The Chinese government is committing possible crimes against humanity and genocide by systematically persecuting Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups. Other religious and ethnic minority groups also face persecution.

BACKGROUND:

China has perpetrated repressive campaigns against religious and ethnic minorities for several decades. In 2016 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacted a policy of “Sinicization” requiring religious groups to align their doctrines, customs and morality with Han Chinese culture and CCP ideology. Notably, under the guise of combating religious extremism, Chinese authorities have pursued multiple discriminatory regulations and repressive campaigns in the so-called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (the Uyghur Region), increasing persecution against the ethnic Uyghur community, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups. A campaign in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (Tibet) has also persecuted and repressed Tibetan Buddhists.

Abuses in the Uyghur Region have significantly escalated since 2017 when authorities passed the “Regulation on De-extremification,” which imposed severe restrictions on religious freedom and practice, including through preventing individuals from praying, growing beards or playing Uyghur music. Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups have been subject to mass arbitrary detention, often accompanied by widespread rape, sexual abuse and torture, as well as coercive campaigns to reduce birth rates, including through forced abortions and sterilizations. UN experts have warned that the Chinese government has exponentially increased policies in recent years that allow for the forcible separation and assimilation of children to state-run orphanages or boarding schools in the Uyghur Region.

According to the Uyghur Human Rights Project, at least 1,046 imams and other religious figures from the Uyghur Region were detained in camps or imprisoned between 2014 and 2021, while Uyghurs around the world face intense surveillance and transnational repression. Authorities have also engaged in the systematic destruction of Uyghur cultural heritage. In recent years, the state-led crackdown on religion has expanded beyond the Uyghur Region, including through the destruction and repurposing of mosques and other Islamic venues in Ningxia and Gansu – areas home to China’s largest Muslim population outside of the Uyghur Region.

More than 100,000 Uyghurs are working under conditions that strongly suggest forced labor. Reports have identified at least 135 detention facilities in the Uyghur Region that have on-site factories where detainees are allegedly forced to work. There are significant risks of forced labor across a variety of sectors and industries, including apparel and textiles, technology, solar and automotive, among others. Over 100 international brands may have alleged ties to Uyghur forced labor-produced cotton. The governments of Canada, the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) have sanctioned Chinese government officials and taken steps to ban goods tied to Uyghur forced labor. The United States (US) government’s Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act prevents the import of goods made “in whole or in part” in the Uyghur Region. While these actions have impacted the entry of electronics, pharmaceuticals, clothing, aluminum, polyvinyl chloride and seafood, there are still enforcement gaps related to complex supply chains and weak regulation, which enable continued export to the US and Europe.

In January 2021 the US formally accused China of committing genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghur population and members of other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups. Since then, the parliaments of Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, the EU, France, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the UK have also recognized the situation in the Uyghur Region as constituting genocide and/or crimes against humanity.

Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet released a report on the human rights crisis in the Uyghur Region in August 2022. The report determined that the extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups may constitute crimes against humanity, and that conditions remain in place for serious human rights violations to continue. In November 2022 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) adopted a decision under its “early warning and urgent action procedure” and referred the situation to the Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect (OSAPG).

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:

In February 2024 the Chinese government further expanded regulations to restrict freedom of religion in the Uyghur Region, including through bolstering local surveillance powers and tightening control over religious education and places of worship.

During China’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on 23 January, 20 cross-regional delegations specifically called on the government to implement recommendations issued by the UN human rights system, including the High Commissioner’s August 2022 report, while several member states also raised recommendations related to Tibet. In October 2023 51 UN member states delivered a joint declaration to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee calling on China to end its systematic human rights abuses in the Uyghur region.

ANALYSIS:

The widespread and systematic persecution of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups, including enforced disappearances, forcible transfers, large-scale detention, torture, violations of bodily autonomy such as forced sterilization and mass forced organ harvesting, sexual violence and denial of information regarding the fate of persons in state custody, likely constitutes crimes against humanity. The Chinese government also appears to be intentionally perpetrating at least four acts prohibited under Article II of the Genocide Convention: “imposing measures intended to prevent births”; “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”; “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”; and “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

The systematic destruction of cultural heritage aims to erase the history and identity of Uyghurs and other groups. The expansion of detention and labor facilities has coincided with increased restrictions on and control of religious practice, while a largescale system of mass surveillance has turned the Uyghur Region into a de facto police state. Many of the systemic violations deployed in the Uyghur Region — including increased securitization, surveillance, the forcible separation and assimilation of children and so-called political “re-education”— were developed, and continue, in Tibet. A group of UN Special Procedures have expressed concern over allegations that the Chinese government uses so-called “labor transfer” and “vocational training” programs as a pretext to undermine Tibetan religious, linguistic and cultural identity, to monitor and politically indoctrinate Tibetans and warned that such programs could lead to situations of forced labor.

International condemnation, such as during China’s UPR, helps to counter government efforts to evade scrutiny by highlighting the country’s abysmal rights record. In response, the CCP has engaged in systemic reprisals against human rights defenders cooperating with the UN system.

RISK ASSESSMENT:

• • Dangerous rhetoric used by the Chinese government to depict Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim and/or Turkic groups as terrorists.
  • A history of institutionalized discrimination targeting religious and ethnic minorities.
  • Widespread or systematic practices or violence against the lives, freedom or physical and moral integrity of a protected group, including policies that indicate an intent to erase and/or forcibly assimilate populations in the Uyghur Region and Tibet.
  • Attacks against or the destruction of homes, farms, businesses or other livelihoods of a protected group and/or of their cultural or religious symbols and property.

NECESSARY ACTION:

The government of China should cease ongoing systematic repression of Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minorities, the practice of forced labor and separating Uyghur children from their families and the deliberate destruction of Uyghur cultural heritage, as well as repeal the “Regulation on De-extremification.” All recommendations issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights should also be implemented.

Relevant UN experts, including the High Commissioner, should prioritize monitoring of the region and provide regular information to member states, including an update to the 2022 report. Member states should actively work towards formalizing public discussions at the UN Human Rights Council on ongoing atrocity crimes in the Uyghur Region and engage with OSAPG on tangible next steps regarding the CERD referral.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Muslim-majority countries and neighboring states should urge China to cease their persecution of Uyghurs and other targeted groups. All member states should strengthen, expand and reinforce regulations to ban all goods tied to forced labor in China.