UK: Uyghur forced labour case against Boris Johnson challenges import of goods from China

A day after the Biden administration imposed new sanctions on Chinese firms alleging atrocities against minorities group, the High Court of England and Wales allowed the Uyghur rights advocacy group to proceed with a forced labour case against UK authorities, reported ANI. According to the rights advocacy group, Prime Minister Boris Johnson led-government allowed the entry of goods produced by Uyghurs in China. The group believe the cotton goods imported from China are produced by forced labour in China. As per multiple reports published in Radio Free Asia, a case was registered by the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) of Munich, Germany, and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) against states and actors involved in human rights violations.

The group argued that the cotton goods produced by the detention camps are entering the United Kingdom with the help of the Johnson administration. Roseanne Gerin, editor of Radio Free Asia, who has been reporting on human rights issues for more than 20 years, said that the Johnson administration has violated the 9th-century law that prohibits the importation of prison-made goods. She claimed that the cotton goods entering the country are made by the minorities communities who are facing an oppressive regime over the years. 

" A court win would set a "world-first precedent" by confirming that the UK's Proceeds of Crime Act -- originally targeting money laundering and other illegal activities of organized crime -- also applies to proceeds companies accumulate from so-called atrocity crimes," GLAN said in a statement.

The group argued that the Chinese Communist government, on several occasions, tried to erase the data related to Uyghur Muslim brutality. According to the advocacy group, the Chinese President Xi-Jinping tried his best to obliterate witness statements, leaked government documents and a satellite image from the internet which could easily prove the ill-treatment of the Jinping government. "All evidence points to cotton made using forced labour coming into the UK from the Uyghur region, East Turkestan," ANI quoted the statement of Siobhan Allen, a GLAN legal officer. "Living in a free country which upholds respect for human rights, it hurts so much to know that the products that are used in this country are the fruit of the enslavement of my people," Rahima Mahmut, WUC's UK Director, said in the statement.

With inputs from ANI

Image: AP