\n US senators sought Tuesday to declare that China is committing genocide against Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking Muslims, a step that could ramp up pressure on behalf of the estimated one million-plus people in camps.\n<\/p>\n
\n The resolution was introduced by senators across the political spectrum, although it is unlikely to move quickly as the Senate is out of session until after next week's election.\n<\/p>\n
\n The text states that China's campaign \"against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and members of other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region constitutes genocide.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This resolution recognizes these crimes for what they are and is the first step toward holding China accountable for their monstrous actions,\" said Senator John Cornyn, a Republican who sponsored it.\n<\/p>\n
\n Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, said the resolution would show that the United States \"can't stay silent.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"China's assault on Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups -- escalating surveillance, imprisonment, torture, and forced 're-education camps' -- is genocide, pure and simple,\" Merkley said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Other sponsors include Marco Rubio, a close ally of President Donald Trump on foreign policy, and Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rights groups say that more than one million Uighurs languish in camps in the Xinjiang region as China seeks to forcibly integrate the community and root out their Islamic heritage.\n<\/p>\n
\n China has denied wrongdoing and describes the camps as vocational centers that teach skills to prevent the allure of Islamic radicalism.\n<\/p>\n
\n Successive US administrations have been circumspect in using the term genocide, which has legal consequences at home and abroad.\n<\/p>\n
\n Robert O'Brien, Trump's national security advisor, said earlier this month that \"if not genocide, something close\" to it is taking place in Xinjiang.\n<\/p>\n
\n The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who is leading Trump in pre-election polls, has called China's actions genocide and vowed a tougher response.\n<\/p>\n
\n The UN convention on genocide, drafted in the aftermath of the Holocaust, obligates states to prevent and punish the \"odious scourge.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n It defines genocide to include actions such as killing as well as preventing births \"with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n A report by German researcher Adrian Zenz found that China has carried out forced sterilizations and threatened women with internment for refusing to abort pregnancies that exceed birth quotas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US senators sought Tuesday to declare that China is committing genocide against Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking Muslims, a step that could ramp up pressure on behalf of the estimated one million-plus people in camps. The resolution was introduced by senators across the political spectrum, although it is unlikely to move quickly as the Senate is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-45791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n