Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I second the amendment. I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I also thank the Independent group of Senators for tabling this motion. It is an important discussion. There has clearly been a breakdown of human rights in Xinjiang province. A systematic effort is under way to destroy a culture, a heritage and a way of life. While there is not full extermination under way, through the sterilisation process, abortion, etc., there is, effectively, an effort being made to exterminate a people. We are talking about something extremely serious here.

Before I comment on the tribunal, I will cite a few other sources. There is universal awareness of this issue now, but I will cite a few more sources, if only to read the material into the Official Report. On 12 July 2021, The Economiststated that 1 million Uyghurs “are in prison camps” and that people are put into those camps for the following reasons: “having contact with [...] relatives oversea [...] growing a beard”, showing too much of their own culture or religious behaviour, or anything that shows that Uyghurs are engaging in their traditions. The same article went on to cite practices within the camps, including “forced labour, torture and forced female sterilisations”. Frighteningly, one in ten Uyghurs has at some point been interned in these detention centres. This includes one sixth of young men and one third of middle-aged men. That is a shocking statistic. People are sent to the camps because of information obtained through monitoring using surveillance cameras, mobile phones and medical records. All of those sources are used as a basis to detain people. Pressure is being applied in so many ways. The article to which I refer also indicates that “16,000 mosques in Xinjiang have been destroyed or damaged since 2017, around 65% of the total”, with 8,000 having been demolished.

Another source, USA Today, in April 2021 referred to forced labour camps, torture and it being a crime for Uyghurs to demonstrate anything to do with their culture. This piece stated that up to 50 people were being held in cells measuring 22 sq. m. There is a litany of crimes against humanity. Those in the cells are observed all the time by CCTV, and they suffer fingernail extractions, beatings, the use of tiger clamps, etc. I watched a "Dispatches" programme on Channel 4 recently, which referred to people being submerged in cold water, confined in cages, the use of metal weights, people being raped and subjected to other sexual violence, the provision of bad food and the withdrawal of food being used as a punishment.

Researchers with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, using satellite evidence, have found that 380 detention camps have been "newly built or significantly expanded since 2017", and that there are more than 14,000 such camps overall. A report from Amnesty International has cited married women of childbearing age being targeted for sterilisation. Equally, the BBC had a special report on this issue on "The Andrew Marr Show". Meanwhile, The Washington Postrecently urged that the pending UN report on abuses in Xinjiang be published, which is necessary, and referred to China only wanting UN human rights' officials in the country as visitors rather than as observers.

Turning to the report of the tribunal, which has been very helpfully circulated by Senator McDowell, it refers to detainees being "forced to take medicines by mouth" and "forced to provide blood samples and being subjected to other medical testing". This is all so reminiscent of what happened during the Second World War and the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi regime. The tribunal report continues by outlining how "Pregnant women, in detention centres [...] were forced to have abortions even at the very last stages of pregnancy". It also details how Uyghurs are subjected to intense monitoring and surveillance, and constantly so inside cells, and how "facial recognition and advanced technologies" are used to target people. The "Dispatches" programme I watched a few weeks ago described Xinjiang province as effectively being an open prison. The tribunal report also states, "Children as young as a few months were separated from their families and placed in orphanages or state-run boarding schools". The report goes on and on in the same vein. Senator McDowell very eloquently described the litany of crimes in his contribution. All the details can be read in the tribunal report.

One would like to have the time to read a lot of it into the record, but I do not. Regarding the amendment to the motion, the Government accepts everything being put forward in the motion. It is purely intended to state that this issue should be addressed through the UN and international bodies; it does not question the evidence of this tribunal report. In fact, this information correlates with all the evidence from the international media and Amnesty International. The amendment does not question the tribunal report; it only suggests the appropriate mechanism to address this issue. We will try to discuss this matter with as much consensus as is possible as the debate progresses.