In advance of Monday’s House of Commons forthcoming vote on the All Party House of Lords Genocide Amendment, Parliament was told that the Government is hiding behind the fiction of an imaginary judicial mechanism that will hold the CCP accountable for its genocide of the Xinjiang Uighurs. Last night, speaking to a Webinar organised by the Faiths United Youth Network David Alton said that trade deals had become more important than Genocide- “a word which dares not speak its name.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)Sharethis specific contribution
My Lords, will we be laying before the United Nations Security Council the 25,000-page report on the Uighurs published last week? It said that the Chinese Communist Party had breached every article of the 1948 convention on the crime of genocide. Or will we, as the House of Commons votes on the House of Lords genocide amendment next Monday, continue to shelter behind the fiction of an imaginary judicial mechanism capable of declaring a Uighur genocide—a declaration that has been made by the Canadian and Dutch parliaments, the United States and elsewhere?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)Sharethis specific contribution
On the noble Lord’s second point, as he knows, it is a long-standing policy of the British Government that any judgment of whether genocide has occurred is for a competent court, rather than governments or non-judicial bodies. The UK has led international efforts to hold China to account at the United Nations, including by leading those first two joint statements on this issue at the UN. The Foreign Secretary addressed the Human Rights Council, in February, calling for China to grant urgent and unfettered access to Xinjiang for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights or another independent fact-finding expert.
Last night, speaking to a Webinar organised by the Faiths United Youth Network David Alton said that trade deals had become more important than Genocide- “a word which dares not speak its name.”
Lord Alton said “Earlier today on the floor of the House of Lords I urged the Government to lay before the UN Security Council, the 25,000 page report published last week by more than 50 international 1awyers and which states that every single one of the indicators of genocide in the 1948 Convention ion the Crime of Genocide have been violated by the Chinese Communist Party in their treatment of Uighurs. I was also critical of the Government’s continued decision to hide behind the fiction that genocide declarations can only be made by competent courts – when such courts either do not exist or are impossible to access – and compared the UK’s evasive position with that of the Canadian and Dutch Parliaments and the US which have named atrocity crimes in Xinjiang to be a genocide.
On Monday next the House of Commons will once again have a final opportunity to remedy this by voting for the all-party House of Lords Genocide amendment.
Far too often – think of the Yazidis, think of Rohingya, think of Armenians and many other minorities who have been subject to genocide because of their ethnicity or religion, or both.
Yet, in the face of the Chinese communist Party, and its vast economic and military power, Genocide has become a word which dares not speak its name
But other word best describes events underway in Xinjiang?“
