Since 2014, the government of the People’s Republic of China has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang which has often been characterized as persecution or as genocide. There have been reports of mass arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, family separation, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights.

In 2014, the administration of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping launched the Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism, which involved surveillance and restrictions in Xinjiang. Beginning in 2017, under Xinjiang Party secretary Chen Quanguo,[2] the government incarcerated over an estimated one million Uyghurs without legal process in internment camps officially described as “vocational education and training centers”, in the largest mass internment of an ethnic-religious minority group since World War II.[3][4] China began to wind down the camps in 2019, and some detainees were transferred to the penal system, while others were transferred to forced labor and factory work programs.[5][6]

In addition to mass detention, government policies have included suppression of Uyghur religious practices,[7] political indoctrination,[8] forced sterilization,[9] forced contraception,[10][11] and forced abortion.[12][13] An estimated 16,000 mosques have been razed or damaged,[2] and hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools.[14][15] Chinese government statistics reported that from 2015 to 2018, birth rates in the mostly Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashgar fell by more than 60%.[9] In the same period, the national birth rate decreased by 9.7%.[16] According to CNN, Chinese authorities acknowledged that birth rates dropped by almost a third in 2018 in Xinjiang, but denied reports of forced sterilization.[17] Birth rates in Xinjiang fell a further 24% in 2019, compared to a nationwide decrease of 4.2%.[9]

The Chinese government denies having committed human rights abuses in Xinjiang.[3][18] International reactions have varied, with its actions being described as the forced assimilation of Xinjiang, as ethnocide or cultural genocide,[19][20] or as genocide. Those accusing China of genocide point to intentional acts they say violate Article II of the Genocide Convention,[21][22][23] which prohibits “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”, a “racial or religious group” including “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “measures intended to prevent births within the group”.[24]

At the United Nations, several countries, predominantly in North America and Europe, signed letters condemning China’s policies. On the other hand, several countries, predominantly in Asia and Africa, signed letters supporting the policies as an effort to combat terrorism in the region.[25][26][27] In 2020, a case brought to the International Criminal Court was dismissed because China is not a party to the Rome Statute, meaning the ICC could not investigate them.[28] In 2021, the United States Department of State declared China’s actions as genocide,[29][30] and legislatures in several countries have passed non-binding motions doing the same, while other parliaments, condemned the policies as “severe human rights abuses” or crimes against humanity.[31] In a 2022 assessment, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that China’s policies and actions in the Xinjiang region may constitute crimes against humanity, though it did not use the term genocide.[32][33][34] In 2026, the OHCHR described China’s policies toward the Uyghurs as potentially amounting to “forcible transfer and/or enslavement as a crime against humanity.”[35]

Persecution of Uyghurs in China