The nine-member tribunal chaired by prominent British lawyer Geoffrey Nice conducted the first set of hearings in London known as the Uyghur Tribunal in early June, during which the panelists heard accounts from internment camp survivors describing abuses such as systematic rape, other forms of gender-based violence, torture, and killings. During the second round of hearings from Sept. 10-13, nine witnesses and 28 experts testified about their experiences with and research findings on the Uyghur crackdown. The tribunal has no state backing or powers of sanction or enforcement, and any judgments issued are nonbinding on any government.
China has come under criticism for heavy-handed policies targeting the 12 million predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the far-western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
Alleged abuses include the demolition of mosques; the imprisonment of Uyghur intellectuals, artists and business leaders; the replacement of Uyghur with Chinese as the main language in schools; the use of a pervasive and intrusive surveillance system to monitor Uyghurs’ move; forced labor at factories and farms; and forced birth control and the sterilization of Uyghur women.
