Exiled Uighurs urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday to open an investigation into alleged crimes committed by China against them, which they accused of genocide and crimes against humanity.
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They handed over a large file to The Hague-based court, which they said contained evidence that China had carried out forced sterilization and locked up more than one million Uyghurs and members of other predominantly Muslim minorities in re-education camps . Beijing, for its part, speaks of vocational training centers, designed to help people find jobs and thus keep them away from extremism and terrorism.
" Today is a very historic day for us, " Salih Hudayar, prime minister of the self-proclaimed government in exile from East Turkestan, said on videoconference on Tuesday. The ICC, which was created in 2002 to try the worst atrocities in the world, has no obligation to consider requests made to its prosecutor, who decides independently on the cases to be brought before judges.
Senior Party leaders responsible?
Evidence filed in court shows that Chinese leaders have been involved in " harsh crackdown " for more than a decade, said human rights lawyer Rodney Dixon at the conference. " These include mass internments of over a million people, murders, disappearances, torture and harrowing tales of sterilization and birth control measures ," he said.
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The file includes a list of top Chinese Communist Party leaders believed to be responsible for the treatment of Uighurs, including President Xi Jinping. Even if China is not a member of the ICC, the court could follow the example of its ongoing investigation into alleged crimes against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma, which is also not a member state, says Rodney Dixon. The judges gave the green light to this investigation in 2019 because the situation affects neighboring ICC member Bangladesh.
The investigation desired by exiled Uighurs would also be possible because crimes, including forced evictions to China, have occurred in Tajikistan and Cambodia, both of which are members of the Court, according to their records. deposit.