[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 317 Introduced in House (IH)]

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117th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 317

   Condemning the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity being 
  committed against Uyghurs and members of other religious and ethnic 
           minority groups by the People's Republic of China.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 14, 2021

    Mr. McCaul (for himself and Mr. Meeks) submitted the following 
   resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
   Condemning the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity being 
  committed against Uyghurs and members of other religious and ethnic 
           minority groups by the People's Republic of China.

Whereas, on December 9, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously 
        adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of 
        Genocide (the Genocide Convention) signifying a commitment in response 
        to the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity committed in the 
        first half of the twentieth century;
Whereas the Genocide Convention entered into force on January 12, 1951, and 
        declares that all state parties ``confirm that genocide, whether 
        committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under 
        international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish'';
Whereas the Genocide Convention defines genocide as ``any of the following acts 
        committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, 
        ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the 
        group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the 
        group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life 
        calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 
        (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) 
        Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group'';
Whereas the United States ratified the Genocide Convention with the 
        understanding that the commission of genocide requires ``the specific 
        intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a [protected] group 
        as such'';
Whereas the People's Republic of China (PRC) is a state party to the Genocide 
        Convention;
Whereas, since 2017, the PRC Government, under the direction and control of the 
        Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has detained and sought to indoctrinate 
        more than one million Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious 
        minority groups;
Whereas recent data indicate a significant drop in birth rates among Uyghurs due 
        to enforced sterilization, enforced abortion, and more onerous birth 
        quotas for Uyghurs compared to Han;
Whereas there are credible reports of PRC Government campaigns to promote 
        marriages between Uyghurs and Han and to reduce birth rates among 
        Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims;
Whereas many Uyghurs reportedly have been assigned to factory employment under 
        conditions that indicate forced labor, and some former detainees have 
        reported food deprivation, beatings, suppression of religious practices, 
        family separation, and sexual abuse;
Whereas this is indicative of a systematic effort to eradicate the ethnic and 
        cultural identity and religious beliefs, and prevent the births of, 
        Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, and members of religious minority 
        groups;
Whereas the birth rate in the Xinjiang region fell by 24 percent in 2019 
        compared to a 4.2 percent decline nationwide;
Whereas, on January 19, 2021, the Department of State determined the PRC 
        Government, under the direction and control of the CCP, has committed 
        crimes against humanity and genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic 
        and religious minority groups in Xinjiang;
Whereas, on the same day, then-Secretary of State designate Antony Blinken 
        stated during a hearing on his nomination before the Senate Foreign 
        Relations Committee that those atrocity determinations would be his 
        judgment as well;
Whereas, on February 24, 2021, the spokesperson for the Department of State 
        stated, ``Secretary Blinken has determined that what has taken place in 
        Xinjiang was genocide'' and that ``it constitutes crimes against 
        humanity'';
Whereas Article VIII of the Genocide Convention provides, ``Any Contracting 
        Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take 
        such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider 
        appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide'';
Whereas the International Court of Justice has stated that it is the obligation 
        of all state parties to the Genocide Convention to ``employ all means 
        reasonably available to them, so as to prevent genocide so far as 
        possible''; and
Whereas the United States is a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security 
        Council: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) finds that the ongoing abuses against Uyghurs and 
        members of other ethnic and religious minority groups 
        constitute genocide as defined in the Genocide Convention and 
        crimes against humanity as understood under customary 
        international law;
            (2) attributes these atrocity crimes against Uyghurs and 
        members of other ethnic and religious minority groups to the 
        People's Republic of China, under the direction and control of 
        the Chinese Communist Party;
            (3) condemns this genocide and these crimes against 
        humanity in the strongest terms; and
            (4) calls upon the President to direct the United States 
        Permanent Representative to the United Nations to use the 
        voice, vote, and influence of the United States to--
                    (A) refer the People's Republic of China's genocide 
                and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and members 
                of other ethnic and religious minority groups to the 
                competent organs of the United Nations for 
                investigation;
                    (B) seize the United Nations Security Council of 
                the circumstances of this genocide and crimes against 
                humanity and lead efforts to invoke multilateral 
                sanctions in response to these ongoing atrocities; and
                    (C) take all possible actions to bring this 
                genocide and these crimes against humanity to an end 
                and hold the perpetrators of these atrocities 
                accountable under international law.
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