By Diego López Beltrán | 2023-07-11

BUENOS AIRES -- A delegation of Uighur leaders concluded a tour of Latin America in June, seeking support from regional governments to condemn the Chinese government's persecution of Uighurs and end human rights abuses.

The visit was led by Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), and Omer Kanat, executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), who visited Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Costa Rica to demand greater diplomatic and commercial action from Latin America against what they call a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Xinjiang region, China.

In an opinion article published on June 5 in the Argentine newspaper La Nación, Kanat called on Latin American governments to sanction laws that prevent companies from benefiting from Uighur forced labor.

Multiple investigations and international media reports have found that the Chinese government has subjected almost two million Uighurs to forced labor in the production of electronics and other goods for export.

Kanat called on Latin American governments to coordinate diplomatic action, especially within the United Nations (UN), to demand that Beijing be held accountable for its human rights abuses against the Uighur ethnic group.

"The Uighur community … is suffering mass disappearances, forced sterilizations, forced assimilation of children in colonial boarding schools, and forced labor at the hands of the Chinese government," Kanat wrote.

Kanat also recalled that Argentina, Mexico and Brazil abstained in September 2022 from discussing a UN report on human rights violations in the Xinjiang region. Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela voted against opening the debate on Chinese human rights violations.

"My colleagues and I, who defend the dignity of our people, are working tirelessly to end the Uighur genocide," he said.

The Uighurs have accused the Chinese government of implementing a policy of genocide against them since 2017. About two million people of Uighur origin have been arrested and detained in concentration camps, Kanat told the Chilean newspaper La Tercera on June 1.

"The Chinese government not only threatens the people inside but also started a campaign around the world to persecute and harass the Uighurs. In the United States, for example, even if they are American citizens, they are not safe," he said.

Kanat alleged that the Chinese government has been directly contacting Uighurs living abroad, threatening and even forcing them to spy for the regime. They have in addition been threatening the Uighurs' relatives back in Xinjiang.

The goal of these threats is "to silence Uighurs who are speaking out against China's atrocities. This is happening every day," according to the director of the UHRP.

Crime against humanity

Uighur organizations are calling for the international community to define the situation in Xinjiang as a crime against humanity.

Human rights activists and leaked documents from the Chinese government have shown a litany of abuses in the far-western region, including the mass detention of Uighurs and other Muslims and forcible sterilization of women.

The United States and lawmakers in other Western countries have openly accused China of committing genocide against Xinjiang minorities.

A UN report released last August did document a string of violations. It found that torture allegations were credible, cited forced medical treatment and said a substantial proportion of the Muslim population had been put through so-called Vocational Education and Training Centres (VETCs).

"Allegations of patterns of torture or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, are credible, as are allegations of individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence," the report said.

The report cited "credible indications of violations of reproductive rights through the coercive enforcement of family planning policies", referring to the forced sterilizations of women.

"The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity," the report said.

Crimes against humanity rank along with genocide and war crimes as atrocities in international law.

Beijing has vehemently rejected the claims, insisting it is running centers for vocational education designed to curb Islamic extremism.