UK Parliament Approves Commons Motion
Declaring Uyghur Muslim Genocide
Dr Mozammel Haque
UK Parliamentarians have approved a House of Commons motion which declares Uyghur Muslims and other minorities are ‘suffering crimes against humanity and genocide in Xinjiang province.
Conservative former Minister Ms Nusrat Ghani, one of the five MPs sanctioned by China for criticising its treatment of the Uyghurs, moved the proposal and insisted the UK must take action. The motion was discussed, debated and voted and ultimately the House approved the motion and declared China is committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province of China.
Nigel dams, the Asia Minister, admitted there was credible evidence of widesptread use of forced labour, internment camps and the targetting of ethnic groups.
In a statement following the approval of the motion, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, said: “This is a historic moment, Even though the Government maintains that only a court can determine genocide, Parliament has chosen to disregard that and vote itself.
Conservative Member for Wealden, Ms Nusrat Ghani made a historic motion on Uyghur Human Rights at the House of Commons in the British Parliament.
She said, "Today’s historic debate would not have been possible without a key ally to the Uyghurs, and the one sponsor of the debate who would have been so proud of us all here today for doing the right thing—I hope—at 5 o’ clock. That is my mentor and dear friend, the late Dame Cheryl Gillan. Dame Cheryl was a phenomenal woman—a woman who kept men in this place in their place, and I wish the record to note that this debate is in her honour. I hope that today this House will do her proud."
Chinese Communist Party sanctioned five MPs
Nusrat Ghani is one of the five MPs sanctioned by the Chinese Communist party. Those sanctions were an attempt to silence and intimidate us, to prevent us from raising the growing evidence of the abuse faced by the Uyghurs.
Conservative Member for Wealden, Ms Nusrat Ghani, said, “I believe that sanctioning five MPs for raising human rights abuses was sanctioning this House and asking it to stop raising human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The whole House needs to act as one.
She continued: “The fact that we are here today, having this debate, shows that the sanctions simply have not worked. I can only assume that my sanctions followed my campaigning on the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill, and my Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee report, which exposed that Xinjiang is a Uyghur slave state, and recommends that we blacklist UK firms putting slave-made products on our shelves. As we all know, basic checks and transparency standards cannot be guaranteed in Xinjiang, so businesses find it difficult to guarantee that they are slave labour-free. Let us just cut to the chase and blacklist firms who are linked to Xinjiang unless they are, uniquely, able to offer adequate proof that they are slave labour-free. The British customer does not want to be duped into putting money in the pocket of firms profiting from slave labour. I hope the Minister can wholeheartedly support the rest of the recommendations in the Select Committee report.
She maintained: “I also want to put on record my thanks and offer solidarity to Dr Jo Smith Finley, a senior academic who was also sanctioned for sharing what she witnessed in Xinjiang, along with a legal firm and research group. When the CCP tries to control UK groups and individuals speaking freely about their research and legal opinions, it is our responsibility and duty to speak truth to power in this place, where we are afforded protection that others may not have.
Nusrat Ghani said, “The sanctions are not only an attack on us as individuals but an attempt to stifle the free and open debate that is at heart of our hard-won parliamentary democracy. If the CCP is still in doubt about what our leadership thinks of the sanctions, let me quote our very own Prime Minister, who said:“Freedom to speak out in opposition to abuse is fundamental and I stand firmly with them.”.
Grounds for Genocide met?
Ms Nusrat Ghani said, “Today, I am asking the House to consider whether the grounds for genocide are met. I know that colleagues are reluctant to use the word “genocide”. For many, the word will be forever associated with the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. I agree with colleagues that we should never diminish the unique meaning and power of the term by applying it incorrectly, but there is a misunderstanding that genocide is just one act—mass killing.
That is false. Article 2 of the United Nations genocide convention says that genocide is “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. Following the publishing of that opinion, the CCP sanctioned the chambers. Act 2 is: “Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”.
Nusrat Ghani argued, “Fifty legal experts in international law have determined that every marker of genocide is met. The Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy found: “Uyghurs are suffering serious bodily and mental harm from systematic torture and cruel treatment, including rape, sexual abuse, exploitation, and public humiliation, at the hands of camp officials and Han cadres assigned to Uyghur homes under Government-mandated programs. Internment camps contain designated ‘interrogation rooms,’ where Uyghur detainees are subjected to consistent and brutal torture methods, including beatings with metal prods, electric shocks, and whips. The mass internment and related Government programs are designed to indoctrinate and ‘wash clean’ brains.”
Ms Nusrat Ghani maintained, “That is from 50 global experts. Act 3 of genocide is: “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.President Xi has said so many words, including about showing “absolutely no mercy”. How is he doing that? Credible reports indicate that up to 2 million people are extrajudicially detained in prison factories and re-education centres, and I dread to think of the impact of a lack of proper medical care during a pandemic.
Ms Nusrat Ghani said, “Act 4 is imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group. Unless the Minister can provide evidence to the contrary, I do not believe there is any other place on earth where women are being violated on this scale. “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a fairytale compared with the reproductive rights of Uyghur women. That abuse is evidenced by the Chinese Government’s own data. In 2014, more than 200,000 birth control devices were inserted in women in Xinjiang, and by 2018 the number had increased by 60%. Despite the region accounting for just 1.8% of China’s population, 80% of all birth control device insertions in China were performed in the Uyghur region. That explains why, in one of the region, birth rates are down 84%. Even more chillingly, China no longer shares the data by ethnicity, as it tries to scrub away the evidence. Time is running out for the Uyghur, especially the women.
She continued, “Finally, act 5: forcibly transferring the children of the group to another group. This unique barbarism of the CCP is a slow-motion genocide. It is hard to believe that it is doing that as a final act of horror. The New York Times reported, from public CCP data, that nearly half a million children have been separated from their families. That is key, as it shows the CCP’s intent to strip children from their parents, basically disrupting intergenerational linguistic, cultural and faith transmission. Let me quote the CCP again: “Break their lineage, break their roots”.
I do not expect the Minister to have any arguments to dispute any of the evidence that I have put forward today. I do expect to hear from the Dispatch Box, considering the crimes, how the Foreign Office will fully co-operate with the independent Uyghur tribunal of Sirusb Geoffrey Nice, QC.”
Ms Nusrat Ghani said, “We are not alone. Countries around the world are declaring genocide, and Parliaments in Europe are watching us today and will take our lead. At a previous genocide debate, when we were shamefully denied a vote, I quoted the late Rabbi Sacks. When he was asked where was God during the holocaust, he responded that the question is not: where was God? The question is: where was man? Men and women in this House—the mother of all Parliaments—will do all we can to ensure that atrocities like the holocaust can never again take place.”
Labour Member for Bolton South East, Yasmin Qureshi, said, “It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani). I congratulate her on obtaining this debate and on the excellent work she has been doing with the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and on the Trade Bill. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Uyghurs, I pay tribute to the many colleagues who have been working with us over the past few years to raise awareness of the seriousness of the situation in Xinjiang.
She continued, “Secondly, the Minister will know that Sir Geoffrey Nice, QC, has convened a tribunal to conduct an independent and credible interrogation of the evidence. Will he confirm that the Government will do everything possible to co-operate with the Uyghur tribunal, including providing evidence and agreeing to take seriously what will be a rigorous and impartial judgment when the process is complete? Our all-party parliamentary group has written to the Minister about this twice but so far has received no response.
Yasmin Qureshi maintained, “Thirdly, we know that in 2016 Beijing installed Chen Quanguo as secretary of Xinjiang. Within a year, he had turned it into probably the world’s most heavily policed region. When the Government finally announced the Magnitsky sanctions, why did they leave out the organ grinder, Chen Quanguo? He is believed to be the architect of the Xinjiang atrocities and, indeed, those in Tibet. We are now in a position of having sanctioned the entity he runs and helped to turn into an instrument of oppression—the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps—but not Quanguo himself. Surely the Minister must see that this is not rational. The United States has sanctioned him. Will this Government commit today to sanctioning him as well?
Yasmin Qureshi mentioned, “When I set up the APPG on Uyghurs in 2019, I was contacted by an official from the Chinese embassy, who I agreed to meet in order to discuss the then recently built internment camps. The Chinese official was quick to remind me that the west has no moral high ground to lecture China, given our own interventions in history—indeed, he sent me several emails to that effect—but to engage in whataboutery is to deny and distract from the point.
She said, “Since 1948, we have witnessed genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, northern Iraq and now China and Myanmar. That is not an exhaustive list. Indeed, some grave crimes against humanity go unreported in the mainstream media and are never classified as genocide. The response to these atrocities has always been inadequate. Whenever a genocide takes place, there is a collective wringing of hands, but the promise to break the relentless and devastating cycle of genocide has never materialised. How many times have we heard the words “never again”?
Ysmin Qureshi said, “This has gone on long enough. The Minister will be aware that the United States has recognised this as genocide. The Canadian House of Commons, the Dutch Parliament and others have declared it to be genocide. A 25,000-page report by over 50 international lawyers says that what is happening in Xinjiang is genocide, with every single one of the criteria in the 1948 United Nations convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide being breached. The UK’s policy on genocide risks us defaulting on our obligation under the genocide convention. Let us pass this motion today, and I urge the Government to act on it.”
(Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Conservative Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, said, “I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) on securing this debate and leading on the BEIS Committee inquiry and the excellent report on which this debate is based. It is a remarkable feat to have done both.”
Sir Smith said, “I want to make sure that when we talk about China and the environment, we no longer try to use it as a balancing point for why we should not take action against China in areas such as the genocide against Uyghur women, the treatment of Tibetans, the appalling treatment of inner Mongolians, the treatment of Christians, the organ harvesting of the Falun Gong and the treatment of other groups. All are abuses that must be called out: whether or not we need China to co-operate on other matters, we cannot simply say that one matter is worth some sacrifice over the other. It is not, and I for one will continue to call that out.
He said, “Let me come back to the main points of the debate, which are the ones raised by the Select Committee. They are really important points and my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden touched on a number of them. I wish to highlight a couple. First, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, whose inquiry is ongoing, has said that his inquiry is “certain—unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt—that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.”
Sir Smith mentioned, “That is the organ harvesting of victims in the power of the state. I thought that we, collectively as nations, decided never ever to see this happen again. In the 1940s, Nazi Germany practised organ harvesting and strange science on people in captivity—mostly the Jewish people, but others, too. How can we hear that and lock it away in a box? It is astonishing that we should even be thinking that it is just an item for debate. It is not. It is redolent of the terrible times that we and others went through, and we decided never again. But it is again, and on an industrial scale.
Sir Iain Smith said, “That is the reality of a wealthy, powerful country that intends to be wealthier and more powerful—perhaps the dominant economy and dominant military power—and that believes it can get away with anything. So far, too often, it has. That is the point of this debate and what the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden was all about. She clearly laid out the definition of genocide: killing members of the group, 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, imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. These are the definitions of genocide. On every one of those counts we have evidence to show that a genocide is taking place, specifically of the Uyghur people, but very likely, as I said, of others like the Tibetans as well. We know that the Chinese have been killing members of the group and causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. All these things are going on.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith said, “If we believe that there is evidence on every one of those counts, the question is: why have we not declared this a genocide? I urge my hon. Friend the Minister and the Government to rethink their position on this. We will not gain any particular friendship by not calling out genocide from the Chinese. It is simply not a tradeable item. The UK has said endlessly, and I understand this, that only a competent court can declare a genocide. That was absolutely the original plan, but the problem is that getting to a competent court is impossible. At the United Nations it is impossible to get to the International Court of Justice. It is impossible to get to the International Criminal Court because China is not a signatory to that and therefore will not obey it, and anyway we will not be able to do that because it will be blocked in the debates at the UN. The whole purpose of the belt and road project is to protect China from any action taken at the UN. It has now collected a coalition of nations that are being given huge sums of money by it. In many cases, they vote with it in the UN regardless on matters like these.
He continued, “Therefore, we have a problem—how can we get there? The only way, really, is what other countries have taken to doing now. The United States has made it clear that it believes that this is a genocide. Holland has followed suit and so has Canada. I hope, therefore, that today we will do so too. If we think that the American Administration that has just come in is going to somehow walk away from the previous Administration on this, it is worth quoting what is being said in the United States. The new Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said: “My judgment remains”— he is referring to the statement by Mike Pompeo, his predecessor— “that genocide was committed against the Uyghurs and that has not changed.”
He mentioned, “So now two Administrations in America line up behind this and still stand up for it. On 22 February 2021, Canada’s Parliament voted unanimously on a motion to declare the situation in Xinjiang a genocide. On 25 February 2021, the Dutch Parliament, the States General, passed a non-binding motion declaring that the treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang amounts to a genocide. What do we have to know? We have to have significant reports, witness testaments, satellite imagery and Chinese local governmental data, and we have all of that. It is out there in the public domain now, and more and more is being collated.
Sir Iain Smith said, “Let us think a little bit about the victims, whose relatives are out on the square today protesting about their treatment, and who speak terribly of what has happened. The former detainee Tursunay Ziawudun said that every night they were removed from their cells and raped by one or more masked Chinese men. She went on to say that she was tortured and later gang-raped on three occasions, each time by two or three men. That is the evidence that we need as part of our statement that this is a genocide, and that evidence exists. That is but one of a whole series of people who have given such evidence, so we have to hold China to account.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith said, “I conclude by saying to my hon. Friend that, today, this Parliament has a historic chance, together—regardless of party difference in most other matters—to hold its head up, stand tall and stand for those who have no voice. We, the mother of all Parliaments, should today take pride in the fact that if this motion goes through unopposed, it is the voice of the United Kingdom Parliament—the Parliament of a free people, who believe in human rights and in freedom and human rights for others around the world. Let us make the statement today, loud and clear, that the UK has not forgotten the Uyghurs and others, and that we will stand for them and insist that our Government do exactly the same by calling this a genocide.”
(Manchester, Gorton) (Lab) [V]
Labour Member for Manchester, Gorton, Afzal Khan, said, “I congratulate the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) on securing this debate and on all the work that she has been doing on this matter. The most distressing and horrific persecution taking place today is that of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, China. I remind the House that Muslims are currently observing the holy month of Ramadan—a month of fasting, reflection, charity and prayer. It pains me that millions of Uyghur Muslims are facing some of the harshest abuses that one can imagine during this holy period.
Afzal Khan mentioned, “As vice-chair of the all-party group on Uyghurs, I have been highlighting the plight of Uyghur Muslims for several years and have heard, at first hand, harrowing testimonies from survivors, family members and those who have witnessed what I can only call inhumane and chilling human rights abuses. The Chinese Government appear to be engaged in what some experts are calling a campaign of demographic genocide. I fear that the gravity of my words and efforts are simply not being matched by the world’s reaction and, more worryingly, by this very Government.
He continued, “Members know already that the persecution of the Uyghurs is not new. For decades, they have faced repression at the hands of the Chinese Government, but it has escalated to an entirely new scale. Report after report has highlighted the mounting evidence of human rights abuses and shown that Beijing has violated each and every act banned by the United Nations convention against genocide. The action that the Chinese authorities are taking in Xinjiang contravenes China’s own constitutional provisions on freedom of religion and its obligation under the 1948 universal declaration of human rights.
Afzal Khan mentioned, “The Foreign Secretary said in January that we should not be doing trade deals with countries committing human rights abuses “well below the level of genocide”—yet by rejecting the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill, the Government have done everything they can to protect the UK’s right to do trade deals with potentially genocidal states. Global Britain, it seems, is just empty rhetoric, with no substance. Because the words “never again” are utterly meaningless if we fail to act, history will remember us, and we have a moral duty to step in and stop these heinous crimes.
Afzal Khan said, “Powerful interventions from faith communities, including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, have passionately called on the Government to support the genocide amendment, and the Jewish community has even drawn a parallel between the horrors in Xinjiang and the holocaust. Despite that, the Government continue to drag their feet on holding China to account. Instead, they put trade above human rights. They must continue to press the Chinese Government to close detention camps, cease indiscriminate surveillance and restrictions on religion and culture, and allow independent experts and UN officials proper access to Xinjiang.
Afzal Khan said, “After the genocides in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Darfur, we said, “Never again.” I hope that we can all agree that we cannot add Xinjiang to that list. I urge the Government not to turn a blind eye to millions of innocent lives because of economic interest.”
(East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con) [V]
Conservative Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, said, “Another day, another debate on the industrial scale of human rights abuses by the Chinese regime. Here we are again, and I am delighted that we are; I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), who has so championed the cause, and wholeheartedly endorse everything she said. Together with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the rest of the magnificent seven parliamentarians, she and I wear our sanctioning with a badge of honour.
He continued, “I hope that the message has now got through that the productivity of the seven of us has increased sharply since that inept act by the Chinese regime of putting us on the arbitrary and ridiculous sanctions list. Let me tell the Chinese Government: they ain’t seen nothing yet, because this will go on every day of every week that we can possibly raise it in this place and on the platforms afforded to us as parliamentarians. They have really fired us up to make sure that that is a promise we will deliver.
Tim Loughton wholeheartedly supported the motion. Although Tibet is not within its strict scope, everything that has been said so far applies to Tibet and its people, who have been oppressed with similar tactics for the last 62 years, since the occupation of that peace-loving people in the Tibetan region of China back in 1959.
He mentioned, “I absolutely take up the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green made about the environment. China is guilty of abusing not just its own people, but the planet, more than any other nation on this earth. Neither is acceptable; one is not a trade-off against the other, if that is the attitude that it wants to take when it comes to COP26. Both need to be called out, and on both it needs to mend its ways—they go hand in hand.
Tim Loughton said, “It is a shocking reality that genocides have never properly been called out and thwarted at the time that they happen—genocides against the Jews, genocides against the Muslims in Srebrenica, genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia and Darfur, and the many other genocides that go unnamed and are not properly detected, as the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) mentioned. I include in that list the Armenian genocide of 1915 and 1916, when 1 million to 1.5 million men, women and children died at the hands of the Ottomans. On Saturday, in Yerevan and around the world, tributes will be paid and flowers laid; I will do so on behalf of the all-party parliamentary group on Armenia at the Cenotaph tomorrow in commemoration of that terrible genocide, which this country needs to recognise, more than 100 years on.”
Tim Loughton said, “We talk about debating the subject. Under article I of the UN convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, the United Kingdom is obliged, along with all other UN members, “to prevent and to punish” genocide—not just to talk about it, although it is good that we are doing that, but actually to do something about it.”
He said, “We have heard all the clear evidence on what is going on in Xinjiang province; I will not repeat what my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden said. We know that China formally recognised the Uyghurs as an ethnic minority among its exhaustive list of the no fewer than 56 ethnic groups that comprise its population, along with the Tibetan people. Under China’s own constitution, those minorities and their cultures and identities should be protected, but they are being obliterated. China is trying to assimilate them within its main population, so whatever we may think in terms of international law, it is falling foul of its own constitution. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) said, the Chinese regime, in doing what it has done to suppress free speech, has committed an act against this Parliament and the privileges that we have in this Parliament. It is a naked act of aggression against free speech.”
Tim also mentioned, “It is clear that what is happening is genocide. My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden put it starkly: if a state-orchestrated and race-targeted birth rate plunge of two thirds in two years is not genocide, what is? If mass internment, slave labour, systematic rape, torture and live organ harvesting, mass sterilisation, womb removal, forced abortion, secretly located orphan camps, brainwashing camps and the psychological trauma of these combined atrocities do not amount to genocide, under any of the definitions, what does? There is a saying, “If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and walks like a duck, it is a duck.” This sounds like, looks like and is genocide, and it needs to be called out loud and clear for what it is.
Tim Loughton urged the Minister again, who has been very supportive. “We are very grateful for the very supportive words of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister, who I am glad to see here again today, and of the Speaker and the Lord Speaker in support of the magnificent seven. But why, oh why, are we not going further in the sanctions against people who are clearly guilty of waging genocide on other Chinese citizens? Chen Quanguo absolutely needs to be on that list; he has been committing genocide against the Uyghurs since 2016, having learnt and plied his trade in Tibet against the Tibetans before that,” he said.
He said, "We need to do more to support those businesses that are being thrown out of Xinjiang and that are in some cases taking a stand. We need to have a proper audit of our universities and schools. I hear that the Prebendal School in Chichester, in my own diocese, is now under threat of being taken over by the Chinese, and this is on top of no fewer than 17 senior schools around the UK that are now under the control of senior Chinese figures in the Chinese communist party. This is happening in our country, on our watch. We need to flush it out; we need to put the spotlight on it.
He continued, "The contacts the Chinese have within our military research and their activities within our infrastructure projects—we have to have a full and thorough audit of the tentacles of the Chinese regime in UK society up and down this country. There are still artificial intelligence firms with links to persecution of Uyghurs funding research at British universities. They are funding places at PhD and post-doctoral research positions at Surrey University, for example, despite having been placed on a US blacklist in 2019. I pay tribute to the University of Manchester, which cancelled an agreement with the Chinese electronic company CETC after warnings that it supplied the tech platforms and apps used by Beijing’s security forces in the mass surveillance of the Uyghurs.
He said, “We need to do more to make sure we are not aiding and abetting these parts of the Chinese regime. Last month, the Foreign Office admitted that the Uyghurs were being harassed and abused in the UK itself, so it is not just happening within China. As the Foreign Secretary said, this is being done to intimidate them into silence, and they are being urged to report on other Uyghurs to the police.”
Tim Loughton also mentioned, “Rahima Mahmut, the UK director for the World Uyghur Congress, who has bravely stood up and is one of the mouthpieces for the Uyghur population here, was in Parliament Square earlier. In an article in The Telegraph, she gave some chilling examples of Uyghur exiles in this country being intimidated by the long tentacles of the Chinese regime while in the supposed safety of this country. Those exiles are ominously reminded that they have relatives back in China. A Uyghur woman received texts every day from the Chinese police urging her to spy on other Uyghurs in the UK and saying, “Remember, your mother and your sisters are with us.””
This regime does not stop at its own borders and we need to stand shoulder to shoulder and offer whatever support we can to protect those Uyghur refugees, Tibetan refugees and other victims of oppression by China who find themselves in this country. They deserve our safety and our succour, and we need to give them more to protect them from the dangers that they are going through.
Tim Loughton urged the Minister: “we should be encouraging our diplomats to speak out. Last week, I cited the example of the new British ambassador in Beijing who had been hauled over the coals for just mentioning the free press to the Chinese Government. John Sudworth, the BBC correspondent in Beijing, has had to flee from Beijing, after reporting on human rights abuses, because of fears for his own safety and the safety of his family. We must encourage these people to continue to speak out.”
