The Times Red Box, February 13, Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP and Sir Chris Bryant MP
As this goes to print, Erkin Tuniyaz, the monstrous perpetrator of the Xinjiang genocide, is likely walking free in London.
Tuniyaz is the current governor of Xinjiang, where the UN has acknowledged that crimes against humanity have been inflicted upon Uighurs and other minorities — horrors our own parliament recognised as genocide in 2021.
Inexplicably, the government seems willing to let him come to the UK. Worse, the Foreign Office appears to think it would be a good idea to meet him. During an urgent question in the Commons last week, we learnt that ministers had given approval for mandarins to meet this appalling organiser of mass atrocities. Worse, this astonishing meeting is driven by the governments new policy of “robust pragmatism”.
This is a wrong-headed and deeply damaging decision. Tuniyaz is the henchman of President Xi who is determined to eradicate the Uighurs in Xinjiang. But he is not only a functionary for Beijing’s appalling policies in Xinjiang, he is an ardent supporter. As deputy governor, and now governor, he was responsible for their brutal and deathly implementation.
This means that together with Chen Quanguo (chief architect of the genocide in the Uighur region), Tuniyaz oversaw the forced sterilisation of Uighur women, internment of more than one million Uighurs, slavery, mass separation of families, reeducation, and more. In 2021 the independent Uighur Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice KC found that the People’s Republic of China was guilty of genocide through their deliberate state sponsored policy of forced sterilisation.
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