The Targeting of Uyghur Muslims in China (UK)

The United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and several other governments, as well as the UK’s parliament, have accused the Chinese government of committing crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghur people, after evidence emerged that the Chinese government has forcibly sterilised Uyghur women, separated children from families, and forbidden certain Uyghur cultural practices. Uyghurs (also spelled Uighurs) are an ethnic group who are predominantly Muslim, speak a Turkic language, and live mainly in what is now the Xinjiang province in northwestern China. Since 2016, the Chinese government has targeted Uyghur people with a vast surveillance system, heavy policing, mass detentions, and forced labour systems. Researchers estimate that more than 1 million Uyghurs have been detained in a series of prison camps throughout the region.

The European Union, United States, United Kingdom, and Canada imposed sanctions on Chinese government officials accused of committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and some countries, including the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and Denmark, decided to diplomatically boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympics. In December 2021, the United States also passed bi-partisan legislation that requires all companies operating in Xinjiang to prove that they do not use forced labour if they wish to import products into the United States. Additionally, the United Nations published a report in September 2022 stating that China may have committed crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.

The following lesson provides information and context to help students understand how the Chinese government is violating Uyghur people’s human rights, hear the voice and experiences of a young Uyghur woman, and consider how the international community has responded.

Before teaching this lesson, please review the following information to help guide your preparation process. 

Activity 1 Who are the Uyghur People and What is Happening in Xinjiang?

Use the Guardian video Why more than 1 million Uyghurs are being held in camps in China (5:03) to provide your students with an overview of the human rights crisis in Xinjiang. (Note: This video makes a brief reference to forced sterilisations and torture that have occurred in the detention centres. It is important to preview resources to ensure they are appropriate for your students.)

After showing the video, use these questions to check for understanding and guide a class discussion:

1. Who are the Uyghur people?
2. How does the Chinese government use policing and surveillance to control the Uyghur people? 
   • How might excessive policing and surveillance impact a community?
3. What have Uyghur people experienced or witnessed in the camps? 
   • What does the Chinese government claim happens in the camps? 

Activity 2 What can we learn about hearing a personal account of life in Xinjiang?

In A Uyghur Teen’s Life After Escaping Genocide, an episode of The Experiment podcast, Aséna Tahir Izgil recounts why she and her family decided to flee Xinjiang and what it has been like for her living in the United States since. Play two clips of the episode for your students, from 1:05–4:45 and from 14:30–19:20.

Then, ask your students to reflect on Aséna’s story in small groups, using the Head, Heart, Conscience strategy:

Head:

1. How did Aséna and her family’s life at home change as the Chinese government implemented stricter controls?
2. How did her experience at school change?
3. What questions do you still have about the situation in Xinjiang?

Heart:

1. What emotions does Aséna’s story raise for you?
2. What aspect of her story stands out to you the most and why?

Conscience:

1. In her story, Aséna tells of different types of "education." How is the kind of education Aséna and her classmates received in her story about her biology teacher different from the kind of education the Chinese government says it’s providing in the camps? 
   • What might be the impact of each type of education on individuals? 
   • On society?
2. What questions about right or wrong, fairness or injustice, does Aséna’s story raise for you?

Activity 3 How has the international community responded to the allegations of genocide? 

Share with your students that governments that have recognised the atrocities occurring against the Uyghur people as a genocide and/or as crimes against humanity have responded in a number of ways, including by imposing sanctions on Chinese government officials who are involved and by diplomatically boycotting the Beijing Olympics that took place in February 2022. In December 2021, the United States government passed legislation that banned the importation of any goods from Xinjiang unless companies can prove that they were not produced using forced labour. Then, in September 2022, the United Nations published a report stating that China may have committed crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.

Read and discuss the following passages that describe some aspects of the international response together as a class:

Discuss with your students:

1. Excerpt from Olympic Boycotts in History: From Moscow to Beijing (Teen Vogue):

   
   Throughout Olympic history, there have been extensive discussions about athlete participation and boycotts. At the 1936 Berlin Games, now widely referred to as the “Nazi Olympics,” spectators at the Games gave the Nazi salute as the swastika flag flew high. As German Olympian and sports studies scholar Arnd Krüger wrote in The Nazi Olympics, “The 1936 Olympics consolidated Hitler’s popularity at home and with German-speaking people abroad. The absence of any serious boycott and a virtually incident-free running of the Games led Germans to believe that their new regime was universally admired.”

   [...]

   “With the Nazi Games, there was this very political—and public—conversation around it,” Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor of history and African American studies at Penn State University and cohost of the feminist sports podcast Burn It All Down, tells Teen Vogue. The question was: If athletes participated, would that validate the Nazi regime? “Some people [said] no, it's better to go and dominate than to not participate,” she explains, pointing to Jesse Owens, a Black American athlete, who won four gold medals in Berlin. Others, including Jewish athletes, chose to boycott.

2. Excerpt from How much does the diplomatic boycott of Beijing 2022 matter? (BBC):

   The venue for the 2022 Winter Olympics [in Beijing] [was] hit by a flurry of diplomatic boycotts from countries including the US, Australia, and Britain, because of widespread allegations of Chinese atrocities against the Uyghur community . . .

   
   While the coalition of Tibetan, Uyghur, Southern Mongolian, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese rights groups that [made] up the #NoBeijing2022 campaign welcomed the diplomatic boycotts, many campaigners [felt] they [did] not go far enough, and that athletes themselves, corporate sponsors and major broadcasters also need[ed] to act if pressure really [was] to be brought to bear on China . . .
   
   Some ask[ed] - if a full boycott is not appropriate now, in a country that stands accused of genocide, when will it ever be? . . .
   
   Refusing to participate in the Olympics would perhaps [have done] more to raise awareness of the violations that China stands accused of, and taking part risks appearing complicit - but it would also [have] seem[ed] very unfair on innocent athletes who . . .  spent years preparing for such an opportunity.

    

3. Overview on Forced Labour in Xinjiang

   
   A 2019 report estimates that at least 100,000 Uyghur people and other minorities in Xinjiang are being forced to perform labour against their will. Xinjiang produces important raw materials, including around 22% of all cotton grown worldwide. Several prominent global brands, including Adidas, Coca-Cola, and Nike, have used components that were produced through forced labour in Xinjiang. 

   In the UK, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 contains a section on Transparency in Supply Chains that requires certain commercial organisations to ‘publish an annual statement setting out the steps they take to prevent modern slavery in their business and their supply chains’. However, the World Uyghur Congress is taking the UK authorities to court over the fact they have not suspended the importation of products containing Xinjiang cotton that has been produced in whole or in part by forced labourers. 

   In the US, it is illegal to import goods that were made by forced labour, but US customs officials have to provide evidence that forced labour was involved in creating the goods in order to ban them, which can be difficult to find. However, in December 2021, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was passed, which means that the US government will assume that all goods made in Xinjiang involve forced labour, unless a company can prove otherwise. This shifts the burden of proof to companies, and legislators hope that it will be more effective at preventing the sale of goods that involve forced labour in Xinjiang in the United States.

Discuss with your students:

1. Do other governments have the responsibility to act in some way to protect the Uyghur people? Why or why not?
   • What message can a diplomatic boycott of an Olympic event send to the world? What are its limitations?
   • What other actions can governments take to make a difference?
2. Do private companies have a responsibility to ensure that their supply chains do not involve forced labour? Why or why not?
   • What actions can private companies take to make a difference?
3. Do individuals have the responsibility to act in some way to protect the Uyghur people? Why or why not?
   • What actions can individuals with a public platform take to make a difference?
   • What actions can individual consumers take to make a difference?