HRN has released a statement calling on the government of China to immediately end its campaign of mass detentions, abuse, forced labor, and destruction of Muslim culture in Xinjiang, China.<\/p>\n
The statement surveys the many categories of serious abuses the government of China is committing against Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang under its “Strike Hard Campaign” against the population of 12 million. This\u00a0 includes more than a million arbitrary and abusive detentions in reeducation camps; disproportionate mass surveillance and mandatory and abusive homestays; repression and punishment of virtually all forms of cultural and religious expression and widespread destruction of cultural and religious sites; and a comprehensive system of forced labor.<\/p>\n
The actions and statements of the government make clear that the ultimate purpose of the campaign is the eradication of Turkic Muslim culture in Xinjiang and the assimilation of the population with the majority Han population.<\/p>\n
Substantial evidence also shows that gross and widespread abuses and human rights violations are being carried out against the population under the campaign, including violations of the rights to freedom of religion, expression, association, and privacy and the prohibitions of torture, inhuman treatment, unfair trials, and discrimination. The severity, massive scale, and planned nature of the abuses may also qualify them as serious crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n
The statement concludes by calling on the government of China to immediately end all reeducation detention camps and other arbitrary detentions of Turkic Muslims and release all individuals, provide effective remedies to victims, end its “Strike Hard” campaign and other abusive programs (including the homestay, mass surveillance, and forced labor programs), end all restrictions on expression and religion, and allow independent international monitors to investigation the situation.<\/p>\n
It further calls on the international community of states to apply pressure to the government of China and Chinese companies using forced labor urging them to end these abusive programs, to provide broad amnesty protection to Turkic Muslims and not forcibly return them to China, and to pass measures requiring their companies doing business in China to conduct due diligence to ensure no products of forced labor enter their supply chains.<\/p>\n
The full text of the statement is written below and is available in pdf format from the following link: HRN_Statement_on_Xinjiang.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n UPDATE:<\/strong> In the text for footnote 96, the statement mentions that the responses of Japanese companies were not among the Business & Human Rights Resource Center’s collection of company responses to ASPI’s report on forced labor in Xinjiang. After we released our statement, another site has collected the responses by Japanese companies to the ASPI report, and the responses are now available on that site (in Japanese), available at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since May 2014, the government of China, under the direction of China\u2019s President Xi Jinping and Xinjiang Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, has waged a \u201cStrike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism\u201d which has used the pretext of fighting religious extremism to implement a vast program of serious human rights abuses against Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (UAR). This population includes 10 million Uyghurs, over a million Kazakhs, and hundreds of thousands of Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars, and others. The evidence indicates that the program is a comprehensive effort to destroy the religion, language, writings, history, and culture of Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang and force their assimilation with the majority Han population.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n The effort is being accomplished through four highly abusive methods of total population control, each of which would constitute abuses of historic proportions by itself: vast numbers of long, arbitrary, abusive, and coercive detentions in reeducation camps; ever-present monitoring of the population by mass surveillance and mandatory homestays; repression and punishment of virtually all forms of cultural and religious expression; and a comprehensive system of forced labor. The evidence shows that gross and widespread abuses and human rights violations are being carried out against the population, including violations of the rights to freedom of religion, expression, association, and privacy and the prohibitions of torture, inhuman treatment, unfair trials, and discrimination. The severity, massive scale, and planned nature of the abuses may also qualify them as serious crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n Central to the Strike Hard campaign is the meticulous planning and implementation of vast numbers of arbitrary, coercive, and abusive detentions and mass indoctrination. Under the \u201cTransformation Through Education\u201d program, public records and other evidence indicate that at least 1 to 3 million[2]<\/a> Turkic Muslims are or have been coercively detained in Xinjiang in reeducation detention camps.[3]<\/a> Tens of thousands more are being arbitrarily detained in prisons[4]<\/a> and in criminal detention camps, where the most brutal incidents of torture have been reported.[5]<\/a> A government document has also reported nearly half a million Turkic Muslim children being placed in tightly guarded boarding schools, akin to orphanages, either when the parents are detained or by forcible separations from their parents whose visits are highly restricted.[6]<\/a> The schools have been given instructions to implement assimilation and indoctrination measures, and plans have been made to open one to two such schools in every one of Xinjiang\u2019s 800-plus townships by the end of 2020.[7]<\/a> The following paragraphs focus on the reeducation detention camps by surveying the overwhelming evidence that they are widespread and systematic, coercive, highly abusive, and fundamentally discriminatory. The reeducation camp detentions are reportedly currently winding down, although many \u201cgraduate\u201d detainees are simply being moved into forced factory work (described further below) or prison.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n a) Widespread and Systematic<\/em><\/p>\n In addition to the vast number (1 to 3 million) of arbitrary reeducation detentions, leaked government documents and public statistics indicate that they are an intentional and comprehensive effort to erase and assimilate Turkic Muslim culture in Xinjiang household by household. Leaked documents quote Party Secretary Quanguo ordering officials under the program to \u201cround up everyone who should be rounded up.\u201d[9]<\/a>\u00a0Local governments are instructed to ensure that at least one person of each Turkic Muslim household in Xinjiang be detained for reeducation for at least one to three months,[10]<\/a> and statistics\u2014such as an average of 15% of all mid-aged adults being detained throughout Xinjiang, in some counties up to 28%[11]<\/a>\u2014suggest that great efforts have been taken to achieve that target.[12]<\/a> Detainees\u2019 ages in published reports range from 13 to 84.[13]<\/a> Government documents and other evidence list or indicate criteria for detentions that include innocuous activities such as stopping smoking, abstaining from alcohol, opposing pornography, attending a funeral, observing a holiday, praying regularly, growing a beard, getting a passport, international travel or phone calls, not speaking Chinese, using WhatsApp, having one\u2019s watch set to Xinjiang time instead of Beijing time (2,500 km away), storing food, buying a tent or ropes,[14]<\/a> and having too many children (which was the most common reason for detention in one county\u2019s detention records).[15]<\/a> Such criteria have no rational connection to extremism, indicate racial and religious discrimination, and cast a vast and arbitrary net applicable to millions of people. To give a sense of the staggering scale of the detentions, in a one-month period in 2018 alone, Hotan prefecture\u2019s reeducation detention camp requested over 194,000 Chinese language practice books and 11,310 pairs of shoes in a public government requisition order, and it is estimated by satellite photos and other evidence that there are at least 1,300 to 1,400 such camps.[16]<\/a><\/p>\n b) Coercive<\/em><\/p>\n The government of China states that the detentions are voluntary and for vocational education, but substantial evidence, including the government\u2019s own manuals and records for the camps, leave no doubt that the detentions are coercive and arbitrary. A Kazakh detainee, detained as a Chinese teacher, repeated the typical report that, following numerous interrogations, her detention began with officials arriving in a vehicle, placing a black sack over her head, driving her to a detention camp, and forcing her to sign a form accepting the camp rules and promising not to talk about them.[17]<\/a> She reported that:<\/p>\n I was very much afraid to sign… It said there that if I did not fulfill my task, or if I did not obey the rules, I would get the death penalty… I signed because I had no choice, and then I received a uniform and was taken to a tiny bedroom with a concrete bed and a thin plastic mattress. There were five cameras on the ceiling \u2013 one in each corner and another one in the middle…<\/p>\n As for the other inmates, she added that:<\/p>\n [t]heir hands and feet were shackled all day, except when they had to write. Even in sleep they were shackled, and they were required to sleep on their right side \u2013 anyone who turned over was punished… There were police who supervised everything everywhere.[18]<\/a><\/p>\n Another ex-detainee in another camp described being shackled in the same way and being told that \u201cthere\u2019s a Xinjiang-wide order that all Uyghurs and Kazaks would have their feet shackled and their hands chained together.\u201d[19]<\/a> The camps were given official manuals, which have been leaked, that state they \u201cmust never allow escapes\u201d and give instructions to prevent escapes, such as using cameras and prison-like measures.[20]<\/a> Over 2016-2017, the government advertised over 85,000 openings for police officers for the region of Xinjiang, compared to around 6,000 per year on average for the previous 10 years.[21]<\/a> One camp had 60 armed police guards with four armored patrol vehicles stationed.[22]<\/a> In Qira county, 31% of the entire county\u2019s police force was tasked with guarding detainees.[23]<\/a> A 2018 procurement request documents Hotan officials ordering 2,768 police batons, 550 electric cattle prods, 1,367 pairs of handcuffs, and 2,792 cans of pepper spray for the camps.[24]<\/a> Other reeducation detention camp orders were for razor wire, phone tapping equipment, infrared monitoring devices, police uniforms, riot shields, helmets, tear gas, net guns, stun guns, electrified batons, billy clubs, spears, handcuffs, spiked clubs known as \u201cwolf\u2019s teeth\u201d, and \u201ctiger chairs\u201d to restrain interrogation subjects.[25]<\/a><\/p>\n Detainees are not free to leave the camps, even over years of detention.[26]<\/a> An official manual for the camps orders that detentions should last at least one year.[27]<\/a> Sentences range in three tiers from a few months to 15 years, with no trial or after transparently unfair trials, sometimes split among reeducation camps, prisons, and forced labor camps.[28]<\/a> The manual also institutes a point system where small infractions such as smiling or yawning can accumulate to add a year to the term.[29]<\/a> If detainees refuse to comply or cannot properly perform, they are punished with solitary confinement, 24-hour food deprivation, and other punishments including reported torture; and if they cannot perform at the end of their term, their detentions will be extended another year or longer.[30]<\/a> Numerous former detainees expressed the desire to commit suicide as their only escape.[31]<\/a> Even when detainees finish their terms, they are often sent to prison or forced labor in factories where the reeducation and assimilation efforts continue as described below.[32]<\/a><\/p>\n c) Highly Abusive<\/em><\/p>\n Despite rhetoric about the goal of \u201cending terrorism and extremism\u201d, the methods and conditions of the training have no rational connection to that goal, and they are often serious abuses which are never justifiable. In interviews, formerly detained persons in different camps have given repeated and consistent reports of regular beatings, torture, rape, sexual assault, sexual humiliation, forced abortions, sterilization, arbitrary and long solitary confinements, electrocutions, injections with unknown substances, non-consensual surgery, and other serious abuses in the camps.[33]<\/a> A detainee described \u201cblack rooms\u201d where torture occurs in camps with the same details that other ex-detainees in other camps reported being subjected to:<\/p>\n Some prisoners were hung on the wall and beaten with electrified truncheons. There were prisoners who were made to sit on a chair of nails. I saw people return from that room covered in blood. Some came back without fingernails.[34]<\/a><\/p>\n In another case she reports that guards took 200 inmates outside and ordered one woman to confess her sins:<\/p>\n She stood before us and declared that she had been a bad person, but now that she had learned Chinese she had become a better person. When she was done speaking, the policemen ordered her to disrobe and simply raped her one after the other, in front of everyone. While they were raping her they checked to see how we were reacting.[35]<\/a><\/p>\n The camps are grossly overcrowded, with 30 to 60 people being packed into small cells requiring sleeping in turns; and they are unsafe, with one former detainee reporting personally witnessing nine deaths in one camp due to dangerous conditions and a lack of medical care, and five other deaths were described in two other reports, which gave the same details of camps\u2019 treatment of the bodies.[36]<\/a> Activists are currently expressing grave concerns about novel coronavirus spreading in the camps without an ability to contain or treat it.[37]<\/a> It was also reported that persons found breaking quarantine rules are detained in the same camps.[38]<\/a><\/p>\n d) Discriminatory<\/em><\/p>\n In contrast to the stated purposes, leaked official documents and interviews with former detainees indicate that the actual purpose of the camps is to eradicate the religion and culture of detainees and coercively assimilate them to the majority Han Chinese culture.[39]<\/a> Detainees are forced to take intensive Mandarin classes, memorize Confucian texts, praise the Communist Party and recite its songs and chants, and take part in daily indoctrination in Chinese Communist Party and anti-Muslim propaganda. They must also regularly self-criticize their culture and religion and disavow Islamic beliefs, and they are harshly punished for expressing their religion or culture. Lessons include that Islamic greetings are prohibited; signs cannot use Uyghur or Kazakh writing; Kazakh or Uyghur cannot be spoken in public; their language schools are banned; communication with 26 countries is prohibited; third generation identity cards cannot list ethnicity; online minority chat groups are prohibited; intermarriage between Han and Kazakhs is rewarded with 90,000 RMB ($13,000 USD) and the ability to apply for large loans; and that 50% of any Muslim Turkic property sold will go to the state.[40]<\/a> Uyghur activists have also alleged discriminatory food shortages among Uyghur families during the coronavirus lockdowns due to the failure of the government to deliver food to them while they cannot leave home.[41]<\/a> One telling detail indicating the true purpose of the camps is multiple and consistent reports of camp administrators\u2019 fixation on hygiene and the \u201cbackwardness\u201d of Muslim Turkic culture through instructions to grown adults on how to take a bath, get a haircut and shave, change and wash their clothes, stand up straight, and other demeaning instruction.[42]<\/a> One woman reported that as she lost consciousness while strapped in a chair and being electrocuted for punishment, white foam coming from her mouth, \u201cThe last word I heard them saying is that you being an Uighur is a crime.\u201d[43]<\/a> Such lessons and statements betray the deep prejudice and discrimination against Turkic Muslims at the foundation of the government\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n The population of Xinjiang, and Turkic Muslims in particular, have also been subject to virtually constant, universal, and disproportionate electronic surveillance and monitoring, in addition to direct surveillance by local officials, informants, and mandatory homestays. Data is centralized in the \u201cIntegrated Joint Operations Platform\u201d big data system.[44]<\/a> Among many other abuses, officials implement predictive policing, using algorithms to score Muslims on the basis of their features and behavior meticulously documented in spreadsheets\u2014such as whether they have a beard, abstain from alcohol, have too many children, or pray\u2014and detaining anyone whose scores or the scores of family members fall below their arbitrary and discriminatory standards.[45]<\/a> A leaked 137-page spreadsheet of monitoring data of and recommendations for 311 Muslims before, during, and after their detention in five reeducation camps in Karakax county (\u201cKarakax list\u201d), and also covering over 1,800 of their relatives and neighbors, shows the minute details that officials track, flag, and review for detention, including how often persons attend religious activities, how many times a day they pray, what videos they downloaded, their WeChat messages, the dates they did not shave, whether they learned religion from family or elsewhere, etc.[46]<\/a> Some names are flagged with \u201cheavy religious environment\u201d and labeled \u201cuntrustworthy\u201d; one man is marked \u201ctrustworthy\u201d after he shaved his beard and began drinking alcohol after a year abstaining.[47]<\/a><\/p>\n Surveillance is conducted under a multi-level grid management system dividing cities and villages into squares of about 500 people.[48]<\/a> Each square has a police station monitoring residents, controlling their movement, regularly scanning their ID cards, taking their photographs and fingerprints, and searching their cell phones. In cities, facial-recognition cameras and phone scanners are on virtually every block, linking faces, phone numbers, license plates, social media, age, ethnicity, and other data in databases. Data released by Chinese police listed the installation of 18,464 surveillance cameras in an area of 3,640 residence complexes in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi.[49]<\/a> To indicate the scale of surveillance, in just four days, four cameras and two phone scanners installed near an apartment complex in a town in central China were reported to have identified 67,000 phones and taken 23,000 photos from which 8,700 people were identified.[50]<\/a> \u201cConvenience\u201d police checkpoints are found about every 100 yards in many buildings and streets, which require ID card scans to pass, control and record all public movement, and often restrict Turkic Muslim movements while the Han Chinese population passes relatively unrestricted.[51]<\/a><\/p>\n The Chinese government also aggressively monitors, interrogates, recruits as informants, and threatens Turkic Muslims living abroad through social media, phone calls, and China\u2019s embassies and consulates.[52]<\/a> The government also collects and stores residents\u2019 biometric data by a mandatory public \u201cphysical\u201d program, and it is developing technology such as DNA-recognition methods and the ability to reconstruct faces from DNA.[53]<\/a> All of these systems are connected to a central data system that scores everyone and ensures that behavior and data anywhere is immediately available to local police to detain persons anywhere else. Notably, Japanese companies Sony and Sharp supplied parts to a US-blacklisted Chinese surveillance company.[54]<\/a><\/p>\n Not stopping at surveillance in public areas, authorities also operate compulsory home surveillance programs in which public officials directly visit and stay in the homes of Xinjiang residents. This includes a \u201cFanghuiju<\/em>\u201d (\u201cVisit, Benefit, and Unite the People\u201d) program since 2014 and a \u201cPair Up and Become Family\u201d (sometimes called \u201cBecoming Family\u201d) program since October 2016, which in December 2017 was expanded to mobilize 1.1 million prefectural-level officials to conduct homestays.[55]<\/a> These latter officials, who are mostly male and euphemistically called \u201crelatives\u201d, conduct homestays primarily in the countryside and among Muslim residents, and in some prefectures among every family.[56]<\/a> They spend from five days every two months to up to 14 days a month living in homes to surveil,[57]<\/a> interrogate, report on \u201cproblems\u201d such as cleanliness and religious behavior,[58]<\/a> and instruct Muslims in propaganda.[59]<\/a> They visit at any time unannounced, and eat, work, and sleep with the families, including in the same bed with family members.[60]<\/a> One Uyghur activist in exile has stated that the \u201c \u2018Pair Up and Become Family\u2019 campaign represents the \u2018total annihilation of the safety, security and well-being of family members,\u2019 and … has \u2018turned Uyghurs\u2019 homes into prisons from which there is no escape.\u2019 \u201d[61]<\/a><\/p>\n There have also been allegations of widespread and organized mass rape and forced marriages of Turkic women by male Han Chinese officials through the \u201cBecoming Family\u201d program. If verified, forced marriages would be another instrument by the state of forced assimilation of Turkic Muslims to the Han Chinese culture. Sources who have \u201coverseen the forced stayovers\u201d report that male Han Chinese \u201crelatives\u201d under the program \u201cregularly sleep in the same beds as the wives of men detained\u00a0in the region\u2019s internment camps.\u201d[62]<\/a> A Chinese township official acknowledges that the practice is official policy and appears to link the program to the possibility of marriages or relationships developing between homestay officials and family members, stating that his staff \u201ctry to help them to make proper [sleeping] arrangements\u201d in homestays, that local officials promote the practice of homestay officials sleeping together with family members to \u201cpromote ethnic unity\u201d, that\u00a0\u201cit is now considered normal for females to sleep on the same platform with their paired male \u2018relatives\u2019 \u201d, and that improbably the homestay officials \u201ctalk to [family members] about life, during which time they develop feelings for one another.\u201d[63]<\/a> A Uyghur women has reported seeing a prevalence of marriages between homestay \u201cBecoming Family\u201d officials and Uyghur women,[64]<\/a> and the Uyghur activist Rushan Abbas alleges that the program institutes \u201cmass rape\u201d and forced marriages which families cannot refuse, as well as creates widespread pregnancies and forced abortions.[65]<\/a><\/p>\n Regarding the allegation of widespread forced marriages generally in Xinjiang (not only in the homestay program), Han Chinese are offered significant money, housing, and jobs by the state to marry Turkic Muslims,[66]<\/a> and there has also been a steep rise in media and groups promoting interethnic marriages, such as Han-Uyghur \u201cdating services\u201d, and the promotion of \u201csocial organizations\u201d and \u201clocal neighbor watch cadres\u201d to\u2014as a Han interethnic-marriage promoter describes it\u2014\u201cget the support of both parents\u201d, meaning both sets of parents, in Han-Uyghur marriages.[67]<\/a> In interviews Uyghur women and families state that dating and marriage proposals by Han Chinese occur under threats to Uyghur women and their families for refusals, leading to widespread fears of such proposals and programs.[68]<\/a> When asked if refusing an invitation to date a Han Chinese under an organized activity would result in being sent to \u201cstudy\u201d, a common euphemism for detention in a reeducation detention camp, a Uyghur woman answered \u201cMaybe even worse than \u2018study\u2019.\u201d[69]<\/a><\/p>\n The government has also severely restricted expressions of Islam and Uyghur and other Turkic cultures including, according to satellite photos, public documents, and interviews, widespread destruction of mosques, shrines, graveyards, and the historical districts of cities; the substitution of Uyghur and other Turkic language instruction with Mandarin instruction in schools; an order for the Koran and other religious texts to be censored or edited to reflect socialist values; forcing Muslim families to drink alcohol and eat non-halal foods during compulsory homestays; arbitrary detentions of Uyghur intellectuals; de facto restrictions of Uyghur-language books (that are not translations) and religious displays such as veils, prayer, and beards; and other extreme measures to eradicate the culture and memory of the Uyghur and other Turkic peoples in Xinjiang.[70]<\/a><\/p>\n In addition to the above abusive programs, Chinese authorities have also forced between hundreds of thousands to over a million ex-detainees and the poor in Xinjiang to be detained in work camps and work in factories against their will as part of massive and organized forced labor under the \u201cIndustrial Xinjiang Aid\u201d (chanye yuan jiang<\/em>) program, according to leaked government records, interviews with workers and locals, official notices, state media, and other evidence.[71]<\/a> The forced labor program is similar to the traditional \u201cReeducation Through Labor\u201d (laojiao<\/em>) forced labor program, which has long been criticized for its exploitation and abuses of workers. While the government has stated that the laojiao<\/em> program ended in 2013 (when the reeducation detention camp program began), the Industrial Xinjiang Aid program appears to continue the forced labor program in the context of the reeducation program.[72]<\/a> It was also reported that as lockdowns began shutting down factories throughout China due to novel coronavirus, hundreds of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims were still being sent to work in these areas, putting their lives directly at risk to keep the factories running.[73]<\/a><\/p>\n However, the \u201cIndustrial Xinjiang Aid\u201d program is also an integral part of the wider re-education program as well (called \u201cvocational training\u201d by the government). There is a direct pipeline of persons being sent from reeducation detention camps to forced labor factory work camps,[74]<\/a> even as the coronavirus lockdowns continue as mentioned above, and the forced labor program shares many abuses with the reeducation camp program. Factories can participate by opening satellite factories inside Xinjiang employing Turkic Muslim workers (as at least 4400 companies have done); factories in other parts of China can employ Turkic Muslim workers; and they must all provide mandatory indoctrination classes at night as part of the program.[75]<\/a><\/p>\n a) Pipeline from Reeducation Detention Camps to Forced Labor Factory Work Camps<\/em><\/p>\n Official reports track the movement of Turkic Muslims from reeducation detention camps to forced labor factory work camps. This has been confirmed by an informed source who also stated the persons were threatened with further detention if they refused the work assignment.[76]<\/a> The government actively promotes the forced labor of former detainees by offering subsidies to companies employing them (5,000 RMB [77,000 JPY\/$705 USD] for each detainee who works over three years) to attract business to Xinjiang, with much greater awards for transfers to factories outside Xinjiang.[77]<\/a> One official advertisement advertised up to 1,000 ethnic minority workers available for factory work, with an arrival date around two weeks and starting from 100 workers, with listed advantages being \u201cquasi-military management\u201d, no loss of personnel, and that factory managers can apply for Xinjiang police to be stationed at the factory 24 hours a day.[78]<\/a><\/p>\n A Moyu county 2019 work report stated that \u201cFor every batch [of workers] that is trained, a batch of employment will be arranged and a batch will be transferred. Those employed need to receive thorough ideological education and remain in their jobs.\u201d[79]<\/a> Counties reported that among persons sent to forced labor camps, between 10% to 50% were sent to work outside of Xinjiang.[80]<\/a> An Australian Strategic Policy Institute report (\u201cASPI Report\u201d) cited official records and other evidence of at least 27 Chinese factories employing Turkic Muslim labor forcibly working in or transferred from Xinjiang since 2017 claiming to supply at least 83 well-known brands.[81]<\/a> To give two examples, Haoyuanpeng Clothing Manufacturing Co. Ltd (HYP) transferred from Xinjiang to its Anhui factory 63 workers, which were listed as \u201cgraduates\u201d of a \u201cvocational school\u201d reeducation camp, with plans to transfer 500 more,[82]<\/a> and Qingdao Taekwang Shoes Co. Ltd employed 600 Turkic Muslim workers, all of which were subjected to reeducation classes.[83]<\/a> The aforementioned governmental Karakax list also reports reeducation camp detainees being transferred into forced factory work camps, recommending that one former detainee \u201cremain in a factory in the re-education camps\u201d after recording that he \u201cposes a certain level of danger to society.\u201d[84]<\/a><\/p>\n b) Evidence of Forced Labor, Abuses, and Discrimination<\/em><\/p>\n The ASPI Report documented evidence that the transferred Xinjiang labor is forced and that their conditions are prison-like, including: inward-facing barbed wire fences, watchtowers, guard stations, stationed police, movement restrictions, bans on returning home for holidays, segregated work, monitored transits, transits in segregated trains, \u201cmilitary-style management\u201d, restrictions on religious practice, threats of detention in reeducation camps or prison for refusals, similar threats to family members for refusals, and special \u201cintegration\u201d offices in the factories.[85]<\/a><\/p>\n One worker, who said she was sent from a reeducation detention camp to work in a factory against her will, reported to her sister that \u201c660 people are brought in shackled and handcuffed…. They have no choice, they will end up in jail, if they say something…. Tell them it has been two years, [and I have] not been released.\u201d[86]<\/a> Another reported that \u201cThere were police when you enter and leave the factory, they will check our phones and conduct body search\u201d, and that not only former detainees are forced to work, but also unemployed people and farmers who are given the choice to work in factories or being sent to detention camps.[87]<\/a><\/p>\n Turkic Muslim workers are also tracked and surveillanced as well as their families, which carries the threat of family punishment for disobedience.[88]<\/a> A government document describes a database recording medical, ideological, and employment details of each Turkic Muslim worker,[89]<\/a> and one Uyghur person forced into work said police search their rooms and phones for religious content, the punishment for which is being sent back to a reeducation camp for 3 to 5 years.[90]<\/a> As mentioned above, hundreds of Turkic Muslims are also continuing to be sent and forced to work in factories despite lockdowns to protect lives during the novel coronavirus crisis.<\/p>\n Allegations of labor and human rights abuses among Turkic Muslim workers working in forced labor factories include allegations of demands for excessive overtime (e.g., 100 hours overtime a month), payment less than Han counterparts, movement restrictions, other labor violations, abuses stemming from the mandatory reeducation classes, assimilation efforts, and religious practice restrictions.[91]<\/a> Aside from the clear economic goals of expanding exports by an underpaid coerced workforce,[92]<\/a> the Industrial Xinjiang Aid forced labor program continues the assimilation efforts of the reeducation camps, except run by companies.[93]<\/a> As with the reeducation camps, the forced labor program\u2019s basis in discrimination is made evident by the vocal pride employers and government officials take in altering Uyghur workers\u2019 beliefs and practices, indicated by statements that they are being made into \u201cmodern\u201d citizens who are \u201cmore physically attractive\u201d and \u201ctake daily showers.\u201d[94]<\/a><\/p>\n c) Japanese Companies Linked to the Forced Labor Program<\/em><\/p>\n As mentioned above, the ASPI Report links 27 Chinese factories participating in the forced labor program to at least 83 well-known brands through their supply chains. Among these 83 brands, 11 Japanese companies were listed: Hitachi, Japan Display Inc., Mitsubishi, Mitsumi, Nintendo, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony, TDK, Toshiba, and Uniqlo. Panasonic was the only Japanese company listed in ASPI\u2019s report as responding to the claim, stating that it did not have a contractual relationship with forced labor suppliers but did not rule out links to the forced labor factories in its supply chains.[95]<\/a> The Business and Human Rights Resource Center has collected responses from some of the 83 brands to the report, but responses by Japanese companies were not among the collection if they were made.[96]<\/a><\/p>\n Two Japanese companies, Muji and Uniqlo, were also linked to Xinjiang cotton production, which may suggest a link to forced labor in their supply chain.[97]<\/a> While the forced labor factories operate in multiple sectors, a major sector is cotton processing. Eighty-four percent of cotton in China was produced in Xinjiang in 2018, and Chinese cotton made up 22% of the global market in 2018-2019, much of it processed into yarn, textiles, apparel, and footwear in Chinese factories, including ones employing forced labor.[98]<\/a> Because of the complexity and opaqueness of modern supply chains, any global company sourcing cotton from China, such as Uniqlo and Muji, has likely bought the products of this forced labor. The response of both companies has been insufficient given the massive scale of the problem:<\/p>\n Given the explicit links made by ASPI between forced labor factories and Japanese companies and the high likelihood of global companies buying textile products from China produced by forced labor, what is called for is not silence or words that deny, minimize, or excuse a connection to forced labor or list internal measures that cannot be verified. Rather the situation calls for stringent due diligence investigations of companies\u2019 supply chains to ensure no products of forced labor are present, in partnership with civil society experts to ensure their accuracy and effectiveness, and public release of the results to ensure transparency and verification. If links to forced labor in their supply chains are identified, the companies should take measures consistent with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to ensure their supply chains are free of forced labor.<\/p>\n As the increasingly shocking revelations of the gross abuses and widespread violations against Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang by the Chinese government have been made public, the outcry throughout the international community has grown in its condemnation. Below is a number of important statements by state and UN officials.<\/p>\n Human Rights Now shares in the shock and alarm of the international community at the scale and severity of abuses and violations being committed by the government of China against its Turkic Muslim populations in its comprehensive effort to eradicate their religion and culture within its borders. The campaign includes dozens of categories of serious, widespread, and systematic abuses deeply integrated into the social fabric of Xinjiang and involving numbers in the millions of people, including arbitrary and abusive detentions, constant monitoring, terrorizing, brainwashing, forced labor, and other serious abuses. The crisis requires a comprehensive response proportional to the scale of abuses. Below are some of the most important imperatives and recommendations we offer.<\/p>\n To the government of China: <\/strong><\/p>\n To the international community of states:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a>Endnotes<\/p>\n [1] Shepherd, \u201cFear and oppression in Xinjiang: China\u2019s war on Uighur culture\u201d, 12 Sept. 2019, https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/48508182-d426-11e9-8367-807ebd53ab77<\/a>.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> 1 million: deHahn, \u201cMore than 1 million Muslims are detained in China\u2014but how did we get that number?\u201d, Quartz, 5 July 2019, https:\/\/qz.com\/1599393\/how-researchers-estimate-1-million-uyghurs-are-detained-in-xinjiang\/<\/a>; 1.5 million: Zenz, \u201cBrainwashing, Police Guards and Coercive Internment: Evidence from Chinese Government Documents about the Nature and Extent of Xinjiang\u2019s \u2018Vocational Training Internment Camps\u2019 \u201d, Journal of Political Risk, 1 July 2019, http:\/\/www.jpolrisk.com\/brainwashing-police-guards-and-coercive-internment-evidence-from-chinese-government-documents-about-the-nature-and-extent-of-xinjiangs-vocational-training-internment-camps\/<\/a>; 1.8 million: Lipes, \u201cExpert Says 1.8 Million Uyghurs, Muslim Minorities Held in Xinjiang\u2019s Internment Camps\u201d, Radio Free Asia, 24 Nov. 2019, https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/uyghur\/detainees-11232019223242.html<\/a>; 3 million: Stewart, \u201cChina putting minority Muslims in \u2018concentration camps,\u2019 U.S. says\u201d, Reuters, 4 May 2019, https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-china-concentrationcamps\/china-putting-minority-muslims-in-concentration-camps-us-says-idUSKCN1S925K<\/a>; AFP News Agency, \u201cUighur activists say China running hundreds more camps\u201d, 28 Nov. 2019, https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2019\/11\/uighur-activists-china-running-hundreds-camps-191112204426528.html<\/a>; Zand, \u201cChina\u2019s Oppression of the Uighurs \u2018The Equivalent of Cultural Genocide\u2019 \u201d, Spiegel, 28 Nov. 2019,\u00a0 https:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/world\/chinese-oppression-of-the-uighurs-like-cultural-genocide-a-1298171.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Wen & Auyezov, \u201cTracking China\u2019s Muslim Gulag: Turning the desert into detention camps\u201d, 29 Nov. 2019, https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/investigates\/special-report\/muslims-camps-china\/<\/a>; Shepherd, above<\/em>, note 1, https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/48508182-d426-11e9-8367-807ebd53ab77<\/a>.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Buckley, \u201cChina\u2019s Prisons Swell After Deluge of Arrests Engulfs Muslims\u201d, NYTimes, 31 Aug. 2019,\u00a0 https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/08\/31\/world\/asia\/xinjiang-china-uighurs-prisons.html<\/a> (\u201cDuring 2017 alone, Xinjiang courts sentenced almost 87,000 defendants,\u00a010 times more\u00a0than the previous year, to prison terms of five years or longer. Arrests increased eightfold; prosecutions fivefold…. That year [2017], prosecutors in Xinjiang approved 227,261 arrests, more than eight times as many as a year earlier, according to a recently released official regional yearbook. In 2018, they approved an additional 114,023 arrests, an annual report from the regional prosecution office said. The total number of arrests over these two years was more than 70 percent higher than the cumulative total for the entire previous 10 years…. Last year, the courts heard 74,348 cases. They declared just 22 people not guilty.\u201d)<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Zenz, \u201c \u2018Wash Brains, Cleanse Hearts\u2019: Evidence from Chinese Government Documents about the Nature and Extent of Xinjiang\u2019s Extrajudicial Internment Campaign\u201d, Journal of Political Risk, 24 Nov. 2019, https:\/\/www.jpolrisk.com\/wash-brains-cleanse-hearts\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Qin, \u201cIn China\u2019s Crackdown on Muslims, Children Have Not Been Spared\u201d, NYTimes, 28 Dec. 2019, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/12\/28\/world\/asia\/china-xinjiang-children-boarding-schools.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Qin, id<\/em>.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Xu, et al, \u201cUyghurs for sale\u201d, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), 1 Mar. 2020, https:\/\/www.aspi.org.au\/report\/uyghurs-sale<\/a>.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Ramzy & Buckley, \u201c \u2018Absolutely No Mercy\u2019: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims\u201d, NYTimes, 16 Nov. 2019, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2019\/11\/16\/world\/asia\/china-xinjiang-documents.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> Dooley, \u201cInside China\u2019s internment camps: tear gas, Tasers and textbooks\u201d, AFP, 25 Oct. 2019, https:\/\/www.afp.com\/en\/inside-chinas-internment-camps-tear-gas-tasers-and-textbooks<\/a> (\u201cIn addition to ex-prisoners and those charged with religious extremism, local governments were also ordered to ensure that at least one member of each household received vocational education for a minimum of one to three months — a measure ostensibly aimed at alleviating poverty in the region of 24 million.\u201d).<\/p>\n [11]<\/a> Zenz, above<\/em>, note 5, https:\/\/www.jpolrisk.com\/wash-brains-cleanse-hearts\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n [12]<\/a> Allen-Ebrahimian, \u201cExposed: China\u2019s Operating Manuals For Mass Internment And Arrest By Algorithm\u201d, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 24 Nov. 2019, https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/china-cables\/exposed-chinas-operating-manuals-for-mass-internment-and-arrest-by-algorithm\/<\/a>; Ramzy & Buckley, above<\/em>, note 9, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2019\/11\/16\/world\/asia\/china-xinjiang-documents.html<\/a> (\u201cIn six villages in Yarkand, a county in southwestern Xinjiang where nearly all the residents are Uighur, [Zenz] found that about one in six rural adult residents were interned or in prison. In two villages in that county, nearly 60 percent of households had at least one person in custody.\u201d)<\/p>\n [13]<\/a> Stavrou, \u201cA Million People Are Jailed at China\u2019s Gulags. I Managed to Escape. Here\u2019s What Really Goes on Inside\u201d, Haaretz, 17 Oct. 2019, https:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/world-news\/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-million-people-are-jailed-at-china-s-gulags-i-escaped-here-s-what-goes-on-inside-1.7994216<\/a>; Human Rights Watch, \u201cEradicating Ideological Viruses: China\u2019s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang\u2019s Muslims\u201d, 9 Sept. 2018, https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2018\/09\/09\/eradicating-ideological-viruses\/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs<\/a>; Yang & Petersmann, \u201cExclusive: China\u2019s systematic tracking, arrests of Uighurs exposed in new Xinjiang leak\u201d, DW, 17 Feb. 2020, https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/exclusive-chinas-systematic-tracking-arrests-of-uighurs-exposed-in-new-xinjiang-leak\/a-52397824<\/a> (60% of detainees listed in the Karakax list were between 20 and 40 years old, focusing on young families as the greatest threat).<\/p>\n [14]<\/a> Allen-Ebrahimian, above<\/em>, note 12, https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/china-cables\/exposed-chinas-operating-manuals-for-mass-internment-and-arrest-by-algorithm\/<\/a>; Ramzy, \u201cHow China Tracked Detainees and Their Families\u201d, NYTimes, 17 Feb. 2020, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/02\/17\/world\/asia\/china-reeducation-camps-leaked.html<\/a>; Human Rights Watch, id<\/em>.; Stavrou, id<\/em>; The Guardian, \u201cUighur man\u2019s 10-year sentence shows harsh reality of Chinese repression\u201d, 24 Nov. 2019, https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/nov\/24\/china-cables-uighur-man-10-year-sentence-shows-harsh-reality-of-chinese-repression<\/a>.<\/p>\n [15]<\/a> Yang & Petersmann, above<\/em>, note 13, https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/exclusive-chinas-systematic-tracking-arrests-of-uighurs-exposed-in-new-xinjiang-leak\/a-52397824<\/a> (more men were detained for violating the birth control policy than women); Ramzy, id<\/em>.<\/p>\n [16]<\/a> Juma & Lipes, \u201cTop US Diplomat Says China Document Leak Confirms \u2018Very Significant\u2019 Abuses in Xinjiang\u201d, RFA, 26 Nov. 2019, https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/uyghur\/documents-11262019135803.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n [17]<\/a> Stavrou, above<\/em>, note 13, https:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/world-news\/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-million-people-are-jailed-at-china-s-gulags-i-escaped-here-s-what-goes-on-inside-1.7994216<\/a>. Compare the similar details in Human Rights Watch\u2019s report, above<\/em>, note 13, https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2018\/09\/09\/eradicating-ideological-viruses\/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs<\/a>.<\/p>\n [18]<\/a> Stavrou, id.<\/em><\/p>\n [19]<\/a> Human Rights Watch, above<\/em>, note 13, https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2018\/09\/09\/eradicating-ideological-viruses\/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs<\/a>.<\/p>\n [20]<\/a> Allen-Ebrahimian, above<\/em>, note 12, https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/china-cables\/exposed-chinas-operating-manuals-for-mass-internment-and-arrest-by-algorithm\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n [21]<\/a> Zenz & Leibold, \u201cXinjiang\u2019s Rapidly Evolving Security State\u201d, 17 China Brief 4, 14 Mar. 2017, https:\/\/jamestown.org\/program\/xinjiangs-rapidly-evolving-security-state\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n [22]<\/a> Zenz, above<\/em>, note 5, https:\/\/www.jpolrisk.com\/wash-brains-cleanse-hearts\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n [23]<\/a> Zenz, id<\/em>.<\/p>\n [24]<\/a> Dooley, above<\/em>, note 10, https:\/\/www.afp.com\/en\/inside-chinas-internment-camps-tear-gas-tasers-and-textbooks<\/a>.<\/p>\n [25]<\/a> Dooley, id<\/em>.<\/p>\n [26]<\/a> Ramzy & Buckley, above<\/em>, note 9, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2019\/11\/16\/world\/asia\/china-xinjiang-documents.html<\/a> (\u201cThe orders called on guards to strictly control and monitor the activities of students: \u2018Prevent escapes while they are at class, dining, using the toilet, washing, receiving medical care or meeting with family.\u2019 Other instructions call for erecting guardhouses and internal partitions inside the camps to prevent inmates from moving around freely; rigorously checking any people, vehicles or goods entering, and recruiting informants to spy on other detainees.\u201d)<\/p>\n [27]<\/a> Allen-Ebrahimian, above<\/em>, note 12, https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/china-cables\/exposed-chinas-operating-manuals-for-mass-internment-and-arrest-by-algorithm\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n [28]<\/a> Shih, \u201cChina\u2019s mass indoctrination camps evoke Cultural Revolution\u201d, APNews, 18 May 2018, https:\/\/apnews.com\/6e151296fb194f85ba69a8babd972e4b\/China%E2%80%99s-massindoctrinationcamps-evoke-Cultural-Revolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n [29]<\/a> Ramzy & Buckley, \u201cLeaked China Files Show Internment Camps Are Ruled by Secrecy and Spying\u201d, NYTimes, 24 Nov. 2019, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/11\/24\/world\/asia\/leak-chinas-internment-camps.html<\/a> (\u201c \u2018You enter the camp with 1,000 points. You can\u2019t gain points. You can only lose them if you yawn or smile,\u2019 recalled Rahima Senbai, who was held in a camp in October 2017 and only allowed to return to her home in Kazakhstan a year later. \u2018If you ever went under 500 points, you\u2019d have to stay for another year.\u2019 \u201d).<\/p>\n [30]<\/a> Ramzy & Buckley, <\/em>i<\/em>d<\/em>.<\/p>\n [31]<\/a> Human Rights Watch, above<\/em>, note 13, https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2018\/09\/09\/eradicating-ideological-viruses\/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs<\/a>.<\/p>\n [32]<\/a> Buckley, above<\/em>, note 4, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/08\/31\/world\/asia\/xinjiang-china-uighurs-prisons.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n [33]<\/a> Human Rights Watch, above<\/em>, note 13, https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2018\/09\/09\/eradicating-ideological-viruses\/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs<\/a>; Ferris-Rotman, \u201cAbortions, IUDs and sexual humiliation: Muslim women who fled China for Kazakhstan recount ordeals\u201d, Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2019, https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/asia_pacific\/abortions-iuds-and-sexual-humiliation-muslim-women-who-fled-china-for-kazakhstan-recount-ordeals\/2019\/10\/04\/551c2658-cfd2-11e9-a620-0a91656d7db6_story.html<\/a>; Bin Javaid, \u201cMuslim women detained in China claim forced abortions\u201d, Al Jazeera, 1 Jan 2020, https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2019\/12\/muslim-women-detained-china-claim-forced-abortions-191231153646467.html<\/a>; Stubley, \u201cMuslim women \u2018sterilised\u2019 in China detention camps, say former detainees\u201d, The Independent, 12 Aug. 2019, https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/asia\/uighur-muslim-china-sterilisation-women-internment-camps-xinjiang-a9054641.html<\/a>z. Hoja (Joshua Lipes trans.), \u201cFemale Detainees at Xinjiang Internment Camps Face Sterilization, Sexual Abuse: Camp Survivor\u201d, RFA, 30 Oct. 2019, https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/uyghur\/abuse-10302019142433.html<\/a>; Stavrou, above<\/em>, note 13,
\nThe Government of China Must Immediately End Its Campaign of Mass Detentions, Abuse, Forced Labor, and <\/strong>Destruction of Muslim <\/strong>Cultur<\/strong>e<\/strong> in Xinjiang<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n