UHRP Calls for End to Atrocities on Second Uyghur Genocide Recognition Day

December 9, 2023 | 7:00 a.m. EST
For Immediate Release
Contact: Omer Kanat +1 (202) 790-1795, Peter Irwin +1 (646) 906-7722

The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) calls for swift action to end atrocities against Uyghurs, two years after the Uyghur Tribunal handed down its historic verdict.

“This day honors the survivors and commemorates the victims of the atrocities, but it must also stand as a marker of our collective determination to end the genocide,” said Omer Kanat, Uyghur Human Rights Project Executive Director.

Since the findings of the Uyghur Tribunal, the French National Assembly passed a resolution recognizing the situation as genocide, and the European Parliament passed a resolution stating that the persecution of Uyghurs amounts to crimes against humanity and “provide[s] serious indications of a possible genocide.”

The US Government and legislative bodies in the US, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Lithuania, Czechia and Ireland have all made similar determinations of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The United Nations has also come to similar conclusions. An assessment by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) found that China may be committing crimes against humanity. The Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery found that Uyghurs have been subject to forced labor and some instances may amount to enslavement as a crime against humanity.

In January 2021, UHRP led a group of 50 genocide prevention organizations and experts who said the treatment of Uyghurs “meet[s] the threshold of acts constitutive of genocide, core international crimes under the Genocide Convention.”

UHRP calls on governments to acknowledge their responsibilities under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, and take all necessary steps to end the ongoing Uyghur genocide.