Genocide: Xi Jinping's yellow humor

Chinese claim people in China’s concentration camps have ‘graduated’ and are living ‘happy lives’

• Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities from East Turkestan say their family members continue to be arbitrarily detained in camps and prisons.
• A Chinese official said people detained in concentration camps in East Turkestan have all “graduated” and are living "happy" lives.
• While Chinese authorities have described the detentions as a form of "happy vocational training", classified documents recently leaked to a consortium of news organizations revealed a deliberate strategy to lock up ethnic minorities even though they had not committed any crimes.

AP

People who were detained in concentration camps in China’s far west East Turkestan have all “graduated” and are living happy lives, an official said Monday. 

But Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities from the colony say their family members continue to be arbitrarily detained in camps and prisons.
Shohrat Zakir, East Turkestan’s Uighur governor, made the remarks during a press briefing as part of a strident propaganda campaign launched following U.S. Congress’ approval last week of the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act.

The U.S. legislation condemns the mass detentions of an estimated more than 1 million Uighurs, Kazakhs and others. 

It also raises possible sanctions against Chinese government officials deemed responsible for human rights abuses in East Turkestan.
Former detainees and their relatives have told The Associated Press that the centers for “re-education” were essentially prisons where they were forced to renounce Islam and express gratitude to the ruling Communist Party. 

They were subject to indoctrination and torture, the detainees said.While Chinese authorities have described the detentions as a form of vocational training, classified documents recently leaked to a consortium of news organizations revealed a deliberate strategy to lock up ethnic minorities even though they had not committed any crimes.
Xu Hairong, the Communist Party chief of Urumqi city, East Turkestan’s capital, did not dispute the documents’ authenticity. 

He said, however, that there was no such thing as “detention camps.”

Officials have repeatedly declined to say how many people are in the camps but insist the figure is far less than 1 million. 

Zakir said Monday the number is “dynamic.”
All those in the centers who were studying Mandarin Chinese, law, vocational skills and deradicalization have “graduated” and found stable employment, Zakir said, adding that others such as village officials, farmers and unemployed high school graduates continue to enroll on a rolling basis in programs that allow them to “come and go freely.”
Some ex-detainees have told AP they were forced to sign job contracts and barred from leaving factory grounds during weekdays, working long hours for low pay. 

Many Uighurs abroad also say their relatives are in prison after being sentenced on vague charges of extremism.
Monday’s briefing was the latest in a slew of public rebuttals from the Chinese government in response to the U.S. Uighur human rights bill.

The legislation further muddied U.S.-China ties, which were already strained over trade and pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.

China's crimes against humanity

US Senate presses sanctions on China's treatment of Uighurs

AFP

More than one million mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been rounded up into concentration camps in the tightly-controlled northwest colony, home to China's Uighur population.

WASHINGTON -- The US Senate has approved a Bill to press China on its treatment of Uighurs, requiring the US government to closely monitor the mass incarceration of the community and consider punishment of those responsible.
The Senate unanimously approved the so-called Uighur Human Rights Policy Act late Wednesday. It still needs passage by the House of Representatives, which is highly likely as the Bill enjoys wide bipartisan support.
The act would require US intelligence to produce a report within six months on the crackdown in East Turkestan, the western colony where as many as one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are being held in concentration camps.
It would also establish a State Department special coordinator on East Turkestan and ask the FBI to assess reports of harassment by China of US citizens and residents of Uighur heritage.
The Bill also asks Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to consider sanctions on Chinese officials behind the policy, notably Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party chief for East Turkestan.
"It's long overdue for the United States to hold the Chinese government and Communist Party officials accountable for the systemic and egregious human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in East Turkestan," said Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican ally of Trump who co-sponsored the resolution.
The Trump administration has repeatedly criticised China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently calling Beijing's treatment of Uighurs one of the "worst stains on the world."
But activists say that US actions have gone little beyond statements at a time that Trump is embroiled in multiple feuds with China, most notably on trade.
Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who co-sponsored the Bill with Rubio, said the measure showed that the United States was not turning a blind eye even though the Trump administration "has not seen fit to make the tragic situation in East Turkestan a priority."
Rights groups and witnesses accuse China of forcibly trying to draw Uighurs away from their Islamic customs and integrate them into the majority Han culture.
After initially denying their existence, Beijing now defends the camps, which it calls "vocational education centers."

China's crimes against humanity

China’s assault on human rights is the one thing bringing Washington together
By Josh Rogin

Ethnic Uighur demonstrators hold portraits of their relatives said to be missing during a demonstration against China in Istanbul on Feb. 23. 

It has become accepted Washington doctrine that, when it comes to foreign policy, the splits between the parties (and within them) are too wide to bridge.
But there’s one issue bringing everyone together, even in this era of deep political and ideological discord: China’s horrific treatment of its Uighur Muslim population and other ethnic and religious minorities.
Republicans and Democrats, isolationists and internationalists, the Trump administration and Congress, even Christians and Muslims all agree: This is a catastrophe the United States can no longer ignore. 
This rare consensus, made possible only by the mind-boggling cruelty and injustice the Chinese government is perpetrating on millions of its own people, has finally materialized in words — and will hopefully soon translate to action.
When releasing the State Department’s annual human rights reports Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said China “is in a league of its own when it comes to human rights violations.” 
Ambassador Michael Kozak, who heads the bureau that drafted the reports, compared China’s internment of more than 2 million people in East Turkestan colony to Nazi concentration camps.
“You haven’t seen things like this since the 1930s,” he said.
The Chinese “are trying to basically erase [Muslim minorities’] culture and their religion and so on from their DNA. It’s just remarkably awful.”
The State Department’s report on China goes into excruciating detail.
Chinese authorities are conducting mass arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, torture, rape, compulsory worship of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, and more. 
They especially target activists, artists, musicians, teachers, lawyers and family members of U.S. citizens, in clear and egregious violation of both Chinese and international law.
Any Uighur family not in the camps is monitored 24/7 by one of the 1.1 million “civil servants” Beijing has sent to live among them and report anything suspicious, religious or disloyal back to the party. 
Thousands of children of interned parents are being shipped off to orphanages.
The Chinese government is pressuring Uighurs around the world to give up their DNA and other private information under the threat that their families will vanish.
For those watching the issue closely, much of this was already known.
But what’s new is that the Trump administration is joining Congress, at least rhetorically, in confronting Beijing publicly on its repression, its lies and its overall campaign to snuff out religious and ethnic identity inside China. 
“The Chinese government is at war with faith. It is a war they will not win,” Sam Brownback, ambassador at large for international religious freedom, said in Hong Kong last week.
In Congress, the Uighur issue has brought together a broad and unlikely alliance of lawmakers.
Just look at the list of 39 co-sponsors of the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, which is moving through the House now.
The bill’s leader , Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), and co-sponsor Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) could not be further apart on Israel, but they are both appalled by China’s persecution of Uighurs. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) are at war over the Russia investigation, but they agree on this.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is a sponsor, which means the bill is likely to pass the House. The Senate version, led by Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), has 25 co-sponsors, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).
It’s a bipartisan, bicameral, and ideologically and ethnically diverse coalition forged by outrage at Beijing and the determination not to turn a blind eye.
The Chinese government is certainly feeling the pressure, illustrated by the fact that its explanation for the camps keeps evolving.
At first, the authorities denied their existence.
Then, they were described as “re-education centers” for extremists.
Now, they are “boarding schools.”
The fact that the story changes so often lays bare that Chinese officials are lying.
Beijing could be forgiven for not believing that the United States is serious.
The Trump administration hasn’t taken any of the punitive actions Congress is demanding, such as sanctioning Chinese officials under the Magnitsky Act or restricting the export of technologies used for repression. 
Officials tell me that Trump hasn’t wanted to complicate ongoing trade negotiations with Beijing or his North Korea diplomacy, which depend on Xi’s cooperation.
But the repression is only getting worse, and now China is exporting it.
Beijing is retaliating against Turkey for speaking out about the Uighurs.
Under Chinese pressure, the government of Kazakhstan this week arrested the leader of a group that has been exposing the camps.
China can bully smaller countries but not the United States. 
Despite America’s recent shortcomings, the world still looks to us to lead on human rights.
If we lead, like-minded nations will follow.
The Uighur issue is just one part of a greater awakening and consensus in Washington and other Western capitals about the threat of the Chinese Communist Party under Xi, which is more internally repressive and externally aggressive every day. 
But calling out the problem is not enough; now the world must act.