed

‘Unfortunately, we are only having half this debate, this is not the debate that I proposed to Parliament last week,’ Act’s deputy leader Brooke van Velden says

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“Our conscience demands that if we believe there is a genocide, we should say so,” Brooke van Velden, deputy leader of the Act party, said. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 6:00pm, 5 May 2021Updated: 10:21pm, 5 May 2021

The New Zealand Parliament unanimously passed a motion that called the treatment of Uygurs in China’s Xinjiang region “severe human rights abuses”, which was watered down from a previous version that included the term “genocide”.

Brought by the opposition Act party, the motion could not have been debated in Parliament without the support of the ruling Labour Party, which objected to the term “genocide”.

“Unfortunately, we are only having half this debate, this is not the debate that I proposed to Parliament last week. I … had to dilute it and soften it to gain the approval of New Zealand’s governing party,” said Brooke van Velden, deputy leader of the Act party, in a parliamentary debate on Wednesday.

“Our conscience demands that if we believe there is a genocide, we should say so.”

The motion was originally modelled on the one passed by the British Parliament last month which called the treatment of Uygurs genocide. It also came after the Canadian and Dutch legislatures made similar declarations.