Common Sense Generation: The China Nexus – Interview with Benedict Rogers

International criminal court: China commits genocide against Uighurs

Forced abortions and forced sterilizations – these are the crimes committed by the Chinese government in Xinjiang against citizens of Uighur nationality. An international criminal tribunal headed by British lawyer Sir Geoffrey Nice has ruled that this is a crime against humanity.

The government of the People's Republic of China is increasing its repression of national minorities, particularly the Muslim Uighurs living in the mainly Xinjiang region. Once again, British writer and human rights activist Benedict Rogers has reminded us of the ongoing crime in an interview with Common Sense Generation. He pointed out that there are currently about one million Uighurs in Chinese concentration camps. Various types of repression are used against them, with the most severe including forced abortions and forced sterilizations.

“I remember listening to the presentation of the verdict”- Rogers recalled during the interview. – “At the beginning, Sir Geoffrey Nice, who, by the way, was Slobodan Miloševicz's prosecutor, so he really knows the crimes of genocide well, went through each charge and each type of charge in detail line by line in the case of genocide against the Uyghurs. One by one he went through the whole list and said: based on this charge, genocide has not been proven, genocide has not been proven in this charge. I started to get a little worried, because I had a part in the creation of this tribunal. I thought it was not going in the direction I expected. In the end, it came to the charges of forced abortion and forced sterilization and said that genocide had been proven on these points. I think this is the real strength of this tribunal's verdict", the British activist stressed.

Benedict Rogers' latest book, "China. The Nexus" has just been published in a Polish translation by Hanna Shen. It deals with various forms of human rights violations by the government of the People's Republic of China. In it, the author discusses not only the Uighur issue, but also the deepening methods of synicization against Tibetans, the persecution of Christians in China, violations of freedoms in Hong Kong, and threats against Taiwan. – I am not anti-Chinese," the writer points out. – I have lived in China for many years, and I am fascinated by this culture and the Mandarin language, but I believe that what the Xi Jingping government is doing is first and foremost a crime against the Chinese people themselves, he explains. 

The imprisonment of Jimmy Lai – Hong Kong billionaire and owner of the Apple Daily newspaper – represents a personal tragedy for Benedict Rogers. – Jimmy Lai is one of my heroes, he is the most extraordinary man I know. He is now 76 years old," Rogers explains in the interview. - His whole journey is amazing. He escaped from mainland China during the famine during Mao's rule. He did so at age 12 as a stowaway on a boat arriving in Hong Kong. As a child, he worked in garment factories and then climbed the career ladder, eventually starting his own company, a very successful chain of clothing stores called "Giordano". As a result, he entered the media business and founded Next Media and then Apple Daily. (...) Jimmy became a symbol of the protests in Hong Kong, a symbol of the struggle for freedom, and now he is in prison and facing life imprisonment – the writer adds.

The full interview with Benedict Rogers is available on the Common Sense Generation channel with a choice of English or Polish subtitles.