Save Uyghur Applauds Parliament Formal Recognition of Uyghur Genocide

Save Uyghur heralds the House of Commons’ determination recognizing that the Chinese Communist Government is currently carrying out a genocide against Uyghur Muslims and other Turkic ethnic minorities of East Turkestan.

The House of Commons’ promising adoption of this position will hopefully pave the way for new humanitarian and diplomatic intervention to halt the atrocities and crimes against humanity plaguing Uyghur minorities in the region.

We are deeply dismayed that this formal genocide label was made without the participation of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. Although this opposition motion is non-binding on the government, it is symbolic and arrives after a House of Commons subcommittee on international human rights concluded in October 2020 that the human rights situation amounted to a genocide.

Save Uyghur has been advancing this argument for several years. The United States has already expressed bipartisan consensus across two consecutive administrations that Uyghurs are subjected to a genocide.

This designation of genocide is crucial in ending the Chinese government’s horrific, longstanding atrocities against Uyghurs, including running the largest concentration camps since the Nazis.

“Canada, declaring that China committed atrocity crimes amounting to genocide, fulfills the example of calling it what it is, a genocide,” said Taha Ghayyur, Executive Director of Justice For All Canada. “This amended motion must lead our government to take more serious actions against China, including ensuring that trade does not cost human rights in the region,” explained Ghayyur. Justice For All Canada is a non-profit, non-governmental human rights and advocacy organization challenging systemic discrimination and persecution of Indigenous, ethnic, and religious minorities worldwide. Justice For All Canada has been at the forefront of a Canadian-led coalition advocating against the genocide of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang district in China.

Today’s historic motion acts as a wake-up call for the Candian government and the world leaders. Canada must honour its international human rights obligations and contribute its weight in halting this continued oppression of Uyghur and Turkic Muslims.

We ask Canada to promote the need for an independent UN investigation following this genocide determination. China has previously stalled inquiries. However, Canada and its allies should bring international pressure upon China to stop their extermination of the Uyghur population.

Save Uyghur reinstates the call by the World Uyghur Congress to the United Nations to call a special session on China’s atrocities in this matter.