who would have said that Argentinian justice would become a beacon of hope for the Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic minority persecuted by the Chinese government in the Xinjiang region. However, this week Dolkun Isapresident of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), Omer Kanatexecutive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and michael polacka British lawyer with experience in high-profile human rights cases, traveled to Buenos Aires and they filed a criminal complaint with the courts of Comodoro Py for genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghur people.

Why did they opt for such a remote country, with no apparent ties to the Uyghur diaspora and a government that wants to “deepen political, commercial, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation relations” with Beijing? According to account THE NATION Polak, director of Justice Abroad, the choice fell “under Argentine universal jurisdiction provisions.”

The principle of universal jurisdiction gives any country the possibility of trying those who have committed a limited group of heinous and difficult to prosecute crimes, even if they were perpetrated abroad or by citizens of another country. Argentina incorporates this principle into its regulations as customary international law, through the article 118 of the Constitutionas well as by recognize the primacy of international human rights treaties in Argentine law.

“There are not many courts that Uyghurs can go to,” Polak points out and points out that Argentina is one of the few countries that applies the legal principle without any requirement of connection (without limits). Even the International Criminal Court (ICC) could not intervene; in 2020 he dismissed an investigation into the mass detention of Uyghurs because the alleged crimes took place in China, which is not a party to the court.

The filing of the complaint marks the first stage of a long process: the “indictment stage” against some of the main perpetrators of the genocide, during which the designated judge will examine the complaint to decide whether to open a file.

This request could mark a milestone because if the judge decides to open the file – whose decision will be known within one to six weeks – an investigation will be opened to find out if they are perpetrate international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and torture against the Uyghur people in China. Based on the evidence, the judge could indict the accused, issue international arrest warrants and bring the case to trialPolak explains.

If a case were opened, the judge could even subpoena witnesses to testify under oath, which would mean that the evidence of atrocities committed against this ethnic minority was presented in court for the first time.

Isa and Kanat, who fled China when they were young, tell THE NATION that the evidence they have against the alleged perpetrators is monumental. A UN special rapporteur published an independent report this week in which he notes that the Chinese authorities have imposed forced labor people from Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region and that these events could represent “Slavery as a crime against humanity”. There is also satellite images confirming the existence of at least 380 re-education camps -although the actual number is estimated at more than 900-, there are testimonials of survivors and experts, there are records of supplies and official documents that have been leaked or that the Communist Party itself has published. “Unlike other diets, China keeps track of everythinghe writes everything,” says Polak and points out that this has been an advantage.

In 2014, the Chinese head of state, President Xi Jinpinglaunched the “People’s War on Terror in Xinjiang», a policy of forced assimilation, in areas where Uyghurs constitute nearly 90% of the population. Senior Chinese officials carried out the orders of “Arrest all those who needed to be arrested, cleanse them completely, destroy them from root to branch and break their lineage, their roots, their connections and their origins”according to official documents published online.

“What is happening in China is genocide in slow motion. It’s not like the Holocaust, where Jews were exterminated en masse in gas chambers, but the government is creating the conditions to eradicate us slowly.”said the director of UHRP.

According to the evidence, says Kanat, more than three million Uyghurs live confined in so-called “re-education camps”. There the inmates are torturethe women raped, sterilized and even forced to abort. They are subject to forced labor, the same uniform is imposed on them and they are stripped of all their rites and customs. Also, at least one million children have been separated from their parents and sent to kindergartens, where they learn Communist Party doctrine and forget their own and learn to spy on their parents. In some cases, their identity is even changed and they will never see their family again.

In villages where non-detained Uyghurs live, the government has installed security cameras everywhere and uses technology to torment Muslim families. encourage the surveillance between neighbors and even sends its own agents to live in the homes of Uyghursthat they must receive them and welcome them with the greatest hospitality, otherwise they will be betrayed and arrested.

Of course, the Chinese government denies committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang. And despite mounting evidence, the reaction of the international community has been weak. Some United Nations (UN) member states have issued statements to the Human Rights Council condemning China’s policies. The United States has declared that human rights violations genocide, a conclusion it reached on January 19, 2021. Since then, the legislatures of several countries have passed non-binding motions calling China’s actions genocide, such as the House of Commons of Canada, the Dutch Parliament, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, the Seimas of Lithuania and the French National Assembly. Other parliaments, such as those of New Zealand, Belgium and the Czech Republic, have condemned the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs as “serious violations of human rights” or crimes against humanity.

However, none of these measures are binding. This is why the Uyghur representatives and their lawyer focused on Argentina, which has some experience in this type of business. For example, in November 2021, the Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires decided to open an investigation into crimes against humanity committed against the rohingya community in Burma. Also following two complaints filed in 2010, the Argentinian courts initiated a trial against the crimes of Francoism, the only open case in the world against individuals who committed crimes against humanity under the Spanish dictatorship, for which several international arrest warrants have already been issued. And in 2014, Chamber I of the Federal National Chamber of Criminal and Correctional Appeals ordered the annulment of a decision ordering the closure of the investigation into the genocide against millions of practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong in Chinathrough the principle of universal jurisdiction.

However, all these processes it’s been years and meanwhile, millions of Uyghurs are suffering the consequences. In 2017, the Chinese government cut off all communication from the Xinjiang region to the outside world, “no one really knows what’s going on there”, said Isa, who he lost both his parents in those years they were detained in a re-education camp. “I don’t know in what conditions they died because they didn’t want to tell me anything, I learned it from the media.”

But even Uyghurs living outside China are not safe. Kanat and Isa – the latter had a red notice from Interpol for years at the request of Beijing until the agency decided to eliminate him – point out that they received repeated threats from Chinese officials discouraging them from continuing their activism, reminding them that their families still remained in Chinese territory and that “anything could happen to them”. Yet they continued to fight. Now with help from Polak.

However, the road has not been easy. men are aware the enormous economic influence that Beijing wields over dozens of countries, they even recognize “the close diplomatic relationship between China and Argentina”. However, Polak hopes that won’t be a problem and says that “I hope the government will not exert any influence on the conduct of justice.”