'Uyghur Tribunal' Opened With The Testimony Of Alleged Rape, Torture

The London-based court court is investigating whether the alleged Chinese persecution of the Uighur minority amounted to genocide, with witness testimony detailing mass torture, rape, and various other harassment.

“Uyghur Tribunal” does not have state support and each assessment will not bind any government, but has attracted an angry response from Beijing, which rejects the audience as a “engine manufacturer”.

The first audience lasted for four days, from Friday to Monday, and is expected to attract dozens of witnesses. The second session is expected in September.

Nine judges based in the United Kingdom, including lawyers and human rights experts, intends to publish reports in December about whether China is guilty of genocide.

The first witness to testify on Friday, Qelbinur Sidik – an ethnic Uzbek teacher from the capital of Xinjiang Urumqi, said he was ordered by the boss of the Chinese Communist Party to take the Mandarin class in two crowded “re-education” camps, one male and one Women, for Uighurs.

What is called students is made to wear shackles during class hours, he told the court.

“The guard in the camp did not treat prisoners as humans. They were treated less than a dog,” said the sidik through a translator. “They enjoy watching them insulted and their suffering is for their joy.”

Women’s prisoners allegedly misused when they were taken for interrogation.

“They are not only tortured but also raped, sometimes raped by gangs,” said Sidik. “The things I have witnessed and naturally, I can’t forget.”

Sidik said he also experienced forced sterilization.

The committee hopes that the process to openly put evidence of the alleged oppression regulated by the state towards Uighur will force international action to the country’s authority.
According to the United Nations, at least one million Uighurs, a large ethnic group of Muslims, has been detained in internee camps in the Southwestern Xinjiang Province of China, which borders eight countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

“I want my child to be released ‘
The court was chaired by a leading human rights lawyer Geoffrey Nice, who led the prosecution of the former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and had worked in several cases brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC)

It was set upon the demand for the Uyghur World Congress, an exiled international uighur organization.

The Tribunal committee said the Chinese authorities ignored the request to participate in the hearing.

But advice for Tribunal said the United States and Australia have offered to provide relevant material, to add thousands of pages of documentary evidence that has been compiled.

Critics, including the UK and the US, said Uighurs have experienced human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, forced sterilization and family separation.

Before giving testimony to the court through a video link, three Uighurs who fled China to Turkey described their experience.
One, named Rozi, said he was forced to have an abortion when six and a half months pregnant. The youngest son was detained in 2015, when he was only 13, and he hoped the tribunal work would help lead to his freedom.

“I want my child to be released as soon as possible,” he said. “I want to see it released.”

Another, former doctor, talked about Draconian’s birth control policy.

And one third, the former prisoner, alleged he was “tortured day and night” by Chinese soldiers when imprisoned in the distance border area.