Paris, Europe Brief News – The French Parliament adopted a resolution on Thursday, denouncing “genocide” by China against the Uyghurs.
The resolution was first proposed by the opposition Socialists and backed by President Emmanuel Macron’s Republic on the Move party.
The move came just a few days before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
The resolution reads that the National Assembly “officially recognises the violence perpetrated by the People’s Republic of China against the Uyghurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide.”
It also calls on the French government to undertake “the necessary measures within the international community and in its foreign policy towards the People’s Republic of China” to stop Beijing’s actions.
“China is a great power. We love Chinese people. But we refuse to submit to propaganda from a regime that is banking on our cowardice and our avarice to perpetrate a genocide in plain sight,” Socialist party chief Olivier Faure said.
International Condemnation
More than 40 world countries have earlier criticized in a statement China for the reported torture and repression of Uyghurs.
The statement also pointed out that the reported torture of Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. It also kept a spotlight on the region where foreign governments say China held an estimated 1million people in camps.
The 43 countries that signed on to the statement criticizing China, which was read by France’s UN Ambassador Nicolas De Riviere at a meeting of the General Assembly’s human rights committee, expressed particular concern at “credible-based reports” of the “re-education camps” in Xinjiang.
“We have seen an increasing number of reports of widespread and systematic human rights violations,” the 43 countries said in their statement, “including reports documenting torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, forced sterilization, sexual and gender-based violence, and forced separation of children.”