China faces pressure from Australian parliament on treatment of Uighurs, religious minorities

Kevin Andrews has called on the government to allow debate on a motion expressing abhorrence at China’s treatment of Uighurs.

Former frontbencher Kevin Andrews. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Former Howard government cabinet minister and Liberal MP, Kevin Andrews, has called on the Morrison government to allow a full debate of a bipartisan MPs’ motion expressing abhorrence at China’s treatment of the Uighurs and other minorities.

In moving a private members’ bill in the House of Representatives on Monday Mr Andrews said the motion “is not a party-political issue, it is an issue of basic human rights.

Mr Andrew’s is the chair of the Parliamentary human rights sub-committee and the motion is seconded by the deputy chair of the committee and NSW Labor MP, Chris Hayes.

“Among other things, this motion calls for greater action to enforce laws against modern slavery and to identify supply chains that use forced labour,” Mr Andrews told Parliament.

“This is a time when the Parliament should speak with one voice. I cannot think of any Member or Senator who would vote against this Motion,” he said.

“I encourage the Parliament to uphold the rule of law and universal human rights, and not to accept the totalitarian practices of the Communist regime.”

Strong momentum is building for the motion among MPs and it was given an extended time for debate for a non-Government motion as MPs have oversubscribed for the time available.

Private members’ bills rarely attract such attention and even more rarely ended up being debated as a resolution for the House of Representatives.

The motion, which calls for the Chinese Government to respect rules on human rights abuses and urges the United Nations to investigate the plight of the minorities in China.

But, to ensure maximum Parliamentary support, the resolution does not claim that the actions against the Uighurs meet the formal definition of genocide.

The strongly-worded motion points to resolutions passed unanimously in the Canadian and Netherlands Parliaments which declare that Chinese Government policies to prevent births among Uighur people and other Turkic Muslims amounts to genocide.

The UK House of Lords has also passed a resolution urging the British Government to uphold all the United Nations’ resolutions on the prevention and punishment of genocide.

The Australian Government’s criticism of China over human rights abuses in Xianjing province, including detention camps and religious persecution, is one of the main complaints Beijing has nominated as rupturing Australia-Chinese relations.

At the first high-level talks between China and the administration of US President Joe Biden, the Chinese leaders complained of the criticism over the Uighurs.

Former US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, issued a US determination that the Uighurs are being subjected to genocide.

A facility believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, in Artux, north of Kashgar in China's western Xinjiang region. Picture: AFP

The Australian motion records numerous international studies which have found that China is committing genocide against the Uighurs.

“A series of international reports, including by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Right and the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, have concluded that Uighurs in Xinjiang have and are being forcibly held in ‘re-education’ camps, subjected to torture, forced labour and coercive transfer to other regions,” the motion said.

Mr Andrews told Parliament on Monday: “The most egregious, systematic abuse of human rights in the world is occurring in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of western China. It has been occurring for several years. It involves the imprisonment, torture and enslavement of millions of ethnic Uighurs, who comprise some 90 % of the population in the southern region of Xinjiang”.

“In speeches and government orders, there are directions to “eradicate tumours”, “wipe them out completely ... Destroy them root and branch,” to “show absolutely no mercy,” and to “eliminate risks within risks, hidden dangers in hidden dangers.”

“The result of this deliberate policy is the construction of more than 380 internment camps, described officially as “concentrated transformation-through-education” centres, the imprisonment of millions of Uighurs over the past few years, the mass video surveillance of the population, the widespread collection of biometric data, the killing, torture and rape of Uighurs, the forced sterilisation of the population and the widespread use of forced labour,” Mr Andrews said.