Human Rights: Xinjiang

[Phil Wilson in the Chair]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered human rights in Xinjiang.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I am delighted to have the opportunity to discuss this issue. I am also pleased to see a good number of other MPs in the Chamber, given the importance of business elsewhere in the Palace. I am grateful for their support. I place on the record my appreciation of the work in this area of various non-governmental organisations, including Amnesty International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide—CSW—Human Rights Watch and the World Uyghur Congress.

I also add the BBC to that list. It was a remarkable 10-minute report by John Sweeney on “Newsnight” in August 2018 that first brought this issue to my attention; I am ashamed to say that I knew nothing about it until that point. In that 10 minutes he described very graphically the scale of what is happening in Xinjiang province and well illustrated the human cost. Even if the BBC does nothing else worth watching over the next 12 months—I do not completely discount that possibility—that 10 minutes alone justifies the licence fee.

The concerns that I and, I hope, others will raise are all supported by evidence, although there are other concerns that are not so well evidenced. However, even on those concerns for which evidence exists it is impossible to be entirely accurate, as we shall see when looking at the numbers affected. That is principally a consequence of the secrecy and surveillance of the government of the Xinjiang province, which is said to extend not only within the province but outside it as well. Uyghur Muslims living in this country feel very much under the same pressure as those who live in Xinjiang. Parenthetically, I hear anecdotal reports that the Chinese secret service has been recruiting Chinese students at British universities to spy on other Chinese students, thus continuing and worsening the climate of secrecy and fear.

However, thanks to the evidence of “Newsnight” and the efforts of Amnesty, CSW and Human Rights Watch, we have an emerging picture on an epic scale. What is being done in Xinjiang is also happening in Tibet, where mass detention camps have been a feature of the landscape since 2014. The so-called re-education camps, officially known as centres for transformation through education, are principally, but not exclusively, targeted at the Muslim community.

CSW lists reasons for detention in the camps including, among other things: someone having WhatsApp on their phone; having relatives who live abroad; accessing religious materials online; having visited certain “sensitive” countries; participation in communal religious activities; and behaviour indicating “wrong thinking” or “religious extremism”. Indeed, sometimes no reason is given at all.

Amnesty gives some useful context, stating:

“China’s Constitution, laws and ethnic policies all stress ethnic unity and prohibit discrimination against ethnic groups…But China’s expressed determination to eradicate the ‘forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism’ leads officials to pursue discriminatory policies that target members of ethnic groups merely for exercising their rights to freedom of religion and belief, thought, peaceful assembly, association, movement, opinion, expression and access to information.”

Quite incredibly, the Chinese Government continue to deny the existence of these camps. However, eyewitness accounts, documentation relating to the construction and procurement of the camps, and satellite imagery all contradict that denial. The number of detainees is said to be between several hundred thousand and just over 1 million, with CSW saying that it may be as high as 3 million. We can be certain that that number is rising.

What goes on within these detention facilities has been described as Orwellian, which I think, because of what we know, does some injustice to George Orwell. If George Orwell was commissioned to write in the style of Franz Kafka, that might come close. Inmates are required to chant Communist party slogans, recite party thought and take part in self-incrimination sessions.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I thank the Minister for his help in answering several of my questions on this issue. Does the right hon. Gentleman share the concern of many in my constituency, most importantly Mohammed Haroun, representing the Uxbridge Street mosque, who wrote to me to say that the scale of Muslim persecution in China makes what is happening in Myanmar pale into insignificance, and that we must act?

I always think it invidious to try to compare persecution in one country with that in another. However, the hon. Gentleman’s point is a good one. I suspect that we do not hear more about this issue because of the difficulty in getting reliable information out of the province. I will return to that point.

To give a bit more of a human flavour of what goes on in the camps, I will share with the House, and place on the record, a couple of the testimonies from that “Newsnight” report in August. The first is from Azat, whose family are detained in the camp. He describes having been allowed to visit his family, saying:

“It was dinner time. There were at least 1,200 people holding empty plastic bowls in their hands. They had to sing pro-Chinese songs to get food. I never dreamt the place was so huge. The cell windows were barred. From the lights, I knew there were many more people inside as well. I estimate that there were at least 3,500 people in there.”

He describes them, saying:

“They were like robots. They seemed to have lost their souls. I knew many of them well—we used to sit and eat together—but now they didn’t look normal to me. They behaved as if they weren’t aware of what they were doing. They were like someone who’d lost their memory after a car crash.”

There was a further interview with a re-education centre survivor called Omir, who said:

“They have a chair called the tiger. My ankles were shackled, my hands locked into the chair, I couldn’t move. They wouldn’t let me sleep. They also hung me up for hours and they beat me. They had thick wooden and rubber batons, whips made from twisted wire, needles to pierce the skin, pliers for pulling out your nails. All these tools were displayed on the table in front of me, ready for use at any time. You could hear other people screaming as well.

It is hard to listen to some of those descriptions of the situation in the camps and the psychological pressures placed on people. Has the right hon. Gentleman heard evidence, as I have, that DNA samples and biometric data are also being obtained from Uyghurs in the camps, perhaps for the possibility of organ harvesting? That issue has been raised in relation to China before.

I have heard that suggested. The evidence around the purpose of the use of DNA harvesting—I think, clearly the fact that it is suggested demands proper investigation. I think it is something that we as a country could do, and that we should lead on exerting pressure for such an investigation; but whether or not that is actually happening, I do not honestly know and I am careful not to overstate the case. What we know, and what is evidenced already, is certainly bad enough.

The human rights report produced by the Minister’s own Department, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in June 2018 said of Xinjiang that

“the authorities introduced intrusive security and surveillance measures and cultural restrictions targeted at the Uyghur Muslim population. Thousands of Uyghurs were held in re-education camps after returning from abroad.”

I would suggest, on the basis of what we know now—what has come to light since then—that if anything, that is something of an understatement. I will look with interest to see how that statement is revised in this year’s human rights report.

I am conscious of the shortage of time and am grateful for the support of colleagues who have turned up for the debate. I could say a lot more, but I will focus now on why this matter should concern us and what my asks are of the Minister. First, it should concern us because the United Kingdom is a party to several declarations of human rights, including the universal declaration. The defining characteristic of human rights is surely their universality. An abuse or denial of human rights anywhere is a denial that affects us all.

The issue affects a number of Uyghur Muslims living in this country. “Newsnight” spoke of one case in which a family member had lost contact with up to 20 members of her family, who had possibly been taken into detention. What we know about the threats to the Muslim population in Xinjiang province raises serious questions for our own asylum policy. We know that there are some 10 Uyghur Muslims with active asylum claims at the moment. I know that this is not directly within the Minister’s responsibilities, but the Government should consider following the example of Sweden and Germany and introducing a moratorium on returns to China of Muslims from the Uyghur province.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for bringing this matter to the Chamber for us to debate. The issue is not only the need for pressure in relation to asylum applications and so on. Other authoritarian states are copying that example and piling in and persecuting citizens in a similar way.

That is absolutely the case. It is the contagion of the abuse of human rights. We have seen it times without number in different parts of the world down the decades.

What consideration have the Government given to the use of section 13 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017 in response to gross human rights abuses? This could be a good first test of that section. Most importantly of all, what will the Government in this country do to see that an independent investigation is carried out into what is happening in Xinjiang province? The Chinese Government have said that they would be prepared to co-operate with a UN-led investigation. As a permanent member of the Security Council and as an advocate and strong promoter and defender of human rights, our country could take an important lead in making that sort of investigation happen. We should not be relying on groups such as Amnesty, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Human Rights Watch to find out what is going on.

Human rights are to be defended wherever they are challenged. The right to religious belief should be defended, and everyone has a right to due process. None of these things features in the way in which Uyghur Muslims and others in Xinjiang province are treated. We have a direct interest at play also. It is obvious that the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang is now acting as a recruiting sergeant for Daesh, for IS. As that happens, yes, of course its primary focus will be in relation to China, but we know from our own experience that Daesh, IS, does not confine its activities to any single country, so Britain has a very direct interest in ensuring that the rights of Muslims and others of religious faith in Xinjiang province are protected, and that the abuses are brought into the public domain so that their human rights and those of others can be protected.

Order. Several people want to speak, and I want the Back-Bench speeches to finish at 28 minutes past 3 so that we can give the three Front Benchers 10 minutes each and then allow two minutes for the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who moved the motion, to conclude his remarks, so I ask people to keep their speeches to about five minutes. I do not want to impose a time limit. If we play it that way, we should get everybody in.

It is a privilege to speak in this debate, and I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing it and for his speech, with which I very much concur.

Last week, as chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, I was able to meet a Uyghur Muslim who is now living in Washington DC and part of the NGO the Uyghur Entrepreneurs Network. He said that, about two years ago, Uyghurs who use Washington as a base—there are now about 3,000 of them—started reporting that relatives in China were disappearing. He says that, now, every Uyghur he meets there has a relative who has disappeared. Indeed, all of his own relatives have disappeared. The last one was his father, who sent a message to him saying, “Son, they have come for me.”

As we have heard, reports suggest that there are huge numbers—quite possibly more than 1 million—in the camps. People are often there for no reason at all. I am told that the difficulties experienced by Uyghur girls are such that they are even selected for Communist party officials to have relationships with them and used for bartering in exchange for their family’s freedom.

The religious dimension to the detentions is self-evident. Detainees are predominantly, although not exclusively, Muslim; they include people of Uyghur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz ethnicity. In this climate of fear, Uyghur Muslims have stopped public and communal religious observance. We have been told about the treatment of people once they are in the camps. Detainees have been not only forced to renounce their religion but forced, we understand, to eat pork or drink alcohol, in violation of their right to freedom of religion or belief. Conditions in the camps are extremely difficult, as we have heard.

The awful treatment extends even to children in the camps. Children as young as three can be detained, although sadly the children of those detained are often left to fend for themselves. We were told last week of one child who was found frozen—they had died when their parents were taken away. Children are often mistreated or sent to retraining centres. We have heard of children as young as six months old being locked up like farm animals in a shed.

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I want to thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this important debate on a topic that is overlooked.

We have all been made aware of the plight of the Uyghurs in the last year or so by the media coverage, the satellite images, and those who have family and friends in the region, who talk about the abuses taking place. Last week I met with several human rights groups to discuss the reports of widespread abuse in the Xinjiang region. The experts I spoke to emphasised that while tensions between the Communist party and the Chinese citizens of non-Han identity have been present for some time, the last two years have seen violent escalation in the state policy. Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities are now facing unprecedented levels of repression.

Since 2017, a network of enormous holding camps has been built, with as many as 1 million Uyghurs said to be currently detained in them. As evidence of these camps has become indisputable, thanks largely to investigative journalism, we have seen a shift in the rhetoric of the Chinese state. Colleagues will be aware that for a long time the Chinese Government denied the reports that the camps existed and that people were falsely detained in them. Now, of course, they say, “Oh yes, there are camps, but they are vocational training centres and educational centres.” I am not the only one who is very sceptical of this. The United Nations and our Government have publicly expressed deep concerns about those sites.

Given that individuals are forcibly placed within them, we must recognise that they are camps. There has also been evidence of physical abuse and torture of the people there, as eloquently set out by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. We know that the Chinese Government have argued that the measures are justified by the growing threat of religious extremism and separatist activism in the region. However, it should go without saying that whatever the perceived threats, the measures have lost all sense of proportion. Uyghurs outside the camps are now also subject to some of the most pervasive and intrusive surveillance systems in the world, including being on a register of DNA samples and blood types, and constant tracking by facial recognition cameras. Thousands of police stations have sprung up across the region and correspondence with family members outside of China is either banned or closely monitored.

There are more than 10 million Uyghurs living in Xinjiang. They speak a Turkic language. They are Muslim. In many ways, they are culturally and geographically closer to central Asia than central China. Over the past decade, due to outbreaks of protest and violence, and the subsequent harsh crackdowns from the Chinese authorities, hundreds of lives have been lost in Xinjiang.

A BBC investigation said:

“Over the past four years, Xinjiang has been the target of some of the most restrictive and comprehensive security measures ever deployed by a state against its own people.”

That includes the large-scale use of technology and penalties to curtail Islamic identity, stopping them practising their religion. Uyghurs face severe travel restrictions and are subject to ethnic profiling at thousands of checkpoints. Most alarmingly, as we have heard already, the Chinese authorities are building and operating high-security camps on a huge and growing scale. Testimonies from Uyghurs living abroad confirm that they are detention camps, where inmates are often beaten, terrorised and brainwashed. This is the brutal subjugation of an ethnic minority aimed at crushing their identity.

The detention camps in Xinjiang are the most recent Chinese human rights abuses to draw the world’s attention, but we must not forget that human rights abuses in China are the norm, not the exception, especially for China’s ethnic minorities. Of the roughly 1.4 billion people living in China, over 1.2 billion are Han Chinese. Ethnic minorities with distinct cultures and identities, such as the Uyghurs—and the Tibetans, who are better known—live mostly in the outer regions of China and tend to be seen as threats by China’s one-party state.

Within China a small number of people dare to speak up for human rights, but their voices are invariably silenced. Those of us who have the freedom to do so, therefore, have an even greater moral responsibility to speak up. The Chinese authorities tend to take the line that what happens inside China is not the concern of foreigners, but China is a member of the United Nations, and the belief that human rights are universal is at the core of the UN’s vision.