Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) an estimated 25 million Uyghur people live in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region;

(b) many Uyghur people have fled their homeland and sought refuge in other countries including Australia;

(c) in recent years there have been increasing reports of violations of human rights of Uyghurs by Chinese Government authorities including arrest, interrogation, detention and incarceration in what are referred to as re-education camps; and

(d) many Uyghurs now living in Australia have lost contact with family members and relatives in their homeland and they hold grave concerns for their safety; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) raise concerns about allegations of human rights abuse against Uyghurs with the Chinese Government through whatever opportunities are available;

(b) assist in whatever way is possible Australian Uyghur residents to make contact with family members and relatives in their homelands; and

(c) expeditiously process permanent resident visa applications for Uyghur people in Australia on temporary protection visas.

The repression of Uyghur people in their homeland since 1949, known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, has a long history dating back to the mid 18th century. Exact Uyghur population numbers are difficult to ascertain, as it is claimed the government authorities deliberately understate their numbers. It has also been asserted that in recent years there has been a huge influx of Han Chinese into the region in an attempt to portray Uyghurs as a minority group.

Over past months I have met with several people, and received numerous letters from local Uyghur people, who raised with me their grave concerns about the wellbeing of family members and friends in their homeland. Their stories re-enforce reports from across the world by reputable sources, including Human Rights Watch, about the widespread human rights abuses taking place daily in Xinjiang and reports that over one million people are now detained in what are referred to as 'education camps'.

Once detained it is alleged that all contact with family and the outside world is often denied. It is also claimed that arrest and detention have escalated since 2016 after Communist party secretary, Chen Quanguo, assumed leadership in Xinjiang and that people are being detained for the most frivolous of charges. In one case, a Uyghur man was detained for changing his watch to Urumqi time, which is two hours behind Beijing time. Doing so is seen as form of resistance against the Chinese government, which has only one official time zone from east to west.

It is also believed that Xinjiang has one of the highest densities of security cameras on earth, enabling constant monitoring of locals by authorities, including the use of facial recognition cameras. Noticeably, the cameras are predominantly installed by two companies, Hikvision and Dahua, which have had other accusations of being associated with Chinese government spying in other places around the world.

For Uyghur people living in Xinjiang just making contact with the outside world risks interrogation and arrest. Family members abroad avoid contacting relatives in Xinjiang for fear of putting them at risk. For Uyghurs who have fled Xinjiang losing contact with family and friends, not knowing if they are alive or dead, well or unwell, is extremely stressful. I have seen the strain in their faces and heard it in their voices.

They are pleading for government help. In particular, they are asking the Australian government to raise the persecution of Uyghur people with the Chinese government, to raise the issue in international forums and to expedite the processing of permanent residency applications by Uyghur people currently in Australia on temporary protection visas. They have also raised a petition signed by 11,144 people. I present the petition to the House.

The petition read as follows—

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'I feel hopeless. We are seeking a peaceful life but our life is not in peace… All night I have to fight with my nightmares, as if I am living in those camps. And worse, I know the world doesn't care.' This is a statement made by one of my constituents, Zulfia Erk, who is a social worker and mother of three and who is very prominent in our community. We are fortunate to have Zulfia and her husband here with us today in the gallery, and I take the opportunity to thank them for their tireless advocacy on behalf of Australian Uyghur communities. Zulfia puts in perspective the dire human rights situation faced by the Turkic Muslims, the Uyghurs, in China's north-western region. Zulfia Erk has been a passionate advocate for the Uyghur community, having personally been affected by the human rights situation in China given the fact that five of her brothers are in detention camps in Xinjiang presently.

A recent report by Human Rights Watch highlights the gravity of the situation, providing evidence of China's arbitrary detention and mistreatment of the Uyghur people. Through the region, the Turkic Muslims, a population of 13 million people, are subjected to restrictions on movement, mass surveillance and significant limitations on their religious freedoms, all in violation of the universally accepted principles of human rights. In describing the large-scale crackdown on human rights in this region, Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, says that the Chinese government is committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang on a scale unseen in the country for many decades.

In a recent review, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination cited estimates that up to one million people are currently being held in re-education camps in Xinjiang alone. The conditions in these camps are rife with torture and solitary confinement, and deprivation of food and sustenance is widespread. The gravity of the conditions is highlighted in a number of interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch with former Xinjiang inmates. Rustam, a former detainee who spent months in a re-education camp, says:

Nobody can move because they watch you through the video cameras … we were watched, even in the toilet. In political education camp we were always under stress.

The detainees in these political education camps are being held without any rights to due process. People are reportedly being detained for simply having family and friends abroad, asking the authorities for the issue of a passport or simply making plans to go overseas.

Unlike the United States, China remains a permanent member of the United Nations Human Rights Council and, as such, clearly has a responsibility for the promotion of human rights globally. We support an economically strong and prosperous China, and we think it is an important role that China has to play internationally in promoting peace and the recognition of human rights. In saying this, I emphasise that our support for this motion is purely based on the grounds of human rights, as Labor is deeply concerned about the human rights situation faced by the Uyghur people. We do not support any separatist agenda, and we remain fully committed to our one-China policy. Nevertheless, China is one of Australia's longstanding and close friends, and our dialogue with it should not simply be confined to trade, economics and regional security. We should be open to discussing with it all matters associated with our respective human rights obligations.

On this note, I call on the Australian government to increase the pressure on China over the reported mass detentions of the Uyghur Muslims. The Australian government should use its position on the UN Human Rights Council, in coordination with other members, to continue to put pressure on the Chinese government. I also call on the Australian government to ensure that the Uyghur communities here in Australia have every assistance possible to ensure that they are able to contact their family members and friends in their homeland. We cannot simply take the role of bystanders in the hope of change. Australia must have the courage of its convictions when it comes to human rights. (Time expired)

Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government is concerned about the human rights situation in Xinjiang, including reported use of re-education centres. On a regular basis, we raise our concerns with China about the treatment of Uyghur citizens, including most recently through our national statement at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 11 September. We acknowledge that China has concerns about extremism and instances of terrorism, as do many other countries, but we have urged China to exercise restraint and to address the underlying causes of problems in Xinjiang, including restrictions on religious and cultural freedom and discrimination in employment.

We're also concerned at reports from Uyghur Australians of harassment of their China based families, including detentions, where it is reported that in some cases they are unable to contact family members and relatives, or in other cases they fear that making contact will put them at risk of detention. We will continue, as a government, to seek opportunities to raise these concerns, and we do so in such a way as to promote two-way dialogue between Australia and China on human rights, enabling China to raise concerns about human rights in Australia and vice versa. We'll continue to monitor the situation and raise concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang. I thank those opposite for raising this motion today.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Makin for bringing this very important motion to the House for discussion. I'd like to thank the Chief Opposition Whip and the member for Dunkley for their words on this very important matter.

Like the member for Makin, I've been moved by the correspondence of some of my constituents about this matter, including firsthand accounts of the repression that is going on in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. From the outset of the debate, I want to say this is a debate about human rights. It's not a debate about China's territorial integrity. It's not a debate about how China governs itself. We have a good relationship with China. We want to maintain that good relationship, and as part of that good relationship we want to raise these very important human rights issues in this region. It's important for us to do that as a good friend of China and as a participant in world affairs.

Labor's position on this matter has been made very clear by Senator Penny Wong, who's our spokesperson on foreign affairs. We are deeply concerned about reports and accounts of mass detention of the minority Uygur population and other violations of human rights in this region. It's important to note that it's not just us; it's also the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, who said the panel had brought to light 'deeply disturbing allegations of large-scale arbitrary detentions of Uygurs and other Muslim communities, in so-called re-education camps across Xinjiang'.

This is a tremendously important matter. There is a system that I think could be best described as Orwellian—a very concerning sort of police state that's occurring in this region. For those members who are interested and for the public who are interested, The Economist had a very good article on 31 May 2018 which goes into some detail about the sorts of surveillance and programs that have been put in place and, of course, the mass detention of people. I'd like to quote directly from that article. It says:

Under a new party boss, Chen Quanguo, appointed in 2016, the provincial government has vastly increased the money and effort it puts into controlling the activities and patrolling the beliefs of the Uighur population. Its regime is racist, uncaring and totalitarian, in the sense of aiming to affect every aspect of peoples' lives. It has created a fully-fledged police state. And it is committing some of the most extensive, and neglected, human-rights violations in the world.

One of the titles is:

The not-quite-Gulag archipelago.

The article continues:

The government is building hundreds or thousands of unacknowledged re-education camps to which Uighurs can be sent for any reason or for none. In some of them day-to-day conditions do not appear to be physically abusive as much as creepy.

The article then goes on to quote the numbers of people in these camps, stating that Human Rights Watch says there may be as many as 800,000 people. Timothy Grose, from the University of Indiana, puts the number of people in those camps at between 500,000 and a million. We are talking about vast numbers of people. These camps are an open secret on the internet. If people want to look at The Atlantic, they have a good article which uses open-source material to establish that these camps exist.

It's not just these camps; there are other programs in place—of human surveillance, of tracking apps, of using peoples' health records against them, of sending government officials to live with individuals. All of these things are deeply concerning to Australians and deeply concerning to Australians of Uygur extraction or of Uygur origins. Their friends and families are subject to such conditions. We want China to perhaps have another look at these programs. It strikes me that they may be wildly counterproductive to the ends that China seeks, which is peaceful coexistence, no doubt, and economic growth in this region. The counterproductive nature of this sort of surveillance, this sort of police state and this sort of repression can be very bad indeed. We'd just encourage China to have another look and to perhaps put some reforms in place to end this repression.

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the contributions of the members for Makin, Fowler, Wakefield and Dunkley to this debate. Last month I was visited by a number of my constituents of Uygur background. Like many new Australians, they came here as students to study and make a better life for themselves. They chose to stay in Australia and become Australian citizens not only because of the opportunities and promise that this great country offers but because they had a genuine fear for their lives if they returned to their homeland. They work hard, they pay taxes, they raise their families and they are actively involved in civic life with local Uygur groups and the wider Australian community. They, of course, still have family and friends back home in the Xinjiang region of China—brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, schoolmates and neighbours. Many Uygurs living in Australia have lost contact with those friends and family and have serious concerns for their safety.

Several constituents have recently come to see me and have related that they have not had contact with relatives and friends for well over eight months. They explained that they fear for the safety of their loved ones as there have been rumours that they've been taken to prison and their general wellbeing is not good. They are concerned from firsthand witness accounts, media reports and the response of government and intergovernmental agencies around the world about the potential human rights violations by China in its treatment of its Uyghur minority. These reports include arbitrary mass detention of a massive scale. I stand today to voice my concerns about these disturbing reports.

Australia has a long record of playing a leading role in international relations and defending human rights, especially in our region. Doc Evatt, a member of this parliament for two decades, played a major hand in both founding of the United Nations and drafting the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A fellow parliamentarian, Gareth Evans, was instrumental in founding APEC, the cooperation forum, and brokering the Cambodian peace process. Once again, members of the Australian parliament need to play a key role in leading the world in the defence of human rights.

China officially recognises 55 ethnic minorities in addition to the Han majority, of which the Uyghur are one. Predominantly Sunni Muslims, the Uyghur live in the Xinjiang region of China's north-west. Recent reports paint an increasingly worrying picture of the treatment of the Uyghur by the Chinese government. The detention of Uyghurs in so-called re-education camps and the increasing rate at which those detention centres are being built continues to increase the worry. Varying reports on the detention rate estimate up to 12 per cent of the community have been detained, with the detention camps having a capacity to hold up to one million people. Jerome Cohen, a leading academic authority on Chinese legal systems, suggests that this is potentially the largest mass detention program seen since 1950, the period of 'the great leap forward'. Detainees come from all strata of the Uyghur society and include prominent sportspeople, academics and pop stars. The supposed crimes that result in internment can include praying regularly, growing a beard or visiting a Muslim country. Given that some of these crimes represent core religious acts to people of the Islamic faith, these reports are disturbing.

There are also reports of Chinese surveillance and intimidation of Uyghurs abroad, including in this country. It is important that the Uyghur community here in Australia does not feel pressure or intimidation from a foreign power. Condemnation of the Chinese government has been widespread. Last month, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on China to halt the practice of detaining individuals who have not been lawfully charged, tried and convicted for a criminal offence. I welcome the recent confirmation by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that the Australian government has raised concerns with Beijing, and I echo the calls for multilateral action of the shadow minister for foreign affairs, Senator Penny Wong, in addition to direct discussion with China. As a member of the UN Human Rights Council, we should be working in coordination with other members to pursue this issue with the Chinese government so that members of the Uyghur community who I represent are able to find comfort that their friends and family are safe and are soon to be out of detention.

Debate adjourned.