Refusal to address Uyghur forced labour is betrayal of Europe's values: Rights activist

Ahead of the Beijing Olympics 2022, a Washington-based Uyghur rights activist has called on Europe to adhere to its values and take action against China's rights abuses in Xinjiang province.

Rushan Abbas, who is the Founder and Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs, says that she has not seen her sister for the past three years. Rushan claims that her sister was forcibly disappeared after she publicly condemned the concentration camps in Xinjiang.

"Her forced disappearance at the hands of the Chinese Communist regime came just days after I spoke publicly to condemn the concentration camps in which millions were being imprisoned based on their ethnic and religious identity," Rushan wrote in an article published in the Brussels based The Parliament Magazine.

"This pain I feel is shared by millions, as every Uyghur is suffering from the loss of their family to the Chinese Communist Party's concentration camps, prisons, and forced labour facilities. Have we learned nothing from history?" Rushan asked.

She said that her personal agony over the abduction of her sister has been met with the additional pain of realising that foreign corporations are profiting off the slave labour in Xinjiang. "75 years ago, some of these same companies were guilty of the same type of crimes, but we no longer have any excuse of ignorance."

Asserting that Europe is facing a "moral crisis", she added, "It is clear that we cannot depend on corporations to make the right decision, as many have ignored engagement attempts from human rights groups, or have outright admitted that the Chinese market is too important to consider addressing their normalisation of slavery."

Last week, a London based independent tribunal has ruled that China committed 'genocide' against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province after a series of hearings that lasted several months.

The Uyghur Tribunal declared the verdict after a panel of Britain-based lawyers and rights experts examined human rights violations in the Xinjiang region.

Hearings were held in June, September, and November 2021, during which the Tribunal's expert panel reviewed hundreds of witness statements and heard live evidence from more than 30 witnesses about their experiences of China's oppressive policies, as well as from expert witnesses.

"The tribunal is satisfied that the PRC (People's Republic of China) has effected a deliberate, systematic and concerted policy with the object of so-called 'optimizing' the population in Xinjiang by the means of a long-term reduction of Uyghur and other ethnic minority populations to be achieved through limiting and reducing Uyghur births," Geoffrey Nice, who chaired the tribunal, said last Thursday.

He added that the tribunal was "satisfied" that very senior officials in the PRC and CCP (Chinese Communist Party) bear primary responsibility for acts in Xinjiang."

( With inputs from ANI )