The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today echoed UN experts who expressed alarm regarding the Chinese government’s use of forced labor by Uyghurs, Tibetans and other minorities.
“There is a persistent pattern of alleged State-imposed forced labor involving ethnic minorities across multiple provinces in China,” UN experts said. “In many cases, the coercive elements are so severe that they may amount to forcible transfer and/or enslavement as a crime against humanity.” According to the experts, forced labor in China is enabled through the State-mandated “poverty alleviation through labor transfer” program, which coerces Uyghurs and members of other minority groups into jobs in Xinjiang and other regions. They are reportedly subjected to systematic monitoring, surveillance and exploitation, with no choice to refuse or change the work due to a pervasive fear of punishment and arbitrary detention. Xinjiang’s five-year plan (2021 to 2025) projects 13.75 million instances of labor transfers. The actual numbers have reached new heights.
In a statement, CAIR said:
“The Chinese Communist Party’s inhumane brutality is apparent to all. Forcing Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans and other minorities into forced labor is nothing short of a crime against humanity and must be condemned by all nations. We call on the Trump administration to make sure that no products produced through slave labor are allowed to be imported into our country.”
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com