WASHINGTON – U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and John Cornyn (R-TX) today introduced the UIGHUR Protection Act, which would place export controls on critical technologies to China, such as facial recognition software, that can be used to facilitate mass surveillance and detention.

“As we have seen from extensive reporting and leaked Chinese government documents, the Chinese government is undertaking systematic repression and internment of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region in the People’s Republic of China. This behavior extends beyond Xinjiang to other regions and online communities. We need to ensure that US companies are not enabling these efforts, intentionally or inadvertently, by selling specific technology items that provide critical capabilities to the Chinese government for their surveillance, censorship, and social control efforts,” said Sen. Warner.

“For years, members of China’s Uighur population have been unjustly detained and surveilled by the Chinese government,” said Sen. Cornyn. “American technology should not be used for the oppression of ethnic minority groups by foreign governments, and this legislation would ensure that the United States has no part in these despicable practices.”

Background:

The UIGHUR Protection Act would require the President, no later than 120 days after enactment, to identify and place items and technologies on the Commerce Control List that provide a critical capability to the Chinese government for suppressing human rights. Special licenses may be granted by the President for the export, re-export, or in-country transfer to or within China for these critical technologies but the bill would require a presumption of denial.

Uighurs, or Uyghurs, are an ethnic group living primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in China’s northwest. Since an outbreak of demonstrations and ethnic unrest in 2009 and clashes involving Uyghurs and Xinjiang security personnel that spiked between 2013 and 2015, the Chinese Community Party (CCP) began a policy of mass internment through labor camps they refer to as “reeducation camps.”

According to various estimates, Xinjiang authorities have detained over one million Turkic Muslims, mostly ethnic Uyghurs, and Kazakhs, in these camps without formal charges, trials or hearings, and with no timetable for release. According to former detainees, treatment and conditions in the camps include beatings, food deprivation, and crowded and unsanitary conditions.

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