{"id":675,"date":"2021-05-27T19:49:38","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T16:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/?p=675"},"modified":"2021-05-27T19:50:21","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T16:50:21","slug":"uyghur-tribunal-determination-could-change-paradigm-for-china-relations-expertsnew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/uyghur-tribunal-determination-could-change-paradigm-for-china-relations-expertsnew\/","title":{"rendered":"UYGHUR TRIBUNAL DETERMINATION COULD CHANGE PARADIGM FOR CHINA RELATIONS: EXPERTSNEW"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

RFA<\/a>. 26 May 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Below is an article published by RFA<\/a>. Photo:AP.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A legal determination on whether China\u2019s policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) constitute genocide can force states to reevaluate their ties to Beijing, experts said, a week ahead of the first hearing of an international people\u2019s tribunal investigating reports of abuses in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Uyghur Tribunal, chaired by prominent lawyer Geoffrey Nice, will convene in London, England from June 4-7 to hear testimonies and review evidence about the situation in the XUAR, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since early 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two international courts that are able to make formal rulings on China\u2019s policies in the region have no plans to take up the case. China is not a party to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and therefore is not bound to submit to a trial, while the International Court of Justice (ICJ) can only take up a case that has been approved by the United Nations Security Council, and China\u2019s permanent membership in the Council gives it veto power over any such decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uyghur Tribunal Vice Chair Nicholas Vetch said in a statement ahead of next week\u2019s session, however, that legal bodies like his\u2014which lack state backing and whose rulings are non-binding\u2014can have an impact that is in many ways similar to a formal court when it comes to the situation in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople\u2019s tribunals can do, in some regard, what formal courts should be doing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey can provide a body of evidence. They can provide closure, and some sense of justice. And perhaps most importantly, they provide a judgment, which require states to consider how they interact with the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uyghur Tribunal Chair Sir Geoffrey Nice, who led the prosecution of ex-Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and has worked with the ICC, agreed that people\u2019s tribunals can provide an important record of the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy the giving or the rendering of that truth, they may achieve some peace,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than a dozen experts have been invited to participate in the Uyghur Tribunal hearing, including German researcher Adrian Zenz, who has published a number of reports on forced labor and abortion in the region; Nathan Ruser, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute who recently documented a stark drop in the Uyghur population in the XUAR; and American anthropologist Darren Byler, who has been studying the Uyghur community for many years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on evidence presented at the session and a second one planned for mid-September, as well as its own research, the tribunal is expected to issue a final verdict on whether China is committing genocide or crimes against humanity in the XUAR in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tribunal attacked by Beijing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After denying the camps\u2019 existence initially, China in 2019 changed tack and began describing the camps in the region as residential training centers that provide vocational training for Uyghurs, discourage radicalization, and help protect the country from terrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But reporting by RFA and other media outlets indicate that those in the camps are detained against their will and subjected to political indoctrination, routinely face rough treatment at the hands of their overseers and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often-overcrowded facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former detainees, several of whom plan to testify at the Uyghur Tribunal in June, have also described being subjected to torture, rape, sterilization, and other abuses while in custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parliaments in Canada, The Netherlands, the U.K., Lithuania, and the U.S. State Department, have described China\u2019s actions in the region as \u201cgenocide,\u201d while the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) says they constitute crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese officials and state media has lashed out at the Uyghur Tribunal ahead of next week\u2019s session, with XUAR government spokesman Xu Guixiang saying Tuesday that Beijing \u201ccondemned and despised\u201d the hearings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a total violation of international law and order, a serious desecration of the victims of real genocide, and a serious provocation to the 25 million people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang,\u201d Xu told reporters at a briefing in the capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the Uyghur Tribunal a \u201cspecial machine producing lies\u201d at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, and said its goal is \u201csplitting Xinjiang to contain China.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that the tribunal had been established with the cooperation of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) exile group, which Beijing considers a \u201cnotorious anti-China separatist\u201d with ties to terrorist organizations, and dismissed it as a \u201cclumsy public opinion show under the guise of law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhao repeated official claims that former camp detainees who plan to provide testimony at next week\u2019s session and have detailed their experiences in other international settings are \u201cactors\u201d and \u201clying speculators.\u201d China has held several of its own conferences on its policies in the XUAR in recent months during which officials have worked to undermine the credibility of Uyghur activists abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China imposed sanctions on the Uygur Tribunal in March, with Beijing saying it is one of four U.K. entities that \u201cmaliciously spread lies and disinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Worried about determination\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of the Uyghur Tribunal began in June 2020 after WUC President Dolkun Isa asked Nice to set up and preside over an independent people\u2019s court in order to investigate reports of abuses in the XUAR. The tribunal was formally established and began researching the situation in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isa told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service that the WUC has compiled a significant amount of evidence of rights violations in the region since confirming the existence of the internment camp system in 2018, and that Nice had agreed to proceed with the Tribunal after reviewing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that the Tribunal\u2019s final ruling will be \u201cnon-political and based on international law,\u201d and therefore can be used as a basis for some nations to \u201cadopt strict laws on China, put all sorts of embargoes on China, and investigate the crimes of Chinese leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChina\u2019s latest slander on the credibility of Uyghur camp survivors and witnesses who will testify at next week\u2019s Uyghur Tribunal is nothing short of witness intimidation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChina\u2019s attack on the independent Uyghur Tribunal before the court <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RFA. 26 May 2021 Below is an article published by RFA. Photo:AP. A legal determination on whether China\u2019s policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) constitute genocide can force states to reevaluate their ties to Beijing, experts said, a week ahead<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":676,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dukva.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}