Revelations of serious human rights violations against the Uyghur minority. A huge data leak in China proves serious human rights violations.
In the midst of the global discussion about the right response to Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine, new revelations shift the focus to serious human rights violations in China. Pictures show how brutally the Uyghur minority is oppressed. Official documents show that the crimes were ordered by the state. The shocking reports also drew criticism from Germany, who advocated much tougher policies against Beijing.
Of the Spiegelthe Bavarian radiosuch as BBC or USA Today and The world have evaluated the extensive material – dubbed “Xinjiang Police Files” – which appears to have come from an unprecedented data leak at Chinese authorities. The sources leave no doubt that the detention camps in the north-western Xinjiang region, where hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs are being held, are anything but “training centers” as Beijing claims. There, members of the mostly Muslim Turkic people are said to be sterilized and tortured.
China expert Reinhard Bütikofer sees a new dimension in the revelations
The China expert Reinhard Bütikofer sees a new dimension in the revelations: “A Chinese proverb says: ‘Seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times.’ The revelations of individual cases give faces to this brutality. That goes beyond everything that has gone before.” In addition, one would learn that “high-ranking cadres are personally involved”. “This must lead to a discussion as to whether it is sufficient that so far only low-ranking officials from Xinjiang have been sanctioned,” the Green MEP told our editorial team.
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Reinhard Bütikofer, Member of the European Parliament, at a protest at the start of the Winter Olympics in February 2022 against the deteriorating human rights situation in China. After the latest revelations, he calls for a tough China policy.
Photo: Martin Schutt, dpa
The CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen was appalled. “The Chinese regime’s contempt for human beings has once again been brutally demonstrated by these documents. We have dependencies on China in strategic areas of our economy, which we are even further intensifying.” In an interview with our editors, the 56-year-old called for such dependency to be reduced, also with a view to Russia. “If we don’t succeed and continue to focus our growth hopes on China, we will eventually be at the mercy of China economically and politically. We will all then pay dearly for the fact that some companies have long made enormous profits.”
Can the German economy just keep going like this?
Reinhard Bütikofer also wonders whether the economy can simply continue like this. After the attack on Ukraine, many European companies said they were withdrawing from Russia. “I’m not for absolutism, but I wonder why VW and BASF aren’t leaving the Xinjiang region,” said Bütikofer.
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Uyghur expert Alexandra Cavelius is not surprised by the latest development. Many witnesses have confirmed to her that it is not “only” about “arbitrary mass imprisonment, brainwashing and assimilation”, but also about “systematic medical experiments, torture or murder in modern concentration camps”, said the journalist and author of our editorial team. “Our politicians must finally respond with decisive consequences in order to initiate the much-vaunted ‘turn of the era’. Because not Russia, but China’s dictatorship is the most dangerous opponent of our democracy.”
In a video conference with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) called for transparent clarification of the allegations. Read politics for more details on the revelations.
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