WASHINGTON, May 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The US Congress voted to open the way to sanctions against Chinese officials over the mass incarceration of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.
The House of Representatives voted 413-1 to back the final version of the Uighur Human Rights Act, which has already angered Beijing.
President Donald Trump can sign or veto the bill, but Congress easily has the votes to override him if he rejects it.
According to the legislation, Trump shall submit to Congress a list of senior Chinese government officials who are engaged in or responsible for serious human rights abuses and the Department of State shall report to Congress on human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including individuals detained in forced labor camps.
The legislation came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified to Congress that Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from mainland China, opening the door to changes of its treatment under American law.
Relations between Washington and Beijing have recently worsened over the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 100,000 people and infected nearly 1.7 million others in the US.
Washington blames Beijing for the pandemic, saying it could have been stopped at the source, and accuses it of hiding information from the world related to the virus.
China’s Xinjiang region is home to around 10 million Uyghurs. The Turkic Muslim group, which makes up around 45% of Xinjiang’s population, has long accused China’s authorities of cultural, religious and economic discrimination.
Up to a million people, or about 7% of the Muslim population in Xinjiang, have been incarcerated in an expanding network of “political re-education” camps, according to US officials and UN experts.
In a report last September, Human Rights Watch accused the Chinese government of a “systematic campaign of human rights violations” against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
According to the 117-page report, the Chinese government conducted “mass arbitrary detention, torture and mistreatment” of Uyghur Turks in the region.
