U.S. Holocaust Museum says Chinese government repression of Uyghurs is escalating

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says it has compiled evidence of increasing Chinese government repression of the Uyghur minority population in China's Xinjiang region.

In a report released Tuesday, the museum's Center for the Prevention of Genocide says there is a "reasonable basis" to believe that the alleged crimes against humanity of the Chinese government against the Uyghurs are escalating.

"The Chinese government has done its best to keep information about crimes against the Uyghurs from seeing the light of day," said Tom Bernstein, chairman of the museum's Committee on Conscience. "The Chinese government must halt its attacks on the Uyghur people and allow independent international monitors to investigate and ensure that the crimes have stopped."

The report cites witness testimony, publicly available information from dissidents, and reports by human rights groups. It bolsters the museum's 2020 findings that the Chinese Communist Party has ruthlessly persecuted the Uyghurs in myriad ways.

The U.S. government has determined that China's actions against the Uyghur Muslim population and other minority populations amount to genocide.

Naomi Kikoler, the director of the museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, said, "The Chinese government's assault on the Uyghur community — marked by the incarceration of between one and three million people as well as abuses such as forced sterilization, torture, sexual violence, and forced labor — is alarming in scale and severity"

China has repeatedly denied the allegations. Last month, the country's U.N. ambassador denounced "groundless accusations" leveled against China in a statement signed by 43 countries condemning the reported torture of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Ambassador Zhang Jun accused the United States of "using human rights as a pretext for political maneuvering to provoke confrontation."