The Chinese government's alleged actions in Xinjiang have violated every single provision in the United Nations' Genocide Convention, according to an independent report by more than 50 global experts in human rights, war crimes and international law. The report, released on Tuesday by the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy think tank in Washington DC, claimed the Chinese government "bears state responsibility for an ongoing genocide against the Uighur in breach of the (UN) Genocide Convention." It is the first time a non-governmental organization has undertaken an independent legal analysis of the accusations of genocide in Xinjiang, including what responsibility Beijing may bear for the alleged crimes. An advance copy of the report was seen exclusively by CNN. Up to 2 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are believed to have been placed in a sprawling network of detention centers across the region, according to the US State Department, where former detainees allege they were subjected to indoctrination, sexually abused and even forcibly sterilized. China denies allegations of human rights abuses, saying the centers are necessary to prevent religious extremism and terrorism. Speaking at a press conference on March 7, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said allegations of a genocide in Xinjiang "couldn't be more preposterous." On Jan. 19, the outgoing Trump administration declared the Chinese government was committing genocide in Xinjiang. A month later, the Dutch and Canadian parliaments passed similar motions despite opposition from their leaders. Azeem Ibrahim, director of special initiatives at Newlines and co-author of the new report, said there was "overwhelming" evidence to support its allegation of genocide. "This is a major global power, the leadership of which are the architects of a genocide," he said. Genocide Convention The four-page UN Genocide Convention was approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948 and has a clear definition of what constitutes "genocide." China is a signatory to the convention, along with 151 other countries. Article II of the convention states genocide is an attempt to commit acts "with an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." There are five ways in which genocide can take place, according to the convention: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Since the convention was introduced in 1948, most convictions for genocide have occurred in the International Criminal Tribunals held by the UN, such as those for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, or in national courts. In 2006, former dictator Saddam Hussein was found guilty of genocide in a court in Iraq. However any establishment of an International Criminal Tribunal would require the approval of the UN Security Council, of which China is a permanent member with veto power, making any hearing on the allegations of genocide in Xinjiang unlikely. While violating just one act in the Genocide Convention would constitute a finding of genocide, the Newlines report claims the Chinese government has fulfilled all criteria with its actions in Xinjiang. "China's policies and practices targeting Uighurs in the region must be viewed in their totality, which amounts to an intent to destroy the Uighurs as a group, in whole or in part," the report claimed. A separate report published on February 8 by Essex Court Chambers in London, which was commissioned by the World Uighur Congress and the Uighur Human Rights Project, reached a similar conclusion that there is a "credible case" against the Chinese government for genocide. No specific penalties or punishments are laid out in the convention for states or governments determined to have committed genocide. But the Newlines report said that under the convention, the other 151 signatories have a responsibility to act. "China's obligations ... to prevent, punish and not commit genocide are erga omnes, or owed to the international community as a whole," the report added. Yonah Diamond, legal counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, who worked on the report, said a common public misunderstanding about the definition of genocide was it required evidence of mass killing or a physical extermination of a people. "The real question is, is there enough evidence to show that there is an intent to destroy the group as such — and this is what this report lays bare," he said. All five definitions of genocide laid out in the convention are examined in the report to determine whether the allegations against the Chinese government fulfill each specific criterion. "Given the serious nature of the breaches in question ... this report applies a clear and convincing standard of proof," the report said. The Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy was founded in 2019 as a nonpartisan think tank by the Fairfax University of America, with a goal to "to enhance US foreign policy based on a deep understanding of the geopolitics of the different regions of the world and their value systems." It was previously known as the Center for Global Policy. Thousands of eyewitness testimonies from Uighur exiles and official Chinese government documents were among the evidence considered by the authors, Diamond said. According to the report, between 1 million and 2 million people have allegedly been detained in as many as 1,400 extrajudicial internment facilities across Xinjiang by the Chinese government since 2014, when it launched a campaign ostensibly targeting Islamic extremism. Beijing has claimed the crackdown was necessary after a series of deadly attacks across Xinjiang and other parts of China, which China has categorized as terrorism. The report details allegations of sexual assaults, psychological torture, attempted cultural brainwashing, and an unknown number of deaths within the camps. "Uighur detainees within the internment camps are ... deprived of their basic human needs, severely humiliated and subjected to inhumane treatment or punishment, including solitary confinement without food for prolonged periods," the report claimed. "Suicides have become so pervasive that detainees must wear 'suicide safe' uniforms and are denied access to materials susceptible to causing self-harm." — Courtesy CNN
