US Holocaust Museum Says China Boosting Uyghur Repression

Demonstrators supporting Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Hong Kongers take part in a protest against the Chinese Communist Party as they march along Regent Street towards the Chinese Embassy in London, on Oct. 1, 2021. Matt Dunham/AP Photo

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says it has compiled evidence of increasing government repression against Uyghur Muslims in China’s western Xinjiang region.

In a new report released on Nov. 9, the museum’s Center for the Prevention of Genocide says there is now “a reasonable basis” to believe that previously alleged crimes against humanity versus the Uyghurs are growing amid a concerted campaign to hide their severity.

“The Chinese government has done its best to keep information about crimes against the Uyghurs from seeing the light of day,“ said Tom Bernstein, the chairman of the museum’s Committee on Conscience. ”The Chinese government must halt its attacks on the Uyghur people and allow independent international monitors to investigate and ensure that the crimes have stopped.”

The report—which cites witness testimony, publicly available information from dissidents, and accounts provided by human rights groups—expands on the museum’s March 2020 findings that the Chinese Communist Party had persecuted, unlawfully imprisoned, and otherwise severely deprived Uyghurs of their physical liberty.

The new findings include allegations of forced sterilization, sexual violence, enslavement, torture, and forcible transfer. The U.S. government has already determined that China’s actions against Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslim and other minority populations amount to genocide.

“The Chinese government’s assault on the Uyghur community—marked by the incarceration of between one and three million people as well as abuses such as forced sterilization, torture, sexual violence, and forced labor—is alarming in scale and severity,” said Naomi Kikoler, director of the museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. “The damage inflicted upon Uyghur individuals, families, and their community has left deep physical and emotional scars. The trauma from these atrocities will harm generations of Uyghurs.”

Kikoler said the 59-page report, “To Make Us Slowly Disappear: The Chinese Government’s Assault on the Uyghurs,” should serve as a wake-up call for the international community to boost pressure on Beijing to halt the repression in Xinjiang.

Last month, 43 countries expressed their concerns at the U.N. over the Chinese regime’s human rights abuses against Uyghur and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

Despite the piling pressure, Beijing repeatedly denounced all accusations, which western countries and institutions said an estimated 1 million people or more have been confined in camps.

The United States has declared that Beijing’s policies against Uyghurs and other groups amount to genocide and crimes against humanity.

The Epoch Times Staff contributed to this report.