Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development

Comité permanent des affaires étrangères et du développement international

For immediate release

Ottawa, March 12, 2021 -

Today, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development presented a report in the House of Commons entitled The Human Rights Situation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China. The report details the findings of the committee’s Subcommittee on International Human Rights and puts forward 15 recommendations to the Government of Canada.

The report reflects testimony from Uyghurs who fled the Xinjiang region of the People’s Republic of China, former detainees, the families of detained individuals, non-governmental organizations, academics and human rights experts. That testimony reveals a deeply troubling situation – the Government of the People’s Republic of China is employing extraordinary measures to persecute and repress Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. Those measures include:

· forced birth control and sterilization;

· separation of families, including the separation of children from their parents;

· unlawful detention in concentration camps and other severe deprivations of physical liberty;

· forced labour;

· enforced disappearances;

· pervasive state surveillance; and

· prohibition of religious practices, destruction of religious symbols ans sites, such as mosques.

The report’s overarching conclusion is its agreement with witnesses that these atrocities amount to crimes against humanity and genocide, as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

As the situation in Xinjiang is ongoing, urgent action is needed from Canada and the international community – in accordance with international obligations – to denounce these actions and defend the human rights of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the People’s Republic of China.

The Members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development wish to thank everyone who testified and provided documentation to the Subcommittee on these grave matters, and to thank the Members of the Subcommittee for carrying out this important work.