When it comes to helping the predominately Muslim Uighurs of China, the world has been inexcusably silent — including both the West and Muslim-majority countries.
About a year ago, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation collectively acknowledged the “disturbing reports” coming out of Xinjiang, the region of northwest China also referred to as East Turkestan by the Uighur community. However, since then, it is as if their leadership has abandoned their principles. They recanted their criticism afterward in a report in March, writing that the OIC “commends the efforts of the People’s Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and looks forward to further cooperation between the OIC and the People’s Republic of China.” With this abrupt change of course, from principled criticism to outright doublespeak, one would be hard-pressed to come up with a more striking example of moral cowardice.
Thus, in a moment when Muslim-majority countries the world over have abandoned their brothers and sisters in Xinjiang, it falls on the United States to take up their cause, along with the stewardship of human rights in a world that no longer respects them. Addressing this crisis could alleviate the suffering of the Uighurs and would be a victory for human rights defenders everywhere — and it’s in the national security interest of the U.S., as it would put authoritarian regimes everywhere on notice.
While all of Washington is consumed with the impeachment proceedings, there is a response making its way through Congress, presenting a rare opportunity for bipartisan cooperation to cut through the vitriol for the greater good. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed the “Uighur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019,” and handed it over to the Senate for final passage. Now with a new title, “The Uighur Act of 2019,” it is up to the Senate to pass this strong bill and send it to the president to sign into law.
The only question is whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, will find the backbone to pass it.
The new version of the bill contains several House amendments that considerably strengthen it compared to its original version, particularly with regard to commercial sanctions. It explicitly calls for sanctions on China under the International Religious Freedom Act and against specific Chinese government officials under the Global Magnitsky Act, including Chen Quanguo, a powerful member of the politburo and a main architect of the government’s Xinjiang policy. It also requires the president, no later than 120 days after enactment, to identify and place items and technologies on the Commerce Control List that provide a critical capability to the Chinese government for suppressing human rights.
These measures would represent an unprecedented step forward in the effort to stop the ongoing human rights crisis against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other beleaguered minorities in northwest China. As has been well documented, these groups are subject to involuntary detainment in massive “reeducation camps,” as the Chinese government calls them — most impartial observers plainly refer to them as internment camps. Estimates place the number of detained Uighurs somewhere between one and two million.
A major reason China has felt emboldened to go after its Muslim minority with such systematic oppression, as is also the case in India, is the world’s failure to act in Myanmar. Because the world did not act to send a strong message to the Myanmar regime that the dehumanization and forced expulsion of an entire population of Rohingya Muslims is morally unconscionable and politically unacceptable, authoritarian regimes of every kind now feel free to pursue their agendas of oppression unimpeded.
This trend must and can be stopped, but only if the U.S. sends a powerful message to its allies and its adversaries that such brazen, state-sanctioned violence will no longer be tolerated in the international community. Congress has already shown it can stand up to democracy when necessary, as in the recently passed Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Now, it only must show similar courage here.
McConnell’s decision on the Uighur Act will determine where his sympathies lie — with the victims of oppression at the hands of violent, unaccountable governments or with those very governments themselves. If the U.S. is to stand up for human rights, the time is now.
The ball is in McConnell’s court. Do the right thing and move the bill to the floor for a vote.
Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid is an internationally recognized expert on human rights and Islamophobia and leads the Save Uighur, Burma Task Force, Free Kashmir, and the Faith Coalition to Stop Genocide campaigns.
