Canada’s parliament votes to call China’s treatment of Uighurs genocide

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Canada’s House of Commons voted Monday to declare China’s treatment of Uighurs in the country’s western Xinjiang region genocide. The non-binding motion, which will likely further escalate tensions between Canada and China, makes Canada the second country after the US to do so. The motion passed in a 266-0 vote and was supported by all opposition parties, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet abstained. 

Human rights groups and investigations by news organizations have pointed to evidence of the detention of hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and other minorities in prisons and indoctrination camps (which China defines as “reeducation camps”), the use of Muslim Uighurs as forced labor, torture and forced sterilization.

The symbolic motion includes an amendment for Canada to call on the International Olympic Committee to move the 2022 Winter Olympics from Beijing “if the Chinese government continues this genocide.”

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