No Space Left to Run: China's Transnational Repression of Uyghurs
uhrp.org
uhrp.org
> Article 19 - Protection in the event of removal, expulsion or extradition
> 1. Collective expulsions are prohibited.
> 2. No one may be removed, expelled or extradited to a State where there is a serious risk that he or she would be subjected to the death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
[edit: source] https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/19-protection-ev...
Extraditions are already approved by courts, and often are negated.
For a famous example it took >30 years to get Cesare Battisti[0] to an Italian jail since France, Mexico and Brazil denied his extradition.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Battisti_(born_1954)#Di...
https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/should-murder-go-unpunished-...
https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/should-murder-go-unpunished-...
[1] https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/05/world-uyghur-congress-us-...
> UHRP was founded in 2004 as a project of the Uyghur American Association and became an independent nonprofit organization in 2016.
But that does not by itself mean the source is untrustworthy. There are numerous NGOs in democratic countries that do stellar (and often dangerous) work on things that happen in autocratic regimes.
From a quick glance at the methods section, this report seems to be well-researched and robustly documented.
According to reports in Chinese media, on March 1, 2014, a group of eight black-clad, knife-wielding Uyghur men and women stabbed dozens of people to death and injured hundreds of others in the railway station in Kunming, Yunnan province. According to RFA reporting, the group was attempting to flee to Southeast Asia when security blocked their route, resulting in the group’s desperate decision to commit this act of mass violence.[120] By November of that year, the PRC claimed to have broken up a Turkish-led ring providing Uyghurs with fake passports, accusing the Turkish state of funneling Uyghur fighters to Syria (where evidence of TIP activities emerged at the time).[121] It was clear that by this point, China had thoroughly closed off most routes for Uyghur refugees. International media coverage of the events in Kunming also marked a turning point in media representations of Uyghurs, as some outlets uncritically adopted the official characterization of the events as “Uyghur terrorism.”[122]
That makes me wonder how many of the other people they include in their count were critically analyzed to reveal that they were really only desperate and definitely not involved in any terrorism at all.
But - correct me if I'm wrong - the passage that you're citing is not used to describe repression. The report lists it as the starting point and excuse for repression. So even though said incident may have been a genuine act of terrorism, the report is concerned with subsequent repercussions.
It seems to me like they're saying that the individuals in question shouldn't have been stopped by security (just like in all the prior cases they list) and terrorism was just a pretext. The problem I have with that is that I consider the stabbing to be unambiguously a terrorist attack, so I can't trust their evaluation in other cases of what counts as repression vs. legitimately trying to prevent terrorist attacks. I guess I could dig up their sources to find out in which cases I agree with their assessment, but that kind of defeats the point of having a report conveniently summarizing the data.
What irks me most is the phrase "resulting in the group’s desperate decision to commit this act of mass violence." I would even argue that mass violence is not something one can commit out of desperation, it requires a frightening committment.
The communists are making a terrible strategic mistake in Xinjiang by creating a shared oppression but they did it following a series of events that is important to remember.
For instance I d strongly discourage mass murder in Hong Kong as a way to express discontent since China would be ready to intern us all in singing camps where we d be beaten into singing the glory of the motherland.
I don't have any concrete insights on the situation in Xinjiang.
However as far as I can tell it is a lot more stable there than was 10-15 years where you had the Xinjiang riots and the series of terrorist attacks that followed.
What has changed though is the US-China relationship which has gone from corporation, including in military matters in the Xinjiang/Afghanisation border region, into a full-on propaganda war.
Also notice the use of the term "East Turkistan" which generally is a designation that is used by people who want a breakup of China into multiple smaller nations.
Needless to say this is an aggresive stance.
For example time and time again the supply chain of Apple becomes "contaminated" with forced labor by Uyghurs. And nothing ever really changes. Sure, the supplier in question gets banned (something that literally takes years to happen). But then after a while another supplier turns up which uses forced labor.
Apple is actually one of the few companies that is big enough and has the resources to move production somewhere where forced labor isn't an issue. But they don't even make an effort.
E.g. I paid around $600 for my phone. If there was a rack next to it with the exact same model except it was certified China free and $60 more expensive I'd pick that. Edit: thinking about it it is also more than 10% and significantly more on smaller purchases.
That said, nothing against Chinese people. I'm on friendly terms with the Chinese at work, ny Chinese neighbours etc etc.
This is only about the CCP.
Unfortunately it is a bit more expensive than that: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa. Alternatively, have a look at https://www.fairphone.com/en/.
And yes, there are probably a number of other places I don't want it to be produced, but let us start with the place that literally used Falun Gong practitioners as spare parts and that literally run government sanctioned forced sterilization programs for certain ethnicities (unlike the US where one doctors action caused worldwide news coverage because of the same.)
Apple does not seem to care much about repressions or human rights:
They care about money and I say I'd pay more money for a certified China free iPhone.
> produced at Apple scale
How many people do you think will do the same? The money is the reason why Apple doesn't care.
I invented the term right now by the way.
I know a few hundred Apple engineers, Google engineers and current and future founders are reading this thread as well as a few thousand prospective iPhone buyers.
I am sowing an idea into all those peoples thoughts.
The problem is that there is nowhere (yet) that allows them to do it with the latest models at adequate scale and speed because the supply chain and management expertise simply doesn’t exist yet.
"Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years to fully cut ties (yahoo.com)"
"Apple's Cooperation with Authoritarian Governments (jessesquires.com)"
It clearly shows what I say.
These are just opinion pieces, neither of which have any insight into what Apple cares about or does not care about.
Wishing it isn't so isn't the same as reality I am afraid.
It may be the answer in future though.
2. Please stop saying this "it is only the CCP, Chinese are OK". 100 million people are in the CCP and the approval rating of the CCP is extremly high. I worked in China, I used to travel to China very often (before the Covid crisis happened). Normal people are very much positive towards the CCP. I my eyes this "I have the CCP, but Chinese people are OK" argument is flawed. You could argue that you oppose the system of the PRC and you favor the democratic system, but "CCP BAD, PEOPLE OK" is flawed and speaks against hundreds of million of Chinese people. And now, downvote me into the oblivion, because my reply is not going mainstream - as always.
A poll of nearly 20,000 people carried out by Cary Wu from the York University in Ontario Canada in 2020 found that Chinese people’s trust in their own state government had risen to 98 per cent."
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10670564.2021.18...
Neither do I think they are less worth than us.
Except they have no idea what CCP are actually doing due to the propaganda. In the same way, most Americans think that Snowden is a traitor.
Sure, if that what it takes to solve the issue then I guess that's what it takes.
Or are we seriously going to say slavery isn't a problem as long as as it isn't in our own backyard? So slavery in the 1800's was a problem but we can live with the fruits of modern day forced labor since we want our cheap iPhone?
And this is without going into what the Western powers directly did to China back in the day.
I dearly hope we've moved past barbaric eye for an eye justice.
We're not going to say that, but we're going to go along with it. Maybe even while we're saying the opposite.
Modern day forced labor is still allowed and utilised in the United Stated - it's mandatory for all able-bodied inmates in federal and most state prisons. For an additional kicker, US is also leading the world in both absolute and percentage of population measures of people incarcerated and has for decades.
The difference with what is happening in China is how targeted it is, what the conditions of labor are and how eager various US corporations are to directly use fruits of said labor - but it is just as immoral.
Learning to work at a job, if done correctly, can be part of a constructive rehabilitation program. ...though I'm skeptical the degree to which that occurs.
No thanks. This is not up for companies to do.
More likely, companies will start discriminating against non-han employees to avoid being accused of forced labour. That seems more practical than moving production out of China.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Then nothing happened.