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Outgoing secretary of state imposes new sanctions on BeijingOfficials say 1m minorities in Xinjiang have been imprisonedThe US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has declared that China is committing “ongoing” genocide against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, less than 24 hours before leaving office.The incoming Biden team termed the persecution of Uighurs a genocide in August, but the Trump administration did not make a...

Foreign secretary sets out measures to ensure UK companies cannot profit from forced labour in XinjiangChina’s treatment of the Uighur people amounts to torture, the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said as he set out measures designed to ensure no companies allow the use of forced labour from Xinjiang province in their supply chain. Deterrent fines will be imposed on firms that do...

After 10 years living in France, I returned to China to sign some papers and I was locked up. For the next two years, I was systematically dehumanised, humiliated and brainwashedThe man on the phone said he worked for the oil company, “In accounting, actually”. His voice was unfamiliar to me. At first, I couldn’t make sense of what he was calling about. It...

Post claimed women in Xinjiang had been ‘emancipated’ as a result of China’s claimed efforts to eradicate extremismTwitter has removed a post by China’s US embassy claiming that Uighur women have been “emancipated” from extremism and were no longer “baby-making machines”. The post linked to an article denying allegations of forced sterilisation in Xinjiang.Twitter said the post had “violated the Twitter rules” but did...

Critic of UK decision to ban Huawei from 5G networks to be replaced by China’s vice-foreign ministerChina’s long-serving envoy to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, a staunch defender of closer UK-China economic ties and the imposition of new security laws in Hong Kong, is standing down, marking the end of an era in relations between the two countries that hit a high in 2015 but has...

Software could be used to identify videos filmed and uploaded by Uighur person, says IPVMThe Chinese tech company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd offered facial recognition software to clients which can identify the face of a Uighur person, according to a report.The US-based surveillance industry research firm IPVM said on Thursday it had found the detection technology in Alibaba’s Cloud Shield service, which offers content...

Forced labour much more widespread than initially thought in China region that supplies a fifth of the world’s cottonMore than half a million people from ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang have been coerced into picking cotton, on a scale far greater than previously thought, new research has suggested.The Xinjiang region produces more than 20% of the world’s cotton and 84% of China’s, but according...

Whether it be via football or fashion, the rest of the world is tied to what is happening in Xinjiang – as Antoine Griezmann has reminded usWhat once seemed surely unthinkable has become, in just a few years, irrefutable. The evidence amassed by scholars, journalists and campaigners of grotesque human rights abuses in Xinjiang has begun to cut through to the wider public. On...

Government says deal allowing Beijing officials to interrogate Chinese nationals was standard ‘technical arrangement’The Swiss government has strongly rejected accusations that a deal allowing Chinese officials to enter Switzerland and interrogate Chinese nationals put dissidents at risk.Switzerland entered into a so-called re-admission agreement with China back in 2015. The deal expired on Monday. Continue reading...

Court expected to rule there is still insufficient evidence against China, but file to be kept openThe International Criminal Court (ICC) has asked for more evidence before it will be willing to open an investigation into claims of genocide against Uighur people by China, but has said it will keep the file open for such further evidence to be submitted.With Beijing not a signatory...

Chinese authorities using a data-driven ‘predictive policing’ network to intern people from Muslim minoritiesA rare leak of a prisoner list from a Chinese internment camp shows how a government data programme targets Muslim minorities for detention over transgressions that include simply being young, or speaking to a sibling living abroad.The database obtained by Human Rights Watch (HRW) sheds new light on how authorities in...

Peers prepare to back cross-party move to block trade agreements with any country deemed to be committing genocideMinisters are facing a double defeat in the Lords over Britain’s trading links with China as peers prepare to back a cross-party move to block trade agreements with any country deemed by the UK high court to be committing genocide.The manoeuvre comes Labour-led plans in the upper...

Beijing says pontiff’s remarks have ‘no factual basis’ despite evidence a million of the Muslim minority group are being held in campsChina has dismissed criticism of its treatment of Uighurs in a new book by Pope Francis in which he describes the “persecution” of the Muslim minority group.A foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said Francis’ remarks had “no factual basis at all”. Continue reading...

Francis mentions plight of Muslim minority in China, alongside Rohingya and Yazidi, in new bookPope Francis has for the first time called China’s Muslim Uighurs a “persecuted” people, something human rights activists have been urging him to do for years.In the wide-ranging book Let Us Dream: the Path to a Better Future, he said: “I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor...

‘Chance should not be squandered’ to bring Chinese government to justice, letter statesThe chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has been urged by an international alliance of parliamentarians to accept a complaint alleging genocide by China against its Uighur Muslim minority.The complaint, backed by more than 60 parliamentarians from 16 countries, says the Chinese government may be committing crimes amounting to genocide and...

State department says ‘no credible’ evidence the East Turkestan Islamic Movement exists The United States has removed from its list of terror groups a shadowy faction regularly blamed by China to justify its harsh crackdown in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang region.In a notice in the Federal Register, which publishes new US laws and rules, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said on Friday he was...

More than 180 cases traced to garment factory where Uighurs must take up work placementsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageChina’s largest coronavirus outbreak in months appears to have emerged in a factory in Xinjiang linked to forced labour and the government’s controversial policies towards Uighur residents.More than 180 cases of Covid-19 documented in the past week in Shufu county, in southern Xinjiang,...

Canada concluded China’s actions against ethnic Uighurs in the Xinjiang province constituted a genocide and called for sanctions China has warned Canadian lawmakers to halt their “blatant interference” in its internal affairs, in the latest episode of a rumbling diplomatic feud between the two nations.Earlier this week, a Canadian parliamentary committee concluded China’s actions against ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang province constituted a genocide and...