China guilty of Uighur genocide in Xinjiang, tribunal rules
By Madeline Roache
09 December 2021
London, United Kingdom – The Chinese government has committed genocide, crimes against humanity and torture against Uighurs and other minorities in its western province of Xinjiang, an unofficial and independent UK-based tribunal has ruled.
Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, the head of the Uighur Tribunal and prominent human rights lawyer, said the Chinese government has targeted the Muslim Uighur population with forced birth control and sterilization policies in order to reduce the group’s population.
“The tribunal is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the People’s Republic of China, by the imposition of measures to prevent births intended to destroy a significant part of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as such, has committed genocide,” said Nice, who also led the prosecution of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic on war crimes and genocide.
He added that “this vast apparatus of state repression could not exist if a plan was not authorised at the highest levels”.
