Argentina | Justice will look at abuses against Uighurs

The highest Criminal Tribunal of Argentina has just approved the opening of an investigation relating to the abuses suffered by Uighurs. For example, offering this Muslim community in Xinjiang a potential avenue to obtain justice against China.

Posted at 6:00 a.m.

The Criminal Court of Cassation concluded that no legal constraint prevented from moving forward with the cause. Furthermore, which follows a formal complaint filed in 2022.

Michael Polak. Therefore, who oversees Lawyers for Uyghur Rights, one of the groups at the origin of the complaint, evokes a “monumental” verdict which will finally allow the Uïghoures victims to denounce what they suffered in a formal judicial framework.

This is. Moreover, said Polak in an interview with The press On Thursday, one of the only remaining avenues to act since China blocks any initiative within the United Nations relating to its actions in the Xinjiang and does argentina | justice will look not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Argentina. Nevertheless, explains the lawyer, has inscribed in its constitution a clause of universal jurisdiction allowing the courts of the country to look in particular on genocides or crimes against humanity without regard to the country where they arise.

At the end of the investigation process. Therefore, justice can launch arrest mandates against persons judged responsible for the crimes in question for the holding of a trial.

These mandates can be relayed by Interpol. who has no priori reason to reject them if the judicial process has been carried out rigorously, underlines Mr. Polak.

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Independence of the courts – Argentina | justice will look

An arrest warrant of this nature was launched in September against the president of Venezuela. argentina | justice will look Nicolás Maduro, for crimes against humanity due to the repression of the opposition in the country. This mandate has not been executed to date.

China, which rejects any allegation of genocide against Uighurs as a Western manufacture, is likely to want to weigh on the Argentine government, but cannot derail the judicial process, estimates Mr. Polak.

“The courts have shown that they are fully independent,” he said.

The prosecutor on the file had first pleaded successfully so that the complaint was. argentina | justice will look dismissed by noting that a similar investigation had been opened in Türkiye. The decision was confirmed on appeal before being invalidated by the Court of Criminal Cassation.

“Unjustified restrictions”

The complaint made in 2002 reviews the abuses suffered by the Uighurs. which have been qualified as genocidal by several human rights organizations and by elected officials from several Western countries.

It is particularly question in the document of forced sterilization, torture, massive detention in concentration and forced work camps.

In a report she published when she left her post in 2022. the former United Nations Human Rights-Rights Michelle Bachelet had declared that the Chinese regime’s efforts to combat extremism in Xinjiang had led to “unjustified restrictions of a wide range of human rights”.

She also indicated argentina | justice will look that the extent of the arbitrary. discriminatory detention of members of the Muslim community in this context could constitute “international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”.

President Xi Jinping’s regime had exerted significant pressure subsequently to block any discussion of the report within the international body.

Although the situation of Uighurs living in China receives less attention from the international community. it remains critical, pleads Louisa Greve, spokesperson for Uyghur Human Rights Project.

Monitoring the Muslim population is led by a telephone application which allows you to control all the content exchanged. she says.

People who have to criticize the Chinese regime risk arrest. notes M^me Greve, which is also alarmed by the indoctrination of thousands of children withdrawn from their family and the extrajudicial detention of many Uighurs.

The Chinese regime has also continued. she said, to develop the industrial capacities of the region by forcing members of this Muslim community to work against their will in designated factories.

Control measures

Several countries have implemented more severe control measures at their border to avoid the importation of products produced in whole. in part thanks to forced work in the Xinjiang.

The United States notably requests that importers show the show that its products are not tainted by such practices by detailing the supply chain. the working conditions of the workers.

The procedure open in Argentina will finally allow victims to be heard in a formal setting. sends them the message “that the world is not indifferent to their fate”, underlines Mr.^me Greve.

The Chinese government. which has not reacted directly to the decision of the Argentinian court, is indignant at the sanctions aimed at companies established in the Xinjiang.

At a summit held in Beijing in March. the regional official for the Chinese Communist Party, my Xingrui, said that Western countries had used the question of human rights for “dirty” and slow down its economic boom.

“They want the Xinjiang to fall back into poverty in order to be able to make gestures promoting separatism. interfere in the development of China,” he said, according to the China Daily.