MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the human rights situation in Xinjiang, including the Xinjiang police files

7.6.2022 - (2022/2700(RSP))

with request for inclusion in the agenda for a debate on cases of breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law
pursuant to Rule 144 of the Rules of Procedure

Ryszard Antoni Legutko, Raffaele Fitto, Anna Fotyga, Adam Bielan, Alexandr Vondra, Angel Dzhambazki, Assita Kanko, Charlie Weimers, Elżbieta Kruk, Hermann Tertsch, Jadwiga Wiśniewska, Nicola Procaccini, Roberts Zīle, Valdemar Tomaševski, Veronika Vrecionová, Vincenzo Sofo, Witold Jan Waszczykowski, Zbigniew Kuźmiuk, Zdzisław Krasnodębski, Carlo Fidanza
on behalf of the ECR Group

See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B9-0310/2022

NB: This motion for a resolution is available in the original language only.

B9‑0312/2022

European Parliament resolution on the human rights situation in Xinjiang, including the Xinjiang police files

 

(2022/2700(RSP))

The European Parliament,

 

–  having regard to its previous resolutions on the situation in Xinjiang, China, in particular those of 17 December 2020 on forced labour and the situation of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, of 19 December 2019 on the situation of the Uyghurs in China (China Cables), of 18 April 2019 on China, notably the situation of religious and ethnic minorities, of 4 October 2018 on mass arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and Kazakhs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, of 12 September 2018 on the state of EU-China relations, and of 15 December 2016 on the cases of the Larung Gar Tibetan Buddhist Academy and Ilham Tohti, of 10 March 2011 on the situation and cultural heritage in Kashgar (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China), and of 26 November 2009 on China: minority rights and application of the death penalty,

 

–  having regard to its resolution of 16 September 2021 on a new EU-China strategy,

 

–  having regard to the EU-China Strategic Partnership launched in 2003,

 

–  having regard to the adoption by the Council of the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime,

 

–  having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 16 December 1966, which China signed in 1998 but has never ratified,

 

–  having regard to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, notably Article II, section D thereof,

 

–  having regard to the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989,

 

–  having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948,

 

–  having regard to Rule 144 of its Rules of Procedure,

 

 

1. whereas the situation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has rapidly deteriorated, particularly since the launch of the Chinese Government’s ‘Strike Hard against Violent Terrorism’ campaign in 2014, and whereas Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang have been subjected to arbitrary detention, torture, forced labour, political indoctrination, egregious restrictions on religious practice and culture, and a digitalised surveillance system so pervasive that every aspect of daily life is monitored;

 

2. whereas in May 2022 thousands of Chinese government documents and spreadsheets, referred to as the “Xinjiang Police Files,” were released, following a hack of the internal police computer networks of the Konasheher and Tekes counties in Xinjiang; whereas the documents contain Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders’ speeches, police training manuals, graphic depictions of prisoner restraint, and photos of teenagers, farmers and elderly men and women languishing in indeterminate illegal detention;

 

3. whereas the released documents provide new support for the extraordinary scale of internment during recent years, adding to the evidence that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had interned between one and two million Uyghurs and other ethnic minority individuals in a system of extrajudicial mass internment camps in what remains the largest incarceration of an ethnic group since the Second World War;

 

4. whereas the Xinjiang Police Files provide crucial evidence for the prison-like nature of the internment camp system, demonstrating the arbitrary nature by which Uyghurs are labelled as “terrorist” or ”extremist”, and thereby made into a target for detention, internment, and imprisonment; whereas internal operations directives for the internment camps containing shoot-to-kill orders and instructions that detainees are to be transferred handcuffed, shackled, and hooded, give further evidence of the violent and involuntary conditions of the camps;

 

5. whereas the documents also point to president Xi Jinping’s informed and active support for Xinjiang’s “re-education,” “strike hard,” and “de-extremification” campaigns, as well as for continued spending on additional detention facilities and staff to manage the influx of detainees;

 

6. Whereas young Uyghur children have been sent to state-run orphanages and are detained or subjected to forced labour without parental consent, family access and even if one of their parents is detained in an internment camp, and are forced to undergo political indoctrination; whereas the Chinese authorities are also separating children from their families by preventing reunification between children in Xinjiang and their parents overseas, and vice versa;

 

7. whereas credible research shows that the Chinese authorities have implemented an official scheme of targeted birth prevention measures against Uyghur women in an effort to reduce Uyghur birth rates; whereas, as part of this scheme, the Chinese authorities are systematically subjecting Uyghur women of childbearing age to forced abortions, intrauterine injections and sterilisation;

 

8. Whereas pursuant to Government campaigns, local authorities have eliminated Uyghur education, destroyed Uyghur architecture, and damaged, altered, or completely demolished the majority of mosques and sacred sites in the region, while closing off other sites or converting them into commercial spaces.

 

9. whereas mass internment, torture, mass birth-prevention strategy, deportation and forcible transfers of adults and children, eradication of Uyghur identity, community and culture, persecution, enforced disappearances provide supporting evidence that the PRC’s policies in Xinjiang meet the genocide and crimes against humanity criterias cited in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; whereas based on population projections conducted by Chinese researchers, the estimated population loss from suppressed birth rates in southern Xinjiang ranges between 2.6 and 4.5 million; whereas the Uyghur Tribunal and other credible, independent investigative bodies and research organisations have concluded that China’s serious and systemic human rights violations against the Uyghurs and other ethnic Turkic peoples amount to torture, crimes against humanity and genocide; whereas the U.S. Government, as well as legislative bodies in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Lithuania, Czech Republic, and Ireland have expressed similar positions;

 

10. whereas previously released Chinese government documents and media reports show evidence that hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority labourers in Xinjiang are being forced to pick cotton by hand through a coercive state-mandated labour transfer and “poverty alleviation” scheme; whereas European supply chains may be at high risk of being tainted by forced labour from XUAR in China, particularly the cotton, tomato, solar panel, beauty and fashion, and technology industries; whereas the coming into effect of the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) on 21 June 2022 may create an additional risk of the EU becoming a dumping ground for goods made by Uyghur forced labour;

 

11. whereas Uyghurs in exile, including those living in the EU, continue to experience frequent forms of harassment, threats, and intimidation from Chinese authorities and state agents; whereas credible reporting has shown that the Chinese government has drastically increased its transnational repression and attempts to forcibly return Uyghurs and other exiled groups living in Europe;

 

12. whereas credible reporting and witness testimonies have found that Chinese surveillance companies, including Hikvision and Dahua, are directly involved in the repressive monitoring and controlling of the population in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and in the internment camp system;[1]

 

 

13. whereas the Chinese authorities did not provide the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, with full and unfettered access to people and places during her recent visit to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, preventing the High Commissioner from conducting an independent assessment of the situation on the ground; whereas the High Commissioner’s independent report, which the OHCHR in December 2021 said would be released “in a matter of weeks”, nevertheless remains unpublished;

 

14. whereas the promotion of and respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law should remain at the centre of the long-standing relationship between the EU and China, in line with the EU’s commitment to upholding these values in its external action and China’s expressed interest in adhering to them in its own development and international cooperation;

 

***

 

1. Deplores the ongoing persecution and the serious and systematic human rights violations which amount to crimes against humanity and genocide; urges the Chinese government to immediately end its scheme of targeted birth prevention measures, including forced abortions, against Uyghur women;
    
2. Reiterates its deepest concern at the system of mass internment camps which has been established in Xinjiang; deplores the forced political indoctrination and ill-treatment of detainees in the re-education facilities and the widespread human rights abuses, including mass forced sterilizations and the extensive use of digital surveillance technologies;
    
3. Urges the Chinese Government to put an immediate end to the practice of arbitrary detention without charge, trial or conviction for a criminal offence of members of the Uyghur and other ethnic Turkic peoples, to close all camps and detention centres, to provide information about the location and medical conditions of those detained and to immediately and unconditionally release the detainees, and to reunite the Uyghur children, that are forcibly put in state-run boarding facilities, with their parents;

 

4. Expresses profound concern over reports of the use of forced labour in internment camps in XUAR and over reports of forced labour systems outside the Xinjiang region; is deeply worried over the use of forced labour in the supply chain of international companies doing business in Xinjiang; calls on the EU, its Member States and the international community to implement effective control mechanisms in response to Uyghur forced labour; emphasises that actors from the private sector should assess their engagement in Xinjiang in order to scrutinise their supply chains to ensure they are not involved in human rights violations;

 

5. Encourages the EU and its Member States to reduce the import of any goods made with forced labour from the People’s Republic of China, particularly those goods mined, manufactured, or produced in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; calls on the EU and its Members States to establish a blacklist of Chinese companies implicated in Uyghur forced labour and to ban the export of surveillance technologies to China; calls for the inclusion of strong and enforceable human rights clauses in any trade agreement with China;

 

6. Expresses its concern over the proceedings and outcomes of the visit of the UN High Commissioner for human rights to China, including to Xinjiang, which by no means reflected the meaningful investigation that governments, civil society, and institutions, including the European Parliament, have called for; urges the EU to raise these concerns directly with the OHCHR and press for the release of the UN High Commissioner’s independent report on the human rights situation; calls on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to launch independent legal investigations into alleged genocide, alleged crimes against humanity and human rights violations, including forced labour programmes taking place in several regions in China, and calls for the EU and its Member States to provide their political backing and garner international support for such an investigation, in accordance with obligations under the UN Genocide Convention; calls on the Chinese authorities to allow free, meaningful and unhindered access to the region;

 

7. Welcomes the sanctions imposed so far by the Council under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime; calls upon the Council to evaluate the adoption of additional sanctions on the Chinese individuals and entities, including those mentioned in the leaked Xinjiang Police Files, who are responsible for, or otherwise involved in, the systematic human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region;

 

8. Calls on the Member States to suspend extradition treaties with the PRC, to prevent the extradition of Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, Tibetans, or other Chinese dissidents in Europe to stand political trial in the PRC;

 

9. Encourages the EU and Member States to urgently identify and mitigate risks related to Chinese foreign interference, for example through private Chinese tech and surveillance companies like Dahua, Hikvision, and Huawei;

 

10. Underlines that the promotion of human rights and the rule of law must be at the core of the EU's engagement with China; stresses the importance for the EU and the international community to robustly act to promote full respect for human rights in the context of its relationship with China; calls on the EU to closely monitor the human rights situation in Xinjiang and to raise the issue in all relevant meetings with the Chinese counterparts at all levels;

 

11. Calls upon the EU and its Member States to organise meaningful consultations with Uyghur communities in the EU;

 

12. Calls on the Chinese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release the Uyghur scholar and Sakharov Prize winner Ilham Tohti, and to ensure, in the meantime, that he has regular and unrestricted access to his family and the lawyers of his choice, and that he is not subjected to torture or other ill-treatment;

 

13. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the European External Action Service, the Member States, the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the National People’s Congress.

• [1] https://ipvm.com/reports/hikvision-cell
  https://s.ipvm.com/uploads/eab3/fcde/Hikvision%20IPVM%20White%20Paper.pdf
  https://ipvm.com/reports/dahua-uyghur-warning