‘Credible’ case of Chinese government genocide against Uighhur Muslims, say lawyers

Accusations levelled at the Chinese government of genocide against the Uighhur Muslim minority in the far western Xinjiang region are “very credible”, according to a formal legal opinion produced in the UK.

The text published by London-based Essex Court Chambers states there is a “plausible” argument that the country’s president, Xi Jinping, is himself responsible for the action, which has seen more than a million people, including Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups, imprisoned in a vast network of concentration camps, human rights groups say.

Commissioned by the Global Legal Action Network, the World Uighur Congress and the Uighur Human Rights Project, the legal opinion – first reported by the BBC – describes how the minority group has been subject to “enslavement, torture, rape, enforced sterilisation and persecution”.

Victims have been "forced to remain in stress positions for an extended period of time, beaten, deprived of food, shackled and blindfolded”, it said.