On 25th September Friday, the UK’s Commonwealth Minister demanded that China must allow the UN unfettered access to Xinjiang following “grave concerns” about her oppressive policies against the Uyghur Muslims in the region.
Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon issued a national statement on China at the UN Human Rights Council highlighting the compelling evidence of systemic human rights violations in Xinjiang while demanding that China allowed the UN unfettered access to the province. Requesting release of all those who are arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang, Lord Ahmad said, “In Xinjiang, there is compelling evidence – including from the Chinese authorities’ own documents – of systematic human rights violations. Culture and religion are severely restricted, and we have seen credible reports of forced labour and forced birth control. Staggeringly, up to 1.8 million people have been detained without trial. Across the country, we also remain seriously concerned about the pressure on media freedom.”
Earlier this month the UK had launched a new parliamentary enquiry into detention camps in Xinjiang. This happened following the announcement by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons. The Committee is likely to examine the role of the UK government in preventing British businesses benefitting from forced labour in the UK after reports emerged that the minority groups were working at “illegal wages”.
Tom Tugendhat, chair of the committee, had earlier said, “The mass detention of Uighurs in Xinjiang has horrifying echoes of the 1930s. There have been similar atrocities since, and each time the world has promised to never allow such violations to happen again. And yet, we now have clear, undeniable evidence of the persecution of more than one million people in these so-called re-education camps.”
There is no clear statistical data that provides an estimate of the number of people who have fled both from China and Hong Kong who have sought refuge in the UK following the Chinese aggression. While there are hundreds of Uighur Muslims who have found their way to the UK through Turkey, the UK has promised refuge to all those 3.5 million Hong Kongers who hold British National Oversees (BNO) besides the 2.5 who are eligible to the BNO passports. According to the UK government there was an about the eight time increase in the issuance of BNO passports ever since the political unrest in 2019 with 154,218 BNO passports issued in 2019. The authority also recorded 32,813 renewals by the end of June this year, the second-highest number since 2006.
Commenting on the Chinese aggression in Hong Kong, Lord Ahmad said, “Today, we focus on the serious situation in China. In Hong Kong, Beijing’s imposition of the National Security Law is a serious breach of the legally binding Sino-British Joint Declaration. It violates Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and directly threatens rights and freedoms.
“The National Security Law is being implemented with the apparent intention to eliminate dissent. It allows prosecution of certain cases in mainland China, a jurisdiction where defendants are often held for long periods without charge or access to legal counsel, and where we have concerns about judicial independence, due process, and reports of torture.”
