III 111th CONGRESS 1st Session S. RES. 155 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

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.