Citing an independent report by more than 50 global experts in human rights, war crimes and international law, CNN reports that the Chinese government’s alleged actions in Xinjiang have violated every single provision in the United Nations’ Genocide Convention.
The report, released Tuesday by the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy think tank in Washington DC, and seen by CNN, claimed the Chinese government “bears state responsibility for an ongoing genocide against the Uyghur in breach of the (UN) Genocide Convention.”
The report is the first of its kind by a non-governmental organization that has done an independent legal analysis of the accusations of genocide in Xinjiang, including what responsibility Beijing may bear for the alleged crimes, the report said.
According to CNN, the four-page UN Genocide Convention was approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948 and has a clear definition of what constitutes "genocide." China is a signatory to the convention, along with 151 other countries.
Article II of the convention states genocide is an attempt to commit acts “with an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” CNN says.
CNN reports that there are five ways in which genocide can take place, according to the convention: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
“China's policies and practices targeting Uyghurs in the region must be viewed in their totality, which amounts to an intent to destroy the Uyghurs as a group, in whole or in part,” the report claimed.
According to CNN, a separate report published on February 8 by Essex Court Chambers in London, which was commissioned by the World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur Human Rights Project, reached a similar conclusion that there is a "credible case" against the Chinese government for genocide.
No specific penalties or punishments are laid out in the convention for states or governments determined to have committed genocide. But the Newlines report said that under the convention, the other 151 signatories have a responsibility to act, CNN reports.
“China’s obligations ... to prevent, punish and not commit genocide are erga omnes, or owed to the international community as a whole,” the report added, quoted by CNN.
CNN quotes Yonah Diamond, legal counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, who worked on the report, as saying that a common public misunderstanding about the definition of genocide was it required evidence of mass killing or a physical extermination of a people.
“The real question is, is there enough evidence to show that there is an intent to destroy the group as such -- and this is what this report lays bare,” he said.
According to the report, between 1 million and 2 million people have allegedly been detained in as many as 1,400 extrajudicial internment facilities across Xinjiang by the Chinese government since 2014, when it launched a campaign ostensibly targeting Islamic extremism.
Cited by CNN, the report details allegations of sexual assaults, psychological torture, attempted cultural brainwashing, and an unknown number of deaths within the camps.
The report also attributed a dramatic drop in the Uyghur birth rate across the region -- down about 33% between 2017 and 2018 -- to the alleged implementation of an official Chinese government program of sterilizations, abortions and birth control, which in some cases was forced upon the women without their consent, according to CNN.
CNN report says that the Chinese government has repeatedly defended its actions in Xinjiang, saying citizens now enjoy a high standard of life.