Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I appear before you today as an attorney, an advocate, a sister and a member of the Uighur community.
The year 2020 marks four years into the Uighur human rights crisis, a crippling genocide, and yet here we are. I hope we will emerge from this hearing with an understanding that we no longer have the luxury of time to raise awareness. We need action.
A little over four years ago, I was about to graduate from Harvard law and start my career as a lawyer in D.C. I had big hopes and dreams for my future. Never had I ever thought that I would spend the next four years of my life searching for my brother and wondering if he was alive.
My brother, Ekpar Asat, is the founder of a multi-faceted media platform, Bagdax, and is a philanthropist. Above all, he is my anchor and best friend. In 2016, he came to the U.S. along with eight Han Chinese in a State Department sponsorship which many people benefited from for decades.
After returning from the State Department's trip, he was thrown into the infamous internment or concentration camp and later reportedly in prison. It was another hopeful future cut short. My brother was praised by the local government as a bridge builder and a positive force for his contribution to society, but since he is Uighur, he suffers the same fate as millions of others. My brother's case should dispel any illusions we have over whether this is about making model Chinese citizens out of Uighur people.
The feelings of loss are still raw and painful. I learned how to cope with this; however, his absence is evermore felt. The words written by Michael Kovrig from his small prison cell speak to me on a personal level: “Rest assured I remain resolute and resilient. You must be relentless.” I can't help but think my brother is asking for the same. I am therefore relentless and so should you be.
Shining a light on the truth can be a matter of life and death when it comes to China. As I'm speaking out today at this time, I am terrified whether my brother will be subjected to torture, waterboarding or electrocution, as these are common patterns of cruel treatment detainees have to endure in these internment camps.
What's most agonizing is that my brother's forced labour has perhaps entered into global commerce and tainted the global supply chain. Our corporations are unknowingly or knowingly profiting off of Uighur forced labour, and we as consumers are complicit in using these products. According to the New York Times, masks produced by forced Uighur labour have now even reached North American shores.
The road to basic human dignity for the Uighur people for the world to see us has been long and torturous. The world may finally be waking up to the mass atrocities that are happening in Xinjiang due to recent highly public events that shock the conscience.
One is an authoritative report documenting the systematic mass forced sterilization of Uighur women. The second is video footage of hundreds of blindfolded, shackled and shaved Uighur men being led onto trains in Xinjiang. Some may not even realize that this footage is from nearly a year ago. The methods of eradication have surely increased since. The third is the seizure of 13 tonnes of human hair suspected of being forcibly removed from Uighur prisoners. As a Uighur western-educated woman, when I'm confronted with such abhorrent practices, it truly breaks my heart. It could have been me had I not left home over a decade ago.
The Chinese government is carrying out a multipronged, technologically advanced, systematic program of destroying Uighur people as a whole. Last week in Foreign Policy, I published an article with human rights lawyer Yonah Diamond from Canada's leading human rights NGO, the Wallenberg Centre. It lays out the overwhelming evidence amounting to genocide under the UN genocide convention, including the mass sterilization of women and detention of men, widespread torture and detention and state-sanctioned abduction of Uighur children.
It should be noted that Han Chinese men are even assigned to monitor Uighur women in their bedrooms while men are held in internment camps.
Beijing's campaign is now having the desired effect. Birth rates in Xinjiang are plummeting and forced sterilizations are skyrocketing. Women unable to bear and men unable to leave; they need us and it will be too late if we don't take urgent action.
I therefore kindly ask the Canadian government to formally declare that what is happening to the Uighur people is genocide. Calling it a genocide would catalyze other countries to join in a concerted effort to end the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang. It would also prompt consumers to reject the over 80 international brands that profit from genocide.
I further ask the Canadian government to impose Magnitsky sanctions on the architects of the genocide and assemble and lead a coalition of countries at the United Nations Human Rights Council to pass a resolution so the UN can dispatch a fact-finding mission to Xinjiang to further document and preserve evidence of genocide.
I hope that in all your bilateral meetings you'll please speak up for my brothers and sisters.
Thank you.