Independent Uyghur Tribunal Rules China Committed Genocide Against Uyghurs in the Uyghur Region

UK-Based Uyghur Tribunal Concludes China Is Committing Genocide Against Uyghurs Through Systematic Birth Prevention and Mass Repression

By Uyghur Times Staff

London, December 9, 2021 — A UK-based independent people’s tribunal has concluded beyond reasonable doubt that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is committing genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in the Uyghur Region (officially known as Xinjiang), primarily through deliberate measures to prevent births and reduce the group’s future population, in violation of Article II(d) of the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, a renowned British barrister and former lead prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Uyghur Tribunal comprised nine pro bono members, including legal, medical, and academic experts. It operated without government backing or enforcement powers but applied the strictest legal standard of proof—beyond reasonable doubt—to evaluate extensive public evidence.

After hearings in 2021, including survivor testimonies, leaked PRC documents (such as the Xinjiang Papers and China Cables), expert analyses, satellite imagery, and demographic data from sources like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the tribunal delivered its judgment at Church House, Westminster.

Genocide Finding
The tribunal found that the PRC has implemented a “deliberate, systematic and concerted policy” to “optimise” the population in the Uyghur Region by achieving a long-term reduction in Uyghur and other ethnic minority births. Key measures include:

• Forced sterilizations (including womb removals).
• Widespread mandatory IUD insertions (often surgically irremovable without permission).
• Forced abortions, including late-term procedures, sometimes resulting in infanticide.

These policies caused dramatic birth rate declines: a 58.5% drop in natural population growth in Uyghur-majority southern prefectures (comparing earlier periods to 2018–2019), with projections of a 20–34% reduction in the future Uyghur population. The tribunal ruled these acts meet the Genocide Convention’s prohibition on “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,” with specific intent to destroy a substantial part of the Uyghurs—particularly future generations—through biological means. No evidence of organized mass killings was found, but genocide does not require extermination; destruction can occur via prevention of births.

Crimes Against Humanity and Torture
The tribunal also established beyond reasonable doubt that the PRC has committed crimes against humanity as part of a widespread and systematic attack on the Uyghur civilian population. These include:

• Imprisonment of hundreds of thousands to over a million without legitimate legal process in a vast network of detention facilities (often called “re-education” or vocational centers by Beijing).
• Widespread torture (beatings, tiger chairs, sleep deprivation, shackling, solitary confinement).
• Rape and other forms of sexual violence (including gang rapes and use of electric devices).
• Persecution, forced labor transfers, forcible displacement, enforced disappearances, and other inhumane acts.

Additional elements encompass cultural erasure (destruction of thousands of mosques and cemeteries), suppression of Uyghur language and religious practices, coerced Han Chinese cohabitation in Uyghur homes, and separation of children into state-run boarding schools to sever family and cultural ties.

Leadership Responsibility
Primary responsibility rests with senior PRC and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. The tribunal concluded: “President Xi Jinping, Chen Quanguo and other very senior officials in the PRC and CCP bear primary responsibility for acts in the Uyghur Region.” Policies trace to Xi’s 2014 directives for “no mercy” against separatism and terrorism, escalated under Chen Quanguo (Xinjiang Party Secretary from 2016), who intensified mass detentions, surveillance, and birth control campaigns. The centralized party-state system ensures such widespread actions require top-level authorization.

Context and Broader Campaign
The judgment describes an interlinked campaign of repression targeting Uyghur identity, religion, and demographics amid Beijing’s “War on Terror” framing. China denies all allegations, insisting facilities are voluntary vocational centers to combat extremism and promote stability, and labels the tribunal a “political farce” or anti-China tool.

The findings align with U.S. designations of genocide and crimes against humanity, similar recognitions by parliaments in the Netherlands, Lithuania, Czech Republic, and UK motions, plus sanctions from the U.S., EU, UK, and Canada. They emerged amid growing calls for boycotts of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over these abuses.

The Uyghur Tribunal, initiated at the request of the World Uyghur Congress, urged states to fulfill obligations under the Genocide Convention to prevent and punish such acts. The full judgment (amended for corrections in 2022, with appendices added) is available on the tribunal’s website: uyghurtribunal.com.