What does 'Never Again' mean in the context of modern day genocides?

My name is Nina and I am an Italian-German postgraduate student at UCL. After finishing my undergraduate studies at Bournemouth University where I co-founded the society Student Action for Refugees, I started studying towards an MA in Human Rights in London. As much as I love my course, I can't hide that it’s a frustrating subject to study. That’s mainly because all the international law instruments we learn about (which are supposed to hold governments to account), are often not applicable or just ignored altogether.

I was feeling especially frustrated in light of the recent 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, when the phrase ‘Never Again’, was repeated by politicians and the media alike. And yet we all know that genocide has been - and still is - committed in various countries across the globe. Recent leaks of both the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the New York Times have exposed China for its mass detention of Muslim minorities. Major media outlets are finally bringing international attention to the human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) – but why is nobody doing anything about it? Unfortunately, the lack of domestic human rights regulations and the fact that it doesn’t recognise the International Criminal Court makes it difficult to hold China accountable for its actions. The frustration lies in knowing that what China is doing is genocide, but not being able to do anything about it. 

For those of you who don't know exactly what I am talking about, here is a quick recap of the situation:

XUAR is important to China because it is very rich in resources. The Uyghur people, who are ethnically, culturally and geographically closer to Turkic groups than to the Han Chinese, have had to fight for independence several times throughout history – which is used as an excuse by the government to label them as a separatist threat.

In 2017, China adopted The XUAR Regulation on De-extremification, which introduced policies ranging from monitoring people’s cell phone contents to making everyone obliged to identify with the Communist Party of China - yep they had no choice whatsoever. These regulations even provided legal basis for disappearing ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities into secret internment camps, which China’s state media has referred to as “counter-extremism training centres” or “education and transformation training centres”.

Everyday practices, such as eating halal meat, wearing a headscarf or having a long beard, are used as a pretext for forcing Uyghur people into “re-education” camps. In other words; China has criminalised practising the Muslim faith. There have been many survivor testimonies accusing China of gross human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, denial of language and culture, mass surveillance, sexual violence, forced abortion and sterilisation. What China is doing is in breach of its commitments to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which it ratified in 1983. Articles 2 defines genocide as actions taken “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”, which the leaks prove that it is doing.

The problem is that China has a great silencing power, largely due to its position within the UN Security Council, which explains why there has not been massive international outcry. One could also stipulate that human rights are becoming less of a foreign policy priority in the Western world, which would be dangerous. So please, take action and let your representatives know that you are not ok with this and that ‘Never Again’ should not be just a phrase; as we all know - actions speak louder than words!

Take action here:
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/campaign/expose-chinese-camps
https://uhrp.org/what-you-can-do

Nina Nagel is a Podcast Production Coordinator at WIFP with a background in multimedia journalism and human rights.