{"id":145792,"date":"2023-02-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=913067"},"modified":"2023-02-01T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T00:00:00","slug":"parliament-poised-to-vote-on-asylum-for-uyghurs-fleeing-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/02\/01\/parliament-poised-to-vote-on-asylum-for-uyghurs-fleeing-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Parliament poised to vote on asylum for Uyghurs fleeing China"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Ethnic Uyghur demonstrators scuffle with riot police as they try to continue a sit-in protest against China, in front of the Chinese consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on Nov. 30, 2022.DILARA SENKAYA\/Reuters
\nParliament is poised to vote on making room for Uyghurs in Canada\u2019s refugee intake, while a new report describes a dire humanitarian crisis unfolding for the minority fleeing repression in China.
\nMPs will vote Wednesday on a motion by Liberal backbencher Sameer Zuberi that calls on Canada to accept 10,000 Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities who are now living in third countries. MPs who seconded the motion include former foreign minister Marc Garneau.
\nMr. Zuberi\u2019s resolution, M-62, takes its cue from Parliament\u2019s 2021 declaration that China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs and other minorities. The U.S. government and legislative bodies in Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Lithuania and Czech Republic have made similar determinations.
\nRights groups and media reports say the Chinese government has committed grave human-rights violations against the Xinjiang region\u2019s largely Muslim Uyghur population, as well as other minorities. Forced labour and forced relocation to work in other provinces, China\u2019s critics say, is the latest stage in a government-directed effort to exert control in Xinjiang, which Beijing has described as being infected with extremism.
\nMehmet Tohti, executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project said about 80,000 of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities have fled China for countries in Central Asia and Turkey and are at risk of being sent back. Beijing is pressing countries to deport critics in these diasporas to China or restrict their advocacy, he said.
\nA new Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) report titled, On The Fringe of Society: Humanitarian Needs of the At-Risk Uyghur Diaspora, describes what it calls a developing humanitarian crisis among those in self-imposed exile in states such as Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. All these countries are reliant on Chinese foreign investment.
\n\u201cAs the Turkish government moves closer to China in the name of international economic partnerships and bilateral alliances, Turkey has become more dangerous for Uyghurs,\u201d says the report, released Wednesday.
\nChina\u2019s incarceration of Uyghurs and other minorities have left these communities \u201cdestitute and traumatized\u201d as family members, including primary providers, are held against their will in mainland China camps, according to the report. After fleeing they are left scrabbling to make a living, often with few supports, in their new homes.
\nHigh rates of unemployment plague these refugees, who often lack identification documents because they left China without passports or ID cards and now live as stateless, displaced persons, the report says. Without documents, they are often cut off from access to health care.
\nThe report urges countries to offer asylum to these refugees: \u201cThe international community has a responsibility to provide safe haven for victims and others fleeing persecution, and must step in when there is no domestic or international mechanism to address humanitarian needs.\u201d
\nMr. Zuberi, who has spent more than six months building support for his motion, said he\u2019s confident it will obtain necessary votes from the Liberals, Conservatives, Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois and NDP to pass. Bloc MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, among many others, has been helping to build support.
\n\u201cUyghur people in third countries are a threat of deportation to China where they face the threat of concentration camps, forced sterilization, separation of children from families and forced labour,\u201d Mr. Zuberi said.
\nHe said he thinks it would be particularly meaningful if ministers also backed the motion. In 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau\u2019s cabinet abstained from voting on a motion that declared China\u2019s repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities constitutes a genocide.
\n\u201cI am hopeful the cabinet will support it. I think it\u2019s important that everyone in the House supports this motion. We need to be united on this.\u201d
\nMichelle Bachelet, until recently the UN high commissioner for human rights, visited Xinjiang last year, and her office\u2019s report from August says China has committed \u201cserious human rights violations\u201d against Uyghur Muslims in the region, which may amount to crimes against humanity.
\nMr. Zuberi said Canada is obliged to act on the UN report\u2019s conclusion.
\n\u201dOnce there is the possibility of crimes against humanity, the Responsibility to Protect doctrine is engaged. This means that countries like Canada, which promote the rules-based order, have to do their utmost to address the human-rights concerns,\u201d he said.
\nThe UHRP report said China routinely refuses to renew the passports of Uyghurs living abroad, rendering them \u201cwithout valid identity papers of any kind, and therefore unable to travel,\u201d a state that exposes them to the threat of arrest and deportation. The government of Turkey last year began denying applications for citizenship to some Uyghurs based on \u201crisks to national security\u201d or \u201csocial order,\u201d it said.
\nBeijing exploits the family members of Uyghurs who have fled to intimidate them into returning, according to the report. Umer Hemdullah, a Uyghur bookseller in Istanbul, where he fled in 2017, told the authors that China refuses to allow two of his children to leave and join him in Turkey.<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethnic Uyghur demonstrators scuffle with riot police as they try to continue a sit-in protest against China, in front of the Chinese consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on Nov. 30, 2022.DILARA SENKAYA\/Reuters
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