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The Weekly Brief

Just a quick update in case you missed it.




Released on 21.06.2022






Hawagul’s Tears: What They Tell a Uyghur

“I can feel Hawagul’s pain through her eyes,” said Afzal Khan, a British MP who saw a picture of Hawagul Tewekkul, a female detainee, in the Xinjiang Police Files. This is a common feeling about the iconic picture these days. However, when viewed by a Uyghur journalist, there are specific meanings of these tears.

Read more: bitterwinter.org



US ban on cotton from forced Uyghur labour comes into force

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which comes into force today, assumes that any product partly or wholly made in Xinjiang, north-west China, is linked to the region’s labour camps. Since 2017, the Chinese authorities have detained as many as one million Uyghurs and subjected them to forced labour.

Read more: theguardian.com



US shoe company Skechers forced to prove 'no forced labor' ahead of US discriminative act on Xinjiang


US shoe company Skechers has had a batch of its products manufactured in China seized by US customs, which cited the so-called Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the Global Times learned from sources.In order to appeal to the US customs, Skechers organized an independent investigation conducted by a third party, which found no evidence to support so-called forced labor allegations.

Read more: globaltimes.cn



Congress targets Harvard, Yale and top universities with China-linked endowments


Congress first targeted U.S. universities’ Chinese state-backed Confucius Institutes, then their academic partnerships with China. Now, some in Congress are preparing to go after America’s top institutions of higher learning and their enormous endowments in potentially problematic Chinese companies.

Read more: politico.com





DHS unveils strategy to block goods made by Uyghur forced labor in China

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. "We must combat these inhumane and exploitative practices while ensuring that legitimate goods can enter at our ports and reach American businesses and consumers as quickly as possible." 


Read more: foxbusiness.com



Activists Welcome UN Rights Chief’s Decision to Step Down


Activists have criticized Bachelet for failing to more forcefully criticize Beijing’s forced incarceration of nearly 2 million Uyghurs in Xinjiang during her recent visit to China.

"It is a huge victory for the campaigners who are absolutely disgusted with her visit to China,” Luke De Pulford, a human rights activist and the coordinator of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, told VOA.

Read more: voanews.com



UN Human Rights Council 50: Joint Statement on the Human Rights Situation in China

The UK was one of 47 countries at the UN Human Rights Council to sign up to a Joint Statement on the Human Rights Situation in China. This initiative was led by the Kingdom of the Netherlands.


Read more: gov.uk







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