Representatives of the Uighur community in Australia are set to tell a parliamentary inquiry of the “intimidation and harassment” they face to prevent them from speaking out against the Chinese government, including fears their relatives will be harmed.
The inquiry is also expected to hear calls from other groups on Friday for the Australian government to introduce Magnitsky-style laws to impose targeted sanctions against human rights abusers.
A parliamentary committee is considering safety concerns as part of its inquiry into issues facing diaspora communities in Australia.
The hearing comes as the Australian government increasingly voices concerns about human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, prompting furious pushback from Beijing, which has accused critics of interfering in its internal affairs.
One of the witnesses set to address Friday’s hearing is the president of the Uighur Association of Victoria, Alim Osman, who said the greatest challenge facing the Uighur people was “the campaign of atrocities being waged by the Chinese government”.
“The actions of the Chinese government are increasingly being understood to meet the UN definition of genocide,” he said in a submission provided to the committee in advance of the hearing.
“The policies and actions of the Chinese government also have flow-on effects on the safety, wellbeing and full participation of the Uighur diaspora in Australia.”
Osman used his submission to the inquiry to describe “the intimidation and harassment of Uighurs in Australia by local authorities in China”.
“This typically takes the form of WeChat calls from family members back in China (often in the presence of local law enforcement personnel) warning Uighurs in Australia not to say anything unfavourable to the Chinese government lest something happen to these family members,” he said.
Ramila Chanisheff, the president of the Australian Uighur Tangritagh Women’s Association, who is also due to address the hearing, said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was “increasing its oppressions and control of Uighurs at an alarming rate”.
In a submission outlining the impact this was having on people in Australia, she wrote: “People are scared to call their families for fear of them being prosecuted and/or used as pawn to silence Uighurs living in the diaspora speaking up against the CCP.”
The Australian Uighur Tangritagh Women’s Association said some of its members had been living in Australia for years awaiting the approval of their refugee visas and needed their applications to be expedited for their safety.
The submission said sending such people back home “with the CCP in power means they will be imprisoned for life, disappeared, and/or lose their lives”.
It also called on the Morrison government to appoint a liaison officer dedicated to Uighur-related issues in the Australian embassy in Beijing to assist with processing applications and addressing concerns.
“This is also to ensure Uighurs living in the diaspora have a focal person that they can contact to follow up and know that they are not being sidelined.”
Parliament’s foreign affairs, defence and trade references committee is also set to hear from a group that advocates for an improvement in the human rights situation in Vietnam.
According to the Vietnamese Overseas Initiative for Conscience Empowerment (Voice) Australia, Canberra should adopt so-called Magnitsky legislation to “sanction human rights abusers and corrupt officials by barring their entry and freezing their assets in Australia”.
“We must not allow human rights abusers and corrupt officials to use Australia as a safe haven to land their ill-gotten gains and influence our economy and policy with their economic influence,” Voice Australia said in its submission.
The proposal for targeted human rights sanctions powers is being explored in a separate parliamentary inquiry that is expected to report by the end of the year.
A paper published by the China Matters thinktank last month said dozens of people had reported being victims of CCP intimidation in Australia.
Those cases reportedly included a dissident who said he received a message from a Chinese Ministry of Public Security official the day after he attended a Tiananmen memorial in Australia in 2019, warning that his actions would have an impact on his family.
China’s embassy did not respond to a request for comment on the China Matters report. But Wang Xining, the deputy head of China’s embassy in Australia, told the National Press Club in August that China was not interested in interfering in Australia’s internal affairs or undermining its sovereignty.
“We should not let cold-hearted and dark minds cast shadow over our partnership,” Wang said of the rift in diplomatic relationship between China and Australia.
Australia’s domestic spy agency Asio has previously told the diaspora inquiry that some foreign governments were seeking to interfere in diaspora communities “to control or quash opposition or dissent deemed to be a threat to their government”.
Without naming any country, Asio told the committee in a submission it was “aware of numerous individuals from a range of diaspora communities who reported being subject to threats against themselves and family members due to their voicing of opinions on political and ideological issues which a foreign country deemed to be a threat to their government”.
On Thursday Joel Fitzgibbon, an opposition frontbencher, accused the Australian government of having “started a war with China” and allowing the relationship to slip to its lowest level since the Tiananmen Square massacre.
