5 ms·

Forced sterilization and religious conversion (not to mention the occasional organ harvesting) isn't genocide?

whimsicalism 5y ago
Let's recenter the definition of genocide. From google: > the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group Now to your points: > religious conversion 1. No, forced religious conversion is not genocide in my book. > Forced sterilization 2. Look, I'm not a fan of this law either, but sterilization in-lieu-of fine is one of the remedies in China for breaking the two (previously one)-child law and is also applied to Han Chinese. The Uyghur population is still growing at a faster rate than Han Chinese. > the occasional organ harvesting 3. Awful and at large scale, absolutely a genocide. My understanding was that this had been done against Falun Gong in the early 2000s - do you have evidence on this practice continuing against Uyghurs circa now?
- pmyteh 5y ago
  Google's definition is not authoritative. > ... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, 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. > — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2 The strongest case is for paragraph (d).
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Is there a special law targeting Uyghurs? Or are Uyghurs (due to their religion) more likely to have higher birth rates that are in contravention of Chinese two-child law? Another question - does a genocide necessarily require an actual reduction in the population of people being genocided? I do agree that the strongest case is for (d) (or maybe c, actually), especially if Uyghur women are being sterilized with fewer than 2-3 births.
- scottLobster 5y ago
  1. There's also such a thing as cultural genocide, which forced religious conversion certainly qualifies as. Not to mention wiping out a culture is part of an overall genocide, usually it's the objective. 2. Oh, so the Chinese are just enforcing their population control law? Then what are the internment camps for? And why the Uighur birth rate plummeting far faster than the reported national Chinese birthrate? https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-weekend-reads-china-health-269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-we... "Birth rates in the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar plunged by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018, the latest year available in government statistics. Across the Xinjiang region, birth rates continue to plummet, falling nearly 24% last year alone — compared to just 4.2% nationwide, statistics show." 3. The UN apparently does. Note that said treatments are apparently disproportionately targeted at various ethnic minorities. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=27167&LangID=E https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N... "UN human rights experts* said today they were extremely alarmed by reports of alleged ‘organ harvesting’ targeting minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians, in detention in China The experts said they have received credible information that detainees from ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities may be forcibly subjected to blood tests and organ examinations such as ultrasound and x-rays, without their informed consent; while other prisoners are not required to undergo such examinations. The results of the examinations are reportedly registered in a database of living organ sources that facilitates organ allocation."
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > 1. There's also such a thing as cultural genocide, 1. Yes, referring to "cultural genocide" as "genocide" is genocide trivialization. There's an obvious difference between killing 6 million people because of their ethnic background and outlawing a practice (say, child marriage in India or wearing a burqa in France) that happens to be a large part of a certain culture. 2. You're conflating a few different things I'm saying. The internment camps are for alleged violations of a lot of extremely broad and bullshit laws designed to target Uyghur people, as well as for violations of China's two-child law. I am not claiming that the internment camps are just for people violating China's two child law. Your chart indicates that Uyghur birth rates are roughly the same as Han Chinese, not that they are being disproportionately suppressed below Han Chinese. > 3. The UN apparently does. Note that said treatments are apparently disproportionately targeted at various ethnic minorities. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N... I'll defer to them then. If they've been doing it against Falun Gong in the recent past, I wouldn't put it past them to be doing it to the Uyghurs. That is obviously a crime against humanity. It is scary that we probably won't know the true extent of this for decades at least.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  If the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II, involving forced labor,suppression of religious practices, political indoctrination, forced sterilization, forced contraception and forced abortion does not qualify in your view as genocide than you are out of touch with the accepted definition of the word. >> My understanding was that this had been done against Falun Gong in the early 2000s - do you have evidence on this practice continuing against Uyghurs circa now? Yet you seem to really like the "1 in 3 black men" behind bars headline, based a study from 2001, at the peak of US incararation rates across all population groups. Even the authors state its' gone down significantly.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > If the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II, involving forced labor,suppression of religious practices, political indoctrination, forced sterilization, forced contraception and forced abortion does not qualify in your view as genocide than you are out of touch with the accepted definition of the word. There are 2.5 million black people in prison in the US, compared to a high end estimate of 1.5 million Uyghurs. (To be fair, there are 3x as many black people as uyghurs, but you said largest-scale.) I would not expect a population to increase while it is undergoing genocide. > based a study from 2001, at the peak of US incararation rates across all population groups I've been consistent in using the past tense when referring to this study.

Let's recenter the definition of genocide. From google: > the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group Now to your points: > religious conversion 1. No, forced religious conversion is not genocide in my book. > Forced sterilization 2. Look, I'm not a fan of this law either, but sterilization in-lieu-of fine is one of the remedies in China for breaking the two (previously one)-child law and is also applied to Han Chinese. The Uyghur population is still growing at a faster rate than Han Chinese. > the occasional organ harvesting 3. Awful and at large scale, absolutely a genocide. My understanding was that this had been done against Falun Gong in the early 2000s - do you have evidence on this practice continuing against Uyghurs circa now?

pmyteh 5y ago
Google's definition is not authoritative. > ... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, 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. > — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2 The strongest case is for paragraph (d).
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Is there a special law targeting Uyghurs? Or are Uyghurs (due to their religion) more likely to have higher birth rates that are in contravention of Chinese two-child law? Another question - does a genocide necessarily require an actual reduction in the population of people being genocided? I do agree that the strongest case is for (d) (or maybe c, actually), especially if Uyghur women are being sterilized with fewer than 2-3 births.
scottLobster 5y ago
1. There's also such a thing as cultural genocide, which forced religious conversion certainly qualifies as. Not to mention wiping out a culture is part of an overall genocide, usually it's the objective. 2. Oh, so the Chinese are just enforcing their population control law? Then what are the internment camps for? And why the Uighur birth rate plummeting far faster than the reported national Chinese birthrate? https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-weekend-reads-china-health-269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-we... "Birth rates in the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar plunged by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018, the latest year available in government statistics. Across the Xinjiang region, birth rates continue to plummet, falling nearly 24% last year alone — compared to just 4.2% nationwide, statistics show." 3. The UN apparently does. Note that said treatments are apparently disproportionately targeted at various ethnic minorities. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=27167&LangID=E https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N... "UN human rights experts* said today they were extremely alarmed by reports of alleged ‘organ harvesting’ targeting minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians, in detention in China The experts said they have received credible information that detainees from ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities may be forcibly subjected to blood tests and organ examinations such as ultrasound and x-rays, without their informed consent; while other prisoners are not required to undergo such examinations. The results of the examinations are reportedly registered in a database of living organ sources that facilitates organ allocation."
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > 1. There's also such a thing as cultural genocide, 1. Yes, referring to "cultural genocide" as "genocide" is genocide trivialization. There's an obvious difference between killing 6 million people because of their ethnic background and outlawing a practice (say, child marriage in India or wearing a burqa in France) that happens to be a large part of a certain culture. 2. You're conflating a few different things I'm saying. The internment camps are for alleged violations of a lot of extremely broad and bullshit laws designed to target Uyghur people, as well as for violations of China's two-child law. I am not claiming that the internment camps are just for people violating China's two child law. Your chart indicates that Uyghur birth rates are roughly the same as Han Chinese, not that they are being disproportionately suppressed below Han Chinese. > 3. The UN apparently does. Note that said treatments are apparently disproportionately targeted at various ethnic minorities. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N... I'll defer to them then. If they've been doing it against Falun Gong in the recent past, I wouldn't put it past them to be doing it to the Uyghurs. That is obviously a crime against humanity. It is scary that we probably won't know the true extent of this for decades at least.
skeeter2020 5y ago
If the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II, involving forced labor,suppression of religious practices, political indoctrination, forced sterilization, forced contraception and forced abortion does not qualify in your view as genocide than you are out of touch with the accepted definition of the word. >> My understanding was that this had been done against Falun Gong in the early 2000s - do you have evidence on this practice continuing against Uyghurs circa now? Yet you seem to really like the "1 in 3 black men" behind bars headline, based a study from 2001, at the peak of US incararation rates across all population groups. Even the authors state its' gone down significantly.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > If the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II, involving forced labor,suppression of religious practices, political indoctrination, forced sterilization, forced contraception and forced abortion does not qualify in your view as genocide than you are out of touch with the accepted definition of the word. There are 2.5 million black people in prison in the US, compared to a high end estimate of 1.5 million Uyghurs. (To be fair, there are 3x as many black people as uyghurs, but you said largest-scale.) I would not expect a population to increase while it is undergoing genocide. > based a study from 2001, at the peak of US incararation rates across all population groups I've been consistent in using the past tense when referring to this study.