Although internment camps have been unique to the year 2020, the repression of the Uighurs in China has not been a recent change.

As of July 2020, two recent events have occurred in direct effect of the Muslim ethnic minority, in China. The first is an authoritative report that has been documenting the sterilization of Uigher women. The second was a “Seizure by U.S Customs and Border Protection of 13 tons of products made from human hair suspected of being forcibly removed from Uighurs imprisoned in concentration camps,” states an article by Rayhan Asat, posted on Foreign Policy.

In 2017, Xinjiang presented a campaign to limit the amount of birth control violations. By 2019, the government planned for 80 percent of women at the appropriate age to conceive to receive forced intraut

erine devices (IUDs) and sterilization. Xinjiang’s goal was to have zero birth control violations. Government documents present state funding for hundreds of thousands of female sterilizations in 2019 and 2020.

In China the Genocide Convention is significant; it breaks down genocide into five acts. They define genocide as specicifc acts against members of a group with intent to destroy that group in whole or in part. In reference to the act, (1) killing, (2) causing serious bodily or mental harm, (3) deliberately inflicting conditions of life to bring about the group’s physical destruction, (4) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and (5) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. If any of these events occur it is considered genocide.

Survivors of the concentration camps tell stories of electrocution, injections, repeated beatings and waterboarding. Over a million Turkic Uighurs are currently being held in these concentration camps, prisons, and in labor factories in China.

“These mass detention camps are designed to cause serious physical, physcoigical harm and mentally break the Uighur people,” reads an article titled “The World’s Most Tec

hnologically Sophisted Genocide Is Happening in Xinjiang,” in the Forgien Police written by Rayhan Asat.

In late August, the Trump adminstration formally labeled China’s repression of Uighurs a “genocide.” Many are concerned for the impact that statement will have on the already worn relationship between Washington and Beijing. “A spokesperson for Joe Biden noted that former vice president supports the label,” states the article titled “Trump administration weighs accuising China of ‘genocide’ over Uigher,” in the POLITICO.

A multitude of activists and lawmakers all over the world have been placing pressure on China to release the Uighurs. In the first few days of July, a team of lawyers, in London, represented two separate Uighur activist groups that have filed a complaint against Beijing for “pursuing the reparation of thousands of Uighurs through unlawful arrests in or deported from Cambodia to Tajikistan.” With a statement from the President’s administration, America hopes to be an example to other countries in effort to end the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang.

Sources:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/15/uighur-genocide-xinjiang-china-surveillance-sterilization/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/world/asia/china-xinjiang-uighur-court.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/25/trump-administration-china-genocide-uighurs-401581