CNA Staff, Dec 15, 2020 / 17:00 pm
The International Criminal Court has declined to investigate the Chinese government for their detention of ethnic and religious minorities, the organization announced on Monday. While declining to proceed with the allegations of human rights abuses, the court left the complaint open for the possibility of future action.
The complaints were filed by two groups of exiled Uyghur people: the East Turkistan Government in Exile and the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement.
According to the court's report, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court received allegations on July 6, 2020, that "Chinese officials are responsible for acts amounting to genocide and crimes against humanity committed against Uyghurs falling within the territorial jurisdiction of the Court on the basis that they occurred in part on the territories of Tajikistan and Cambodia, States Parties to the Rome Statute."
China is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, a 1998 treaty which makes genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of agression as international crimes. Tajikistan and Cambodia, however, are signatories of the Rome Statute.