Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I grieve today for the people of Hong Kong, whose freedoms and liberties are being trampled on and destroyed by the communist regime of Xi Jinping. Let's recall that the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which was signed in 1984, stipulates that Hong Kong would retain its high degree of autonomy, rights and freedoms for 50 years after the handover took place. But this agreement's been torn up by the Communist Party, which has blatantly walked away from its obligations, has closed down democracy and is now prosecuting and jailing anyone who dares question the totalitarian regime. Leading human rights advocates, such as Martin Lee, have been prosecuted; the proprietor of the democratic Apple Daily newspaper, Jimmy Lai, has been jailed on trumped-up charges; and, just in the last week, five journalists at the paper were arrested by 500 police—maybe a little overkill in terms of that exercise—and charged under the draconian national security laws.

So it was with some curiosity that I read recently that President Xi Jinping has asked China's bellicose official media and wolf warrior diplomats to present the image of a 'credible, lovable and respectable China' to the world—not that they have changed their over-the-top, bullying comments. It would seem that the growing global exposure of Xi's internal repression, external aggression, bellicose nationalism and doubletalk is having an impact on this paranoid regime. The failure to cooperate with the world health authorities to determine the source of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has now killed millions of people globally, has alerted the world to the true nature of the regime.

Let there be no doubt: the regime of Xi Jinping is a brutal, repressive and authoritarian one. It is in the process of destroying the human rights of Hongkongers as it has done in Tibet and Xinjiang and would do in Taiwan if ever given the chance. So I grieve tonight for the people of Hong Kong.

I grieve for the oppressed Uighurs of western China. This oppression has come under increasing scrutiny from China, which is very unhappy. Increasingly, the brutal oppression is being described—by Canada, by the United States, by Britain and now by other nations—as an ethnic genocide. The activities of the CCP in Xinjiang are being examined now by an independent tribunal. To quote from the journal Bitter Winter:

The Uyghur Tribunal was set up in September last year to investigate a swathe of allegations of brutality amidst the simultaneous erosion of Uyghur culture and religion. The detention of a significant proportion of the Uyghur population, torture and inhuman treatment of detainees, rape and other sexual violence, the forced separation of children from their parents, forced sterilization, forced labor, forced organ harvesting, enforced disappearances, killings in detention, forced marriages and the imposition of Han Chinese men into Uyghur households, are just some of the crimes of which the PRC is accused.

The report went on:

Lead by prominent human rights barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, deputy prosecutor at the ex-Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic war crimes trial at The Hague, who was also personally sanctioned by Beijing in March, the eight member panel consisting of academics, lawyers and a former diplomat, will act as a jury to examine witness and expert evidence to assess whether the PRC has embarked on a campaign intended to destroy in whole or in part, the Uyghur people and their existence as a racial, national and ethnic group. "These acts if proved, could also raise the question of whether the PRC has committed Genocide as defined in Article 2 of the Convention of 1948 to which China was a signatory and the PRC is a ratifying state together with other crimes including Crimes against Humanity," state the Tribunal organizers.

1,500 pieces of evidence and documents have been submitted from different countries and the UK government has fast-tracked visa applications from four eyewitness camp survivors to attend the hearings in person. The Tribunal has been funded from voluntary donations and panel members are acting on a pro-bono basis. The hearings will take place over four days from June 4-7, and again later—

in the northern spring there will be further hearings.

The judgement is expected towards the end of the year.

Beijing has mocked the tribunal as a "grave violation of international law and a serious provocation to the 25 million people of all ethnic groups in the region." China has consistently denied all allegations of human rights violations and despite mounting evidence to the contrary claims that religion is practiced freely and that there is harmony among all racial groups.

In four days of evidence, the tribunal has heard harrowing stories of rape and sexual abuse; torture, including the use of electrical shocks and the breaking of bones; imprisonment; the killing of newborn Uighur children; prisoners being chained up for months in concentration camps; and being deprived of adequate food and water. Others were earmarked for lethal injections and organ harvesting. A former policeman from the region testified about how the police were trained to torture prisoners. Some 900,000 Uighur children have been forcefully removed from their families and placed with Chinese Han families or in orphanages. From 300 witness statements that were reviewed, 40 witnesses were chosen, of which 24 testified during this first session in June. More than 50 experts have been approached and 14 testified over the four days. Despite four attempts to contact the PRC, Beijing continues to denounce the proceedings as illegal and a serious provocation to the 25 million members of ethnic groups in Xinjiang.

China's regime is being increasingly exposed for what it is: an inhumane perpetrator of the most egregious systematic abuse of human rights globally. That's why, tonight, I grieve for the Uighurs and the other victims of this oppressive regime.

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