Canadian parliament says China committed genocide against Muslim minorities

Canadian parliament says China committed genocide against Muslim minorities

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Although Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet abstained from Monday’s vote, most lawmakers – including many liberals who participated – voted in favor of the opposition Conservative Party’s motion.

The motion, which recognizes “that a genocide is currently being carried out by the People’s Republic of China against Uighurs and other Turkish Muslims,” ​​also calls on the International Olympic Committee to transfer the 2022 Winter Olympics from Beijing.

Canada’s Foreign Minister, Marc Garneau, was the only cabinet minister to attend the parliamentary vote, officially abstaining “on behalf of the Canadian government”.

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Opposition leader Erin O’Toole, who led the effort in the parliamentary vote, asked the Trudeau government to support the determination, which although symbolic will not become government policy. “It is a shame that Justin Trudeau and the liberal government continue to refuse to call the horrific conduct of the Chinese Communist Party what it is: a genocide,” O’Toole said on Monday.

The parliamentary vote also makes Canada the first country to semi-officially support calls for Beijing to be removed from the 2022 Winter Olympics on allegations of human rights abuses. More than 100 human rights organizations have come together to defend a political boycott of the upcoming Games, which will be held in February next year.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that Canada should stop politicizing the 2022 Beijing Games, saying that it was damaging “the interests of the international Olympic movement and of athletes from all countries “.

International investigation calls

The approval of the motion comes just over a month after the United States government made the same determination, with then United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announcing that the world was witnessing the “systematic attempt to destroy Uighurs by Chinese party-state “.

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied accusations of human rights abuses against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang said on Tuesday that China “strongly condemns and resolutely opposes the Canadian Parliament’s motion”, adding that they had made representations to Ottawa.

“The facts prove that there was never any genocide in Xinjiang,” he said.

In a statement released after Monday’s vote, Canadian Foreign Minister Garneau said the Trudeau government believes the allegations against China need to be investigated by international experts.

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“The Government of Canada takes any allegation of genocide very seriously. We have a responsibility to work with others in the international community to ensure that such allegations are investigated by an independent international body of legal experts,” said Garneau in a statement released Monday, adding that a “credible investigation” must be launched by an international and independent body.

Garneau’s statement was made on the same day that British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab asked China to give the United Nations “urgent and unrestricted” access to Xinjiang so that human rights abuse allegations could be investigated in a timely manner. independently.

“The situation in Xinjiang is beyond limits. The reported abuses – which include torture, forced labor and forced sterilization of women – are extreme and extensive,” Raab said during a speech at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

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