A number of human rights groups recently issued a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders be immediately sanctioned for their crimes against millions of Uyghurs and other ethnic people, according to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOCMF).
The VOCMF and more than 50 human rights groups issued the letter to Blinken and Yellen on Aug. 11, highlighting the recently disclosed Xinjiang Police Files, which included various documentation of these violations, according to ChinaAid.
"We strongly urge appropriate sanctions against the Chinese officials implicated by the Xinjiang Police Files in the atrocity crimes against Uyghurs and other Muslim Turkic groups," the letter states. "China will continue its atrocious abuse of human rights in Xinjiang until the free world pushes back."
The Xinjiang Police Files, published by the VOCMF on May 24, reportedly reveal evidence of the Chinese government's crimes in Xinjiang detention camps. This evidence includes files, speeches, papers, spreadsheets and photographs documenting the CCP's abuses.
Zhao Kezhi, minister of public security in Beijing; Wang Yang, head of the Central Xinjiang Work Coordination Small Group; Guo Shengkun, head of China's Political and Legal Affairs Commission; and Hu Lianhe, deputy director of the Office of the Central Committee, are among the officials directly named in the files.
Following the revelation of these files, the U.S. has sanctioned just one government official: former Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) Party Secretary Chen Quanguo.
The U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union, however, announced coordinated sanctions for any Beijing officials implicated in crimes against Uyghurs and other ethnic people back in March 2021.
"The European Parliament passed by a majority resolution, which urged member states and the vice president of the commission/high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to immediately enact additional sanctions targeting high-ranking Chinese officials," the letter states.
Yellen did not respond to a request by State Newswire for comments.
