French justice opened at the end of June an investigation for "
concealment of crimes against humanity
" targeting four textile giants, including Inditex and Uniqlo, accused of having profited from the forced labor of Uyghurs in China, a judicial source said on Thursday. to AFP, confirming information from Mediapart.
Read also: Forced labor in China: how Europeans give themselves a clear conscience
This investigation opened at the “
crimes against humanity
”
pole
of the national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office (Pnat) follows a complaint against Uniqlo France, the Japanese group Fast Retailing, Inditex (which owns the brands Zara, Bershka, Massimo Duti), SMCP ( Sandro, Maje, de Fursac ...) and the sports shoemaker Skechers. It was filed at the beginning of April in Paris by the anti-corruption association Sherpa, the Ethics collective on the label, the Uyghur Institute of Europe (IODE) as well as a Uyghur who was interned in the province of Xinjiang (north-west from China).
The associations, which had announced other complaints in Europe, are part of a series of initiatives launched around the world by human rights defenders in favor of Uyghurs. The fate of this mainly Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority who represents just under half of Xinjiang's 25 million inhabitants, is the subject of an increasingly sharp confrontation between the West and China. .
Several countries, including the United States, evoke a "
genocide
" and NGOs accuse Beijing of having interned since 2017 more than a million of them in political re-education centers. The communist regime denies this figure and assures that they are "
vocational training centers
" intended to keep the Uyghurs away from Islamism and separatism, after a series of attacks which have been attributed to them. Several ready-to-wear companies such as the Japanese Uniqlo, the Swedish H&M, the American Nike and the German Adidas pledged last year to boycott cotton from Xinjiang, and are in return targeted by calls for a boycott. in China.
The complaint, filed in France by lawyer William Bourdon, is mainly based on a report published in March 2020 by the Australian NGO ASPI (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) to support the suspicions of marketing of clothing or shoes made entirely , or in part, in factories where Uyghurs are subjected to forced labor. The associations also believe that the targeted companies do not justify sufficient efforts to ensure that their subcontractors are not involved in the persecution of the Uyghurs.
