US senators claim China is committing genocide against Uighurs

US senators sought Tuesday to declare that China is committing genocide against Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking Muslims, according to an AFP report.

The resolution was introduced by senators across the political spectrum, although it is unlikely to move immediately as the Senate is out of session until after next week’s election, AFP added.

According to AFP, the text states that China’s campaign “against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and members of other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region constitutes genocide.”

“This resolution recognizes these crimes for what they are and is the first step toward holding China accountable for their monstrous actions,” said Senator John Cornyn, a Republican who sponsored it.

Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, said the resolution would show that the US “can’t stay silent.”

“China’s assault on Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups — escalating surveillance, imprisonment, torture and forced ‘re-education camps’ —is genocide, pure and simple,” Merkley said.

Other co-sponsors include Marco Rubio, a close ally of President Donald Trump on foreign policy, and Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Rights groups say that more than one million Uighurs languish in camps in the Xinjiang region as Beijing attempts to forcibly integrate the community and root out its religious heritage.