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Chemicals producer says audits revealed no wrongdoing but recent media reports crossed red lineThe German chemicals producer BASF has said it will withdraw from its two joint ventures in Xinjiang, after media reports about alleged human rights abuses relating to its partner company, which BASF’s CEO said crossed a red line.In a statement on Friday, BASF said that while “regular due diligence measures including...

Exclusive: Politicians say chemicals producer ‘appears to be implicated’ in abuses of minorities in Chinese provinceThe German chemicals producer BASF “appears to be implicated in gross abuses” of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and should withdraw from the Chinese province, a group of politicians from around the world have said.The group made the allegation in a letter to BASF’s chair, Martin Brudermüller, on Monday, after the...

Hundreds of women sentenced for practices such as studying the Qur’an, dating back as far back as 60s and 70s, analysis of Chinese police files showsHundreds of thousands of Uyghur female religious leaders are estimated to have been arrested and imprisoned in Xinjiang since 2014, with some elderly women detained for practices that took place decades ago, according to an analysis of leaked Chinese...

Companies such as Toyota, Volkswagen, Tesla, General Motors and BYD could do more to ensure their strict standards are applied in China, Human Rights Watch saysCar manufacturers Toyota, Volkswagen, Tesla, General Motors and BYD may be using aluminium made by Uyghur forced labour in their supply chains and could do more to minimise that risk, Human Rights Watch says.An investigation conducted by HRW has...

Campaigners say testing is among methods used to surveil people in the tightly controlled regionThe US biotech company Thermo Fisher has halted sales of its DNA identification kits in Tibet, nearly five years after it made a similar commitment about the sale of its products in the neighbouring western Chinese region of Xinjiang.It decided to stop sales in Tibet after months of complaints from...

Exclusive: Study published in 2019 used blood and saliva samples from 203 Uyghur and Kazakh people living in Xinjiang capitalConcerns have been raised that academic publishers may not be doing enough to vet the ethical standards of research they publish, after a paper based on genetic data from China’s Uyghur population was retracted and questions were raised about several others including one that is...