A group of Uighurs who had been exiled from Mainland China filed a petition with the criminal court along with evidence to prove the Chinese government’s ‘racial genocide’. The submission made on Monday by lawyers based in London on behalf of two activists groups marks the first time advocates have attempted to use international law against China over allegations of widespread human rights violations in Xinjiang, the far north-western territory of China where Uighur and other minority groups are detained and surveilled en masse.
This was filed on behalf of the “East Turkistan Government in Exile and the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement”. It claims that the Uighurs were illegally uprooted from their native land of Tajikstan, and Cambodia, and subjected to imprisonment and concentration camp-like setups. This evidence includes witness accounts, satellite imagery, and leaked government orders documenting the large-scale detention and control over Uighurs in Xinjiang.
It also places its concerns towards the investigations of crimes against Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples. This includes the aforementioned crimes, along with various disappearances.
Although the entire world is coming out in condemnation about this, they have not been able to sanction China, because of the fact that the events in Xinjiang have constantly been claimed by China to be their “internal affairs”. These issues have only escalated after the new security law.