The persecution of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang

Top lines

The Labour Party has been appalled by the human rights abuses committed against the Uyghur people and is calling on the UK government to apply sanctions to Chinese officials who have played a role in the persecution, and to oppose China’s election to the UN human rights council over ongoing human rights violations.

The treatment of the Uyghur people, border disputes with neighbouring countries and the implementation of new national security legislation in Hong Kong is a pattern of behaviour from China that the UK cannot afford to turn a blind eye to.

In July, Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy called for the UK to apply Magnitsky-style sanctions on CCP officials involved in human rights abuses in China using the new global human rights sanctions regime.

In August, Lisa Nandy called for a D20 alliance of the world’s democracies – from those in Europe to all across the Asia and Pacific region – to stand up to authoritarian regimes and defend human rights.

In September, Lisa Nandy and Stephen Kinnock met with Rahima Mahmut, a Uyghur singer and activist, and the Director of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) in the UK, who shared the WUC’s MP pledge.

In the same month, a ‘Uyghur Tribunal’ – led by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, a British barrister who prosecuted Slobodan Milošević – was established to determine whether international crimes are proved to have been committed by China.

This briefing is a collaboration between the New Diplomacy Project and the Labour Campaign for Human Rights.

Image credit: Anti-China protest outside the White House, Washington, D.C., 2009. Malcolm Brown via Flickr.