Calls for UN probe of China forced birth control on Uighurs
Politicians around the world have called for a United Nations probe into a Chinese government birth control campaign targeting largely Muslim minorities in the far western region of Xinjiang, even as Beijing said it treats all ethnicities equally under the law.
They were referring to an Associated Press investigation published this week that found the Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities, while encouraging some of the country’s Han majority to have more children. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of European, Australian, North American, and Japanese politicians from across the political spectrum, demanded an independent U.N. investigation.
“The world cannot remain silent in the face of unfolding atrocities,” the group said in a statement.
The AP found that the Chinese government regularly subjects minority women in Xinjiang to pregnancy checks and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands. New research obtained by The Associated Press in advance of publication by China scholar Adrian Zenz also showed that the hundreds of millions of dollars the government pours into birth control has transformed Xinjiang from one of China’s fastest-growing regions to among its slowest in just a few years.
The AP found that the population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply. Having too many children is a major reason people are sent to detention camps, documents and interviews show, with the parents of three or more ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom called for a U.N. and State Department investigation, saying the Chinese government’s birth control...
