The National Assembly adopted a resolution on Thursday denouncing the “genocide” of the Uyghurs by China, and asking the government to do the same.
© Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS/SIPA
A few days before the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics , the National Assembly adopted a resolution on Thursday denouncing the “genocide” of the Uyghurs by China, and asking the government to do the same. Without binding scope, the text received the support of the deputies of the presidential party LREM and was adopted almost unanimously (169 votes for, one against and five abstentions). He was defended at the podium by the First Secretary of the PS Olivier Faure as part of a day reserved for the socialist group.
The proposal states that the Assembly “officially recognizes the violence perpetrated by the authorities of the People’s Republic of China against the Uyghurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide”, and “condemns” them. It “invites the French government” to do the same and to adopt “the necessary measures with the international community and in its foreign policy with regard to the People’s Republic of China” to put an end to this situation. On behalf of the government, the Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade Franck Riester spoke of “systematic violence” and “overwhelming testimonies”, but argued that the formal qualification of genocide fell to international bodies, not the government.
He assured that the fate of this community was “raised at the highest level” during talks with Chinese officials. Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WOC), hailed “an indispensable step towards broader international recognition of the Uyghur genocide”. At the rostrum of the Assembly, Mr. Faure denounced “the implacable machine which aims at the cultural and biological eradication of a people”, and also castigated the large Western companies and brands “which continue to use forced labor” of this Turkish-speaking Muslim community in the Chinese province of Xinjiang (northwest). Forced sterilizations and abortions, rape, torture, children torn from their parents, organ harvesting, internment and re-education camps, executions, destruction of mosques and cultural heritage, mass surveillance… the text makes a long statement crimes alleged against the Chinese regime.
The resolution is also concerned about the fate reserved for other “Turkic minorities” (Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Tatars) by Beijing. Alain David (PS) had the deputies applaud the Uyghur refugees present in the stands. “We can’t say we didn’t know,” added Constance Le Grip (LR).
“Concentration camp logic”
Clémentine Autain (LFI) denounced the “concentration camp logic on an industrial scale” implemented by Beijing, but the deputies of her group abstained on the grounds that the text did not propose “strong acts”. Communist Jean-Paul Lecoq also abstained. The only vote against came from the LREM deputy from Paris Buon Tan, very committed to Franco-Asian and particularly Chinese relations. Human rights organizations accuse China of having locked up more than a million Muslims in political re-education camps. The Uyghurs are particularly targeted after a series of attacks attributed to Islamists and separatists.
Beijing says the camps are vocational training centers meant to steer them away from radicalization. An argument which constitutes a “dismal analogy with the Nazi propaganda in Dachau”, one of the main concentration camps of Hitler’s Germany, protested Vincent Ledoux (Agir group, majority). The boss of LREM deputies Christophe Castaner denounced the fate of “millions” of people “reduced to a condition of slavery”. The resolution notes that several states have already “formalized their recognition of the Uyghur genocide” by China.
The American government, the British, Dutch and Canadian parliaments have condemned “crimes against humanity” as well as “genocide”, and identical procedures are under way in other Western countries, underlines the text. Amnesty International on Wednesday called on the international community not to let China use its Winter Games (4-20 Feb) to distract from its human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The United States, Australia, Canada and Great Britain have announced that they will not send official representatives to Beijing, citing in particular “the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity” in this province.