The ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim groups at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a horrifying reality that cannot be ignored. In the far-western Xinjiang region of China, Uyghur women held in “reeducation” concentration camps are subjected to unimaginable abuses, including sterilization, sexual abuse, electric shocks, and brainwashing. The Chinese regime justifies these actions by claiming they are “combating extremism,” but the truth is that they are committing atrocities against more than one million Uyghurs locked up in internment camps, where they face forced labor, torture, political indoctrination, and other inhumane treatment.
During a House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party hearing, two firsthand witnesses, Gulbahar Haitiwaji and Qelbinur Sidik, shared their harrowing experiences of life in these brutal camps. Haitiwaji, who now lives in France, recalled being chained to a bed for 20 days as punishment in 2017. While incarcerated, she was subjected to “brainwashing education” for 11 hours a day and endured the “tiger chair” while being interrogated. She was also forced to learn and recite songs that praised the Chinese Communist Party and the government.
Qelbinur Sidik, a member of China’s ethnic Uzbek minority and a Chinese-language teacher by trade, was assigned to teach Uyghurs at a concentration camp guarded by military police with rifles. She described the appalling conditions her students faced, including being monitored constantly, eating meager meals of just one Chinese bun and water, and not being allowed to shower for months. Sidik also revealed her knowledge of four torture methods used on her students: electric batons, electric helmets, electric gloves, and tiger chairs.
Apart from these abuses, the Chinese regime’s practice of forced organ harvesting is also a cause for great concern. Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL), a committee member, questioned how China’s wait times for hearts and lungs are significantly shorter than in other countries. He presented findings by the China Tribunal, an independent people’s tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, which concluded that forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims. The primary source of these organs is Falun Gong practitioners, who are also subjected to violent, deadly suppression by the Chinese regime.
Further evidence of the barbaric nature of the Chinese Communist Party is the violation of the “dead donor rule” by Chinese transplant doctors. These doctors remove organs from prisoners before they are correctly diagnosed as brain dead, killing them in the process. This highly profitable practice for the doctors and hospitals involved underscores the urgent need to address the Xinjiang genocide.
The international community must come together to ensure that future generations do not live in a world dominated by such a brutal and repressive regime. It is crucial that the atrocities committed by the Chinese Communist Party are confronted so that the famous saying “Never again” can become a reality. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) expressed that “The least we can do on this committee is to make sure that in 50 years—when the Xinjiang genocide is remembered as one of the abominations of the 21st century—no corporate executive, no policy maker, no investor, no university president can look their grandchildren in the eye and claim they didn’t know.” That goal must be fulfilled.
