Genocide: French deputies at the bedside of the Uighurs


The repression of the Uyghurs in Chinacase

The National Assembly is due to vote on Thursday on a draft resolution condemning the crimes against humanity committed by China against the majority Muslim people. A text that calls on the Elysée to “take a clear position”.

In extremis, before the end of the parliamentary session, the Uyghurs invite themselves to the National Assembly. For a long-awaited vote and certain debates among French deputies. The Palais Bourbon must vote Thursday on a first resolution relating to “recognition and condemnation of the genocidal character of the systematic violence and crimes against humanity […] perpetrated by the People’s Republic of China against the Uyghurs”. A first in France. Before a probable second vote on February 4 on a second resolution.

Carried by the Socialists and Related Group, which included it in its parliamentary niche, Thursday’s text “Asks the French government to take a clear position, explains Alain David, elected representative of the 4th district of Gironde and rapporteur of the text. We cannot leave people in the camps and suffering. We are talking about crimes against humanity, genocide all the same”.

The non-binding resolution also calls on the government to “to protect Uyghur nationals on French soil from any intimidation or harassment by the People’s Republic of China”. A practice that has spread and increased in recent years. In addition to the official recognition of these abuses and their condemnation, the defenders of the text also want the French authorities to adopt the “necessary measures with the international community and in its foreign policy towards the People’s Republic of China to put an end to these crimes”, continues the text which insists on the urgency of a decision.

“Neither fooled nor naive”

“The Elysée and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs do not want to offend the Chinese partner, says Alain David, We are aware of the importance of trade between China and France. I know that economic interests take precedence over morality, but let’s not be fooled or naive. We can have a partnership, but in complete transparency,” wants to believe the member of Gironde, also vice-president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Assembly.

In February 2021, before the UN Human Rights Council, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, made “State of unjustifiable practices against Uyghurs, and of a large-scale institutionalized system of surveillance and repression”. But Paris did not go further in the qualification of the facts and the denunciation. In September 2017, Emmanuel Macron had not yet used such caution to discuss the “genocide in progress” of which the Rohingyas in the state of Rakhine in Burma were indeed victims.

Mass internment, forced labor, systematic torture, forced sterilization, separation of children from their families, eradication of culture… The facts are known, documented for years by NGOs, researchers (Adrian Zenz, Erin Farrell Rosenberg) and recently validated by the Uighur court in London. They were again recalled on Monday by camp survivors Qelbinur Sidik and Omar Bekali, who spoke to French deputies. “It is inconceivable to think that the Chinese crimes could have any other intention than to destroy a substantial part of the Uyghur people. This is an ongoing genocide, and it is essential to call it by its name,” concluded whistleblower and legal scholar Emma Reilly. Before recalling that the internment system in Xinjiang was the largest network of concentration camps since the Second World War.

Forgotten Tibetans

“It is likely that the French authorities wanted to be certain of the facts”, advances LREM MP Elisabeth Toutut-Picard, whose group “will vote on the resolution in a transpartisan logic. You have to go to a higher level. The genocidal character is absolutely no longer debated, the testimonies on the concentration camps are terrible”. The one who is also president of the parliamentary study group on the question of Tibet recalls that the “Tibetans are also victims of a great quiet repression. It is high time for the National Assembly to align itself with the positions taken by other States”.

For the past two years, and especially since the beginning of 2021, the US government and the British, Dutch and Canadian parliaments have condemned the “crimes against humanity” as well as the “genocide” of the Uyghurs. Similar procedures are underway in other states (Belgium, Germany, Lithuania and New Zealand), point out the deputies. The debate was also brought to the level of the European Parliament.

“I know that there is realpolitik, but we must no longer hesitate and go quickly to putting pressure on China ahead of the Olympics», insists Aurélien Taché, whose EE-LV party (to which The New Democrats are attached, of which he is a member) must “vote unanimously”, Thursday, in favor of the resolution. The National Assembly will vote on another cross-partisan resolution, quite similar to that carried by the PS, on February 4, the date of the start of the Beijing Olympics. A wake-up call before seeing how this vote will translate politically into France’s relations with China. Complicated music.



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