Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, today I am proud the House of Representatives is considering S. 178, the ``Uighur Intervention and Global Humanitarian Unified Response Act'' or the ``UIGHUR Act.''

In the last year, Chinese authorities have expanded their network of mass internment camps, where it is now estimated that 1.8 million or more Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been involuntarily detained in approximately 1,400 extrajudicial internment facilities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

Detainees are subjected to torture, extended solitary confinement, and political indoctrination. Many scholars and human rights groups argue that these practices may amount to ``crimes against humanity.''

Over the last month, leaks of highly classified Chinese government documents uncovered operations manuals for the mass internment camps and exposed details about the mass detention and surveillance systems in Xinjiang. Among the findings in the Chinese government's own documents:

Reeducation centers are designed to ``wash clean the brains'' of those interned in them;

Those who show signs of resistance are subjected to ``assault-style re-education'' efforts;

Children of detainees are reportedly often placed in orphanages, welfare centers, and boarding schools;

Special security measures are mandated to ensure detainees cannot ``escape,'' thereby refuting Chinese government assertions that detainees are there voluntarily; and

The establishment and expansion of the mass internment camps are part of a systematic policy directed by General Secretary Xi Jinping and carried out by XUAR Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo as well as other senior officials at the central and local levels.

Further, we also have become more aware of the widespread use of a government-subsidized and large-scale system of forced labor in both mass internment camps and in factories throughout the Xinjiang region.

Satellite imagery, personal testimonies, and official documents indicate that detainees in camps, and some who have been released, are forced to work in food production, textile, and other manufacturing jobs. Products reportedly produced with forced labor include:

Textiles, such as yarn, clothing, gloves, bedding, and carpet; Electronics, including cell phones and computers; Food products, shoes, tea, and handicrafts.

Current U.S. law prohibits the import of any product made with forced labor. Any U.S. or international company that produces or has a supply chain in Xinjiang may be complicit with forced labor and human rights violations. Customs and Border Protection rightly stopped the import of some goods from Xinjiang, but much more needs to be done to ensure that Americans are not purchasing products made with forced labor.

The UIGHUR Act is an essential update and strengthening of U.S. policy in response to gross human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The bill calls on the President to submit a list to Congress of Chinese officials responsible for the mass incarceration, political indoctrination, or reeducation efforts and to impose Global Magnitsky Act sanctions for all those on the list. It also includes needed export restrictions on technology critical to the Chinese government's ability to suppress human rights and individual privacy.

With passage of this legislation, it should be clear that Congress stands in solidarity with the Uyghur people and other suppressed minorities affected by the mass internment and surveillance system in the Xinjiang region, and we will continue to do all we can to support the full exercise of their human rights in Xinjiang and in China.

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