Xinjiang residents under tight control

[Randy W]

YouTube shuts Xinjiang videos pushing rights group to seek backup
A Kazakh activist says YouTube took down videos from his channel forcing him to move its videos to little-known service Odysee.

from Al Jazeera

Quote

 

A human rights group that attracted millions of views on YouTube of testimonies from people who say their families have disappeared in China’s Xinjiang region is moving its videos to little-known service Odysee after some were taken down by the Google-owned streaming giant, two sources told Reuters.

The group, credited by international organisations like Human Rights Watch for drawing attention to human rights violations in Xinjiang, has come under fire from Kazakh authorities since its founding in 2017.

Serikzhan Bilash, a Xinjiang-born Kazakh activist who co-founded the channel and has been arrested multiple times for his activism, said government advisers told him five years ago to stop using the word “genocide” to describe the situation in Xinjiang – an order he assumed came from pressure from China’s government on Kazakhstan.

 . . .

Following inquiries from Reuters as to why the channel was removed, YouTube restored it on June 18, explaining that it had received multiple so-called “strikes” for videos which contained people holding up ID cards to prove they were related to the missing, violating a YouTube policy which bans personally identifiable information from appearing in its content.

Human Rights Watch also had alerted YouTube about Atajurt being blocked, MIT Technology Review reported on Thursday.

YouTube asked Atajurt to blur the IDs. But Atajurt is hesitant to comply, the channel’s administrator said, concerned that doing so would jeopardise the trustworthiness of the videos.

Fearing further blocking by YouTube, they decided to back up content to Odysee, a website built on a blockchain protocol called LBRY, designed to give creators more control.

 

 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Finishing 31 anti-terrorism missions; killing 91 terrorists – Amid the 12th year marking the July 5 riots in #Urumqi, media unveiled the achievements an Armed Police Forces squadron in #Xinjiang has made over the years in fighting against #terrorism. https://globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228464.shtml

from the Global Times on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/115591005188475/posts/4271676192913248/

[Randy W]

Today, I signed the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The United States will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure supply chains are free from the use of forced labor — including from Xinjiang and other parts of China.

from President Joe Biden on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/POTUS/posts/449651673778033:0

from the U.S. Dept. of State

The Signing of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act   
PRESS STATEMENT

ANTONY J. BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE

DECEMBER 23, 2021

Edited December 24, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Xinjiang products 'out of stock' shows brand in dilemma amid US govt coercion

from the Global Times

Sam's Club store in Yizhuang area of Beijing Photo: Li Hao/GT

Quote

 

"Why have you taken Xinjiang products off the shelves?" Netizens asked under the official Sina Weibo account of Sam's Club, after they found that Xinjiang products, mostly fruits, became unavailable online. 

The Global Times searched for products related to Xinjiang in Sam's app and found although there were entries displayed, the search results were empty. Some typical Xinjiang products such as dates, cantaloupes and apricots are still available, but they are not produced in Xinjiang.

For example, the first result of dates is made in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, and black raisins in Langfang, North China's Hebei Province. 

A similar phenomenon could be seen at Walmart supermarket's online store.

The move triggered backlash from netizens, and some said that they will terminate their membership cards for Sam's Club. Some commented that, "if you have business in China, then you should follow China's rules, or get out of China." 

 

 

[Randy W]

New Law Bans All Imports from Xinjiang, but it's a lot more complicated than that.

from China Law Blog (Harris-Bricken Law Firm) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaLawBlog/posts/10158162360436109

New Law Bans All Imports from Xinjiang

DECEMBER 26, 2021

Quote

 

1. Not Just a Xinjiang Problem
We have repeatedly pointed out in these pages that even a total ban on Xinjiang-made products would not properly address Xinjiang’s forced labor problem. This is because people from Xinjiang do not only face forced labor conditions within Xinjiang’s borders: They also work under conditions of forced labor at locations elsewhere in China.

The new law addresses this by also prohibiting the importation of goods made by entities that work with the Xinjiang government “to recruit, transport, transfer, harbor or receive forced labor or Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, or members of other persecuted groups out of [Xinjiang].” This means that a company that brings Xinjiang laborers to work at a facility in, say, Shenzhen or Shanghai will be treated as if it was making its products in Xinjiang.

 . . .

One does not need to know much about CBP’s investigative methods to figure out that an assurance from a Chinese company that it does not use forced labor will not count for anything. After all, how would they even admit to something their government says does not happen in China.

For companies that get caught up in CBP’s dragnet, the agency will likely require third party audits. CBP is very selective when it comes to accepting third party reports, and it is hard to see how respectable audit companies will be up for the work.

Imagine a situation where an audit team visits a facility in China as part of a forced labor compliance effort. If the team finds evidence of forced labor, reporting those findings will place the audit team and the company at serious risk. Knowing this, even scrupulous auditors might stop looking for the forced labor they cannot report.

At the same time, audited companies face grave risks. Chinese authorities may not take kindly to efforts on the part of local companies to play by the new U.S. rules.

 . . .

3. Third Country Products May Also Be Banned Under the New Law
While the new law bans all imports from Xinjiang, CBP has already been looking at specific Xinjiang products, such as cotton and tomatoes. In that context, the agency is also looking at products made in third countries using components made in Xinjiang.

Importers should expect that enforcement focus to intensify. In practice, this means that sourcing from a manufacturer in Southeast Asia might not make the Xinjiang heat go away. Any China element in the supply chain gives rise to risks under the new law.

4. Next Up: The Rest of China
Back in October 2020, we warned that “any company manufacturing in China is at risk of getting entangled in the widespread use of Uyghur forced labor by Chinese companies.” Just over a year later, the warning not only holds, but the risks have extended to companies manufacturing outside of China, if they have exposure to China in their supply chains.

It has been clear for quite some time now that importing products from Xinjiang is reckless. Now the U.S. government is saving importers from their own mistakes, by basically illegalizing the import of Xinjiang products. But the new law makes clear that Xinjiang as a geographical location is only part of the problem. The USG now moves to a new phase, though what that new phase looks like remains to be seen. One possibility is that, as imports from Xinjiang dry up, USG interest on the issue begins to wane. Alternatively, the interest might remain, with increased focus on products made elsewhere in China, and beyond.

 

 

[Randy W]

Tesla Opens Showroom in China’s Xinjiang, Region at Center of U.S. Genocide Allegations
Maker of electric cars risks wading into a human-rights dispute that has entangled Western companies

from the WSJ 

Tesla’s Elon Musk is personally popular in China and the company has expanded rapidly there.
PHOTO: ALY SONG/REUTERS

Quote

 

The Austin, Texas-based electric car maker started operations at the new showroom in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, the company said in a Friday post on its official account on China’s popular Twitter-like social-media platform Weibo.

“On the last day of 2021, we meet in Xinjiang. In 2022, let us together launch Xinjiang on its electric journey!” Tesla wrote in the post, which was accompanied by pictures from an opening ceremony that included traditional Chinese lion dances and people posing with placards reading “Tesla (heart) Xinjiang.”

 . . .

In response to a question about Tesla’s new showroom, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council said in a statement that it wouldn’t comment on the situation surrounding one company, but said in general it believes the private sector should oppose the Chinese government’s human-rights abuses and genocide in Xinjiang.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has been critical of Western companies doing business in Xinjiang, urged Tesla to close its showroom in Urumqi. “No American corporation should be doing business in a region that is the focal point of a campaign of genocide targeting a religious and ethnic minority,” Ibrahim Hooper, the national communications director of the Washington-based advocacy group, said Monday.

Xinjiang has quickly become a litmus test for foreign companies doing business in China. Those who embrace the region risk regulatory trouble and reputational blowback in their home markets, while those who shun it face the wrath of China’s government and increasingly nationalistic consumers.

 

 

[Randy W]

Companies that import foreign products into the United States (especially if from China) need to get serious about forced labor compliance issues, says our law firm's lead forced labor compliance lawyer.

from China Law Blog on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaLawBlog/posts/10158182929071109

Forced Labor Compliance: Your Chance to Be Heard

Quote

 

2. Why Forced Labor Compliance Matters to U.S. Companies

Each U.S. company sourcing Chinese products is of course differently situated, but for many there will be clear risks with ignoring forced labor compliance. As these are identified, companies may find that it is not easy at all to mitigate those risks, at least not without significant changes to their existing supply chain. Even where companies are, based on actual evidence, reasonably confident as to the forced labor-free nature of their supply chain, demonstrating this in “clear and convincing evidence” will still be difficult, and in some cases unfeasible.

The issue of forced labor compliance is not going to go away, but U.S. businesses should do what they can for their concerns to be heard as the U.S. government (USG) formulates its policies. And the chance to be heard is now.

3. Public Comments Required by UFPLA: Your Chance to Be Heard

The UFLPA requires the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force to solicit public comments “on how best to ensure that goods … manufactured wholly or in part with forced labor in the People’s Republic of China … are not imported into the United States.” Under the new law, a notice must be published in the Federal Register to this effect no later than January 22, 2022. The comment period will last for 45 days, after which public hearings will be held by the Task Force.

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

The Smithsonian Magazine weighs in on the topic

The Olympics represent perhaps the most visible battleground for political maneuvers like the planned diplomatic boycott.

from the Smithsonian Magazine on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/smithsonianmagazine/posts/10158933887753253

HISTORY | FEBRUARY 2, 2022

Is China Committing Genocide Against the Uyghurs?
The Muslim minority group faces mass detention and sterilization—human rights abuses that sparked the U.S.’ diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics

Quote

 

Tracing their ancestry to the sixth century C.E., when they migrated to the Mongolian steppes, the Uyghurs are a Turkic people whose language is closest to Uzbek. Islam is the group’s dominant religion; around the 16th century, Uyghur religious leaders founded several Islamic city-states in what was then referred to as East Turkestan. It wasn’t until 1884 that the region was made an official province of China and renamed Xinjiang, which translates to “New Frontier.”

When the Qing Dynasty collapsed in 1911, several Uyghur leaders led successful attempts to create independent Muslim republics in western China. But with the rise of the Communist Party in 1949, China officially claimed Xinjiang once more.

The Chinese government has encouraged members of the country’s ethnic majority, the Han, to settle in Xinjiang since 1949. At the time, Han Chinese people made up just 6.7 percent of the region’s population. By 1978, that number had jumped to 41.6 percent. Today, the 12 million Uyghurs living in Xinjiang still represent a slight majority, but the Han population is in the majority in many cities, including the capital of Urumqi. Though Xinjiang is the largest region in the country and the largest economy among non-coastal provinces, the majority of Uyghurs still live in rural areas and have been largely excluded from this development.

 . . .

Is China committing genocide?

The United Nations’ definition of genocide is broken into five parts: killing members of a specific group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, imposing measures to prevent births, forcibly transferring children from one group to another, and creating conditions to destroy the group. These criteria distinguish genocide somewhat from “cultural genocide,” in which the language, religion and cultural practices of a group are outlawed.

According to Smith Finley, scholars have long debated whether China’s human rights abuses fit the definition of genocide. But that stance has started to change. “One year ago, not all scholars in Xinjiang studies agreed that the situation could or should be called a genocide,” she wrote in the Journal of Genocide Research in 2020. “In recent months, however, more have shifted closer to this position, and others beyond our discipline have joined in.”

 . . .

Kikoler understands why observers might prefer to describe the situation in Xinjiang as cultural genocide, but she points out that the term—unlike genocide—has no legal definition.

“When many people think of genocide, they think of mass killing, but it’s important to note that within the genocide convention, the restrictions on the ability to have children, the transferring of children away from families, those are all components,” Kikoler says.

 . . .

“This is a vexing challenge,” she says. “What do you do when [China is] one of the world’s superpowers who can use the U.N. Security Council as a shield, when they can use the Belt and Road Initiative to pay off not just neighboring countries but countries in Europe?”

 

 

[Randy W]

From a Chinese Internment Camp to the U.S., a Former Xinjiang Detainee Makes a Rare Escape
Ovalbek Turdakun was aided by a Canadian surveillance analyst and an unlikely assortment of Americans after spending months in an internment camp

Wall Street Journal

Ovalbek Turdakun flew clandestinely with his wife and son from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, to Istanbul in December as part of their complex escape from China.

Full article said:

When a former Xinjiang detainee and his family stepped off the plane at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., where U.S. officials were waiting to greet them, it marked the exultant end to a long—and rare—escape from the most tightly controlled region in China.

Ovalbek Turdakun, his wife and 12-year-old son arrived in the U.S. on Friday night after fleeing authorities in Xinjiang, a remote swath of mountains and deserts on China’s Central Asian frontier where the government has been carrying out a yearslong campaign of forced assimilation against Turkic minorities.

The family’s ordeal began in 2018, when Mr. Turdakun, an ethnic Kyrgyz, was taken to an internment camp, where he says he spent 10 months being subjected to political indoctrination and was injected with an unknown substance that caused his limbs to go numb.

Released unexpectedly, the 43-year-old left for Kyrgyzstan with his son and his wife, a Kyrgyz national. Once there, text messages from Chinese officials back in China made him fear he would be deported back to the country, until a Canadian surveillance analyst and an unlikely assortment of Americans hatched a plan to get the family out.

Several months and a clandestine trip to Turkey later, they arrived in the U.S. under a special arrangement with the State Department.

“We didn’t think the government would come to welcome us ordinary people,” Mr. Turdakun said in an interview after their arrival, referring to the officials in the airport, who presented them with chocolate chip cookies and a Washington Nationals baseball T-shirt for his son. “It made us feel so happy and safe.”

The State Department and Department of Homeland Security declined to comment. China’s Foreign Ministry and the government of Xinjiang didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The scale of the Chinese government’s assimilation campaign in Xinjiang is immense, with researchers estimating that a million or more people, most of them Muslim Uyghurs, have been sent to internment camps. Some Western government officials and independent legal experts have described China’s treatment of minorities in Xinjiang as a form of genocide—a charge Beijing has rejected as “the lie of the century.”

Mr. Turdakun’s story highlights how unusual it is for former Xinjiang detainees to find their way to safety, beyond Chinese authorities’ increasingly long reach in Central Asia and parts of the Middle East.

Authorities in Xinjiang keep former detainees under constant surveillance and tight control, according to exiled Uyghurs whose relatives have been released. Human-rights groups don’t have a complete picture of how many have managed to leave China, but believe the number is a tiny fraction of those let out.

Only a few  former detainees are publicly known to have been admitted to the U.S. They include Gulzira Auelkhan, an ethnic Kazakh who arrived in the U.S. in 2021, testified to an independent panel that she was forced to strip and restrain women before leaving them alone with male officers during her time in a camp.

China’s Foreign Ministry has raised doubts about Ms. Auelkhan’s statements, denying some details and alleging inconsistencies in others.

Governments friendly to China have frequently detained or deported members of Xinjiang minority groups at Beijing’s behest, according to human-rights groups and researchers, making it difficult for former detainees to find a haven.

Few former detainees have the means and international connections to appeal to Western governments for help, according to Bob Fu, the founder of a Texas-based Christian nonprofit called China Aid that provides financial and other assistance to Chinese dissidents and refugees.

Mr. Fu helped fund the Turdakun family’s journey and is helping them set up a life in the U.S. Previously, Mr. Fu said, he tried to work with the State Department to bring in a former Xinjiang detainee who had escaped to a Central Asian country, but local officials refused to let the man board his flight, instead rerouting him to a third country, where he was apprehended by Chinese authorities.

Mr. Turdakun was born in Kizilsu, a mountainous prefecture in Xinjiang bordering Kyrgyzstan where many of the region’s roughly 200,000 ethnic Kyrgyz live. He learned Mandarin in addition to Kyrgyz, studied law in college and worked as a translator for a Chinese export company. He said Chinese authorities detained him in February 2018, accusing him of acting against the country’s interests by marrying a Kyrgyz national and visiting mosques abroad—implying that Mr. Turdakun, a Christian, was a Muslim extremist.

Later, authorities also accused him of illegally overstaying his visa in Kyrgyzstan by 30 days on a previous visit, he said.

In the internment camp, located in Kizilsu, Mr. Turdakun said, he shared a room a little more than 200 square feet—roughly the size of a one-car garage—with two dozen other detainees and was given unknown injections that caused diarrhea, vomiting and a loss of sensation in the limbs.

Some other former detainees have also reported being injected with unknown drugs that caused severe physical symptoms.

“I was in despair,” Mr. Turdakun said in Mandarin, describing fears that he would be left permanently paralyzed. “‘How would I live after getting out? How would I work?’”

Without explanation in December that year, he said, authorities told him he was being released and said he could travel to Kyrgyzstan with his son and wife—as long as he came back to China. He said he feared the offer was a trap and initially declined, but he changed his mind in the summer of 2019 once authorities renewed his Chinese passport, which he took as a reassuring sign.

In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, the family lived in fear for more than two years. Mr. Turdakun said Chinese officials and a friend from back home contacted them repeatedly to urge them to return. In May last year, Mr. Turdakun discovered he could no longer access his Chinese bank account.

Alarmed, Mr. Turdakun contacted Ethan Gutmann, a research fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation who had interviewed him earlier while researching China’s alleged intimidation of Uyghurs abroad. Mr. Gutmann said in an interview that he worried Mr. Turdakun would be forced to go back to China.

“I saw a family about to get ripped apart,” he said.

Incomplete data collected by the Uyghur Human Rights Project, an advocacy group partially funded by the U.S. government, together with the nonprofit Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, shows that at least 60 Uyghurs have been detained or deported back to China in the last decade by Kyrgyz authorities, who maintain close relations with Beijing.

Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

To help Mr. Turdakun, Mr. Gutmann teamed up with Conor Healy, a Canadian surveillance analyst who works for IPVM, a security-industry publication. The pair brought the family’s case to the State Department, which agreed to consider it.

With Mr. Turdakun’s permission to remain in Kyrgyzstan set to expire in December, the group settled on a plan to have the family pose as tourists and fly to Turkey, where they could wait for the State Department to make its decision, according to Messrs. Gutmann and Healy.

They enlisted a family of American Christians working in Bishkek and an American friend of Mr. Healy’s who worked as a consultant for McKinsey Group to travel with them.

“My theory was that if we could get some Americans and Canadians to go with the family, exit customs would be far less likely to stop them,” said Mr. Healy.

Once in Istanbul, Mr. Turdakun sketched out on paper the layout and location of the camp where he had been detained. Mr. Healy used that information to locate the camp using Google satellite images and added the information to the family’s application for entry to the U.S.

On Jan. 9, the State Department granted the family special permission to enter the U.S., according to Mr. Healy. The family learned on April 1 that the Department of Homeland Security also signed off on their arrival.

Since landing in the U.S., the family has toured Washington, D.C., stopping to pose for photos in front of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Mr. Turdakun said the family’s first priority is to learn English and familiarize themselves with American culture.

At the same time, he said, they remain haunted by the thought of relatives left in China with little hope of escape.

“When I think about my past, I get chills,” he said.

 

Edited April 16, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

UN human rights chief’s China visit confirmed, including Xinjiang

• Michelle Bachelet will go to the far western region where Beijing is accused of human rights abuses
• She will not have to undergo quarantine due to ‘special arrangements for high-level visits by foreign dignitaries’

from the SCMP

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet’s office has confirmed she will travel to China. Photo: Jean Marc Ferré/UN Geneva/dpa
 

Quote

 

The UN human rights chief will imminently visit China for “six to seven days”, with her Geneva office confirming the trip after years of negotiations.
Michelle Bachelet’s trip will include a visit to Xinjiang, the far western region where the Chinese government has been accused of widespread persecution of Uygurs and other ethnic Muslims.
While a spokeswoman in the office said no exact date had been officially confirmed, Bloomberg earlier reported that it will take place next week.

 . . .

It will make Bachelet the first United Nations high commissioner for human rights to visit China since 2005, but activists are concerned that she is “walking into a propaganda minefield laid out by the Chinese Communist Party”.
“Without any assurances that her office has secured meaningful and unfettered access, the undersigned organisations are calling for an immediate postponement of the trip,” read a letter signed by a coalition of more than 200 activist groups earlier this month.
They called for Bachelet to visit Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Hong Kong, and to release the report.
“Proceeding with the visit under such ill-negotiated terms and without adequate briefing from those affected by China’s human rights violations, Ms Bachelet risks jeopardising a rare opportunity for independent human rights monitoring and grants Beijing yet another opportunity to further whitewash its repression,” the letter read.

 

 

[Randy W]

 

from ADVPodcasts on YoiuTube - BREAKING - Leaked Damning Evidence of Genocide in China

The Leaked Files and Photos - https://www.xinjiangpolicefiles.org/
BBC Article - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/85qihtvw6e/the-faces-from-chinas-uyghur-detention-camps

The faces from China’s Uyghur detention camps

By John Sudworth

Published: May 2022

Some of the re-education camp photos show guards standing by, armed with batons.

Quote

 

The Xinjiang Police Files - the title being used for the cache by a consortium of international journalists of which the BBC is part - contain tens of thousands of images and documents.

They include classified speeches by senior officials; internal police manuals and personnel information; the internment details for more than 20,000 Uyghurs; and photographs from highly sensitive locations.

The source of the files claims to have hacked, downloaded and decrypted them from a number of police computer servers in Xinjiang, before passing them to Dr Adrian Zenz, a scholar at the US-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation who has previously been sanctioned by the Chinese government for his influential research on Xinjiang.

Dr Zenz then shared them with the BBC, and although we were able to contact the source directly, they were unwilling to reveal anything about their identity or whereabouts.

None of the hacked documents is dated beyond the end of 2018, possibly as the result of a directive issued in early 2019 tightening Xinjiang’s encryption standards. That may have placed any subsequent files beyond the reach of the hacker.

 

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Winston discusses how the leaked data was verified

http://candleforlove.com/forums/topic/48071-serpentza-and-other-vloggers/?do=findComment&comment=649386

 

[Randy W]

US 'troubled' as UN rights chief urges China to review counter-terrorism policies

from Reuters via CNN

 

Quote

 

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, whose rare visit to China was criticized by rights groups and Western countries, said she urged Beijing to review its counter-terrorism policies to ensure they comply with international human rights standards.

Bachelet reiterated, however, that her six-day trip, which ended on Saturday and included a visit to the western region of Xinjiang, was not an investigation into China's human rights policies but an opportunity to engage with the government.

 . . .

"I have raised questions and concerns about the application of counter-terrorism and deradicalisation measures under broad application, particularly the impact on the rights of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities," she said during an online press briefing on Saturday.

China denies all accusations of abuse in Xinjiang.

Bachelet's access was limited as China arranged for her to travel in a "closed loop" -- isolating people within a virtual bubble to prevent the spread of Covid-19 -- with no foreign press.

 

 

[Randy W]

UN human rights body says China may have committed crimes against humanity in Xinjiang

The actions of the Chinese government in Xinjiang "may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”, according to a long-awaited report on conditions in the region.

from the SCMP on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/1284348239041090/

on YouTube

 

[Randy W]

Notice that this thread was started in Nov., 2016.

Chinese Statistics Reveal Plummeting Births in Xinjiang During Crackdown on Uyghurs

from the VOA News

 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)