[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 155 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 155

Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Government of the People's 
    Republic of China should immediately cease engaging in acts of 
 cultural, linguistic, and religious suppression directed against the 
                             Uyghur people.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              May 21, 2009

    Mr. Brown (for himself and Mr. Inhofe) submitted the following 
  resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Government of the People's 
    Republic of China should immediately cease engaging in acts of 
 cultural, linguistic, and religious suppression directed against the 
                             Uyghur people.

Whereas protecting the human rights of minority groups is consistent with the 
        actions of a responsible member of the international community;
Whereas recent actions taken against the Uyghur minority by authorities in the 
        People's Republic of China and, specifically, by local officials in the 
        Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, have included major violations of 
        human rights and acts of cultural suppression;
Whereas the authorities of the People's Republic of China have manipulated the 
        strategic objectives of the international war on terrorism to increase 
        their cultural and religious oppression of the Muslim population 
        residing in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region;
Whereas an official campaign to encourage the migration of Han Chinese people 
        into the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has resulted in the Uyghur 
        population becoming a minority in the Uyghur traditional homeland and 
        has placed immense pressure on people and organizations that are seeking 
        to preserve the linguistic, cultural, and religious traditions of the 
        Uyghur people;
Whereas, pursuant to a new policy of the Government of the People's Republic of 
        China, young Uyghur women are recruited and forcibly relocated to work 
        in factories in urban areas in far-off eastern provinces, resulting in 
        tens of thousands of Uyghur women being separated from their families 
        and placed into substandard working conditions thousands of miles from 
        their homes;
Whereas the legal system of the People's Republic of China is used as a tool of 
        repression, including to arbitrarily detain and torture Uyghurs who have 
        only voiced discontent with the Government of the People's Republic of 
        China;
Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China continues to charge 
        innocent Uyghurs with political crimes and to impose the death penalty 
        on those Uyghurs and other political dissidents, contrary to 
        international humanitarian standards;
Whereas the People's Republic of China is implementing a monolingual Chinese 
        language education system that undermines the linguistic basis of Uyghur 
        culture by transitioning minority students from education in their 
        mother tongue to education in Chinese, shifting dramatically away from 
        past policies that provided choice for the Uyghur people; and
Whereas there have been recent armed crackdowns throughout the Xinjiang Uyghur 
        Autonomous Region against the entire Uyghur population: Now, therefore, 
        be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that the Government of 
the People's Republic of China should--
            (1) recognize, and seek to ensure, the linguistic, 
        cultural, and religious rights of the Uyghur people of the 
        Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region;
            (2) immediately release all Uyghur political and religious 
        prisoners that are being held without good cause or evidence, 
        whether those prisoners are held in prisons or are under house 
        arrest;
            (3) cease harassment and intimidation of family members and 
        innocent associates of peaceful Uyghur political activists; and
            (4) immediately cease all Government-sponsored violence and 
        crackdowns against people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous 
        Region, including against people involved in peaceful protests 
        or religious or political expression.
                                 <all>