Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to draw the House's attention to pages 33 and 34 of the report which I circulated. It shows that between 2015 and 2019, the fertility rate and reproduction of Uyghur people has plummeted. On page 34 of the report in particular, there is a graph showing the decline in fertility rates of the Uyghurs. Their reproduction is mainly clustered between an increase of 0% and a -60% increase whereas the Han population is continuing to grow in their area.

All of these things are completely unforgivable - the abortions, forced chemical sterilisation, the brutality, rape, beatings, stripping, shaving and the exportation to forced labour across China of the menfolk. They have been documented at great length and with remarkable objectivity by the tribunal that established itself in London to hear the testimony of Uyghur people from around the world. I will give an example. One Uyghur woman was persuaded to go back to China by her Uyghur employer to settle up her pension entitlements and as soon as she arrived in Xinjiang province she was thrown into this system.

The tentacles of the Chinese repression go right across the world. Uyghur men and women in the United Arab Emirates are now disappearing into black detention centres where they are interrogated by Chinese diplomats and security officers and some of them have never been heard of again. Right across the world there is a campaign of destruction of the Uyghur people. Anybody who speaks out against it is ruthlessly followed and repressed insofar as the brutal regime in Beijing can do it, through its network of diplomatic staff and by whatever other means.

The Chinese ambassador to Ireland should not be welcome in these Houses any more because he has decried this report as untrue, false, unreliable and effectively propaganda and lies. He is a part of the diplomatic regime in Beijing which has systematically denied the obvious truth. When one is a Marxist-Leninist communist party with totalitarian habits it is perfectly reasonable to lie, falsify and deny the truth of anything in the cause of what one considers to be the greater good.

The Chinese Government, through its diplomatic services, has sought to discredit all Uyghurs in their resistance to what is being done to them and to deny the truth of what has been found against it. That is why I tabled a motion before Christmas, not merely to note this report but to accept its findings. It is all very well to note these reports, but it is about time that the Chambers of this Parliament consider where they stand on this issue.