“In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), it is now estimated that up to 1.8 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Hui, and others have been arbitrarily detained in a system of extrajudicial mass internment camps where they are subjected to forced labor, torture, and political indoctrination. In the last year, leaked Chinese government documents provided additional evidence that the mass internment camp system was organized at the direction of top Party officials and confirmed the prevalence of the use of coercive force and punishment for inmates,” the report said.

Underlining that forced labor in the XUAR is widespread and systematic and exists within the mass internment camps and elsewhere throughout the region, as part of a targeted campaign of repression against Turkic and Muslim minorities, the report emphasized that these facts have been confirmed by the testimony of former camp detainees, satellite imagery, media reports, and leaked government documents.

“Many U.S., international, and Chinese companies are increasingly at risk of complicity in the exploitation of forced labor involving Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities. In last year’s annual report, the Commission stated that the situation in the XUAR may constitute crimes against humanity as outlined in Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In March 2020, the Simon Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum stated that there is a ‘reasonable basis to believe the government of China is committing crimes against humanity’ in the XUAR.”

The report said that disturbing new evidence had also emerged of a systematic and widespread policy of forced sterilization and birth suppression of the Uyghur and other minority populations. “Further, an official XUAR policy document from 2017 stated that nearly half a million middle and elementary school-age children in the XUAR were attending boarding schools, many of whom were involuntarily separated from their families,” the report noted.

“These trends suggest that the Chinese government is intentionally working to destroy Uyghur and other minority families, culture, and religious adherence, all of which should be considered when determining whether the Chinese government is responsible for perpetrating atrocity crimes—including genocide—against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic and predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in China,” the report concluded. (ILKHA)