Al Jazeera :
A London-based people’s tribunal investigating whether China’s treatment of its minority Uighur population amounts to genocide is hearing testimony from witnesses.
The “Uyghur Tribunal” has no state backing and any judgement would not be binding on any government, but it has drawn a furious response from Beijing, which branded the hearings a “machine producing lies”.
The first hearings take place over four days, from Friday to Monday, and are expected to draw dozens of witnesses. A second session is expected in September.
The nine UK-based jurors of the tribunal, including lawyers and human rights experts, intend to publish a report in December on whether China is guilty of genocide.
Organisers hope the process of publicly laying out evidence of an alleged state-orchestrated campaign of repression against the Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group, in China’s northwest Xinjiang province will compel international action against the country’s authorities.
The tribunal is chaired by prominent human rights lawyer Geoffrey Nice, who led the prosecution of ex-Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and has worked on several cases brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
It was set up at the request of the World Uyghur Congress, an international organisation of exiled Uighurs.
The tribunal’s organisers said Chinese authorities had ignored requests to participate in the hearings.
According to the United Nations, at least one million Uighurs have been detained in internment camps in Xinjiang, which borders eight countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Critics of the camps, including the United Kingdom and the United States, say inmates at the network of facilities have been subjected to human rights violations including arbitrary detention, forced labour, torture, forced sterilisation and the separation of children from their jailed parents.
Ahead of giving testimony to the tribunal via video link, three Uighurs who fled from China to Turkey, described their treatment by Chinese authorities.
One of them, named Rozi, said she was forced into an abortion when six and a half months pregnant. Her youngest son has been detained since 2015, when he was just 13, and she hopes the tribunal’s work will help lead to his freedom.
“I want my son to be freed as soon as possible,” she said. “I want to see him be set free.”
