•HRES 576 IH 
tion in China, and are feared to have sustained serious 
injuries; 
Whereas in addition to severely mistreating Uyghurs within 
China, in the last few years, the Government of China 
has reportedly increased its pressure on other countries, 
including Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, 
Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, to return Uyghurs who had 
sought asylum in those countries back to China; 
Whereas arbitrary arrests, torture, harsh prison sentences, 
and forced disappearances have been carried out against 
asylum-seeking Uyghurs who have been forcibly returned 
to China, in violation of the principle of nonrefoulement; 
Whereas at least 20 Uyghurs who had fled to Cambodia to 
seek asylum following the violence in 2009 were forcibly 
returned back to China from Cambodia on December 19, 
2009; 
Whereas 2 days following the extradition of the Uyghurs 
from Cambodia, China awarded Cambodia with an agree-
ment to provide a United States $1,200,000,000 aid and 
loan package; 
Whereas after more than 2 years of not knowing the fate of 
the returned Uyghurs, recent reports indicate that 4 of 
the Uyghurs have been sentenced to life in prison, 12 
have been sentenced to terms of between 16 and 20 
years, and a woman and 2 children have been released, 
while the fate of the remaining Uyghurs remains un-
known; 
Whereas according to news accounts, the Uyghurs’ trials 
were fundamentally unjust, in that defense attorneys 
were given insufficient time to prepare a defense, families 
of the accused were prevented from attending the trials, 
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•HRES 576 IH 
and the accused were forced to cover their faces while en-
tering and exiting the courtroom; 
Whereas Uyghur refugee Ershidin Israel was forcibly re-
turned to China from Kazakhstan in May 2011, in viola-
tion of customary international law as well as the 1951 
Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 
1967 Protocol, to which Kazakhstan is a party; 
Whereas 11 Uyghur refugees were extradited from Malaysia 
to China in August 2011, while 5 Uyghur refugees re-
main in Malaysia; and 
Whereas Nur Muhammed, a Uyghur, was arrested in Thai-
land on August 6, 2011, charged with illegal entry into 
the country, and handed over to Chinese authorities at 
the airport in Bangkok, rather than being brought before 
a court as required under Thai law, and has since dis-
appeared: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) strongly condemns any violence against in-
nocent individuals regardless of their ethnicity, gen-
der, or religious beliefs, and recognizes that individ-
uals who have committed crimes must be brought to 
justice in full compliance with international human 
rights and legal standards, including independent 
courts, habeas corpus and due process protections, 
the free choice of legal defense, and the right to 
challenge the accuser and any evidence in court; 
(2) recognizes that the government policies of 
suppression against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, par-
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•HRES 576 IH 
ticularly the ‘‘Strike Hard’’ campaigns, as well as 
government policies regarding other ethnic groups 
within the People’s Republic of China, have created 
an atmosphere of ethnic tension in those areas; 
(3) calls on the Government of the People’s Re-
public of China to— 
(A) desist from further executions based 
on trials that violate international human rights 
and due process standards; 
(B) ensure that trials are conducted in an 
open and transparent manner in accordance 
with the international obligations of the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China; 
(C) allow international observers and the 
media to attend those trials; 
(D) provide a list of all individuals de-
tained or arrested in the aftermath of the July 
2009 events in Xinjiang to the International 
Committee of the Red Cross and the public, 
and to grant access to those individuals for 
family members and independent legal counsel; 
(E) cease all government-sponsored crack-
downs against people in the Xinjiang Uyghur 
Autonomous Region, including against people 
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•HRES 576 IH 
involved in peaceful protests or religious or po-
litical expression; and 
(F) refrain from pressuring or requesting 
other governments to forcibly return Uyghurs 
to China; and 
(4) calls on the President of the United States 
to— 
(A) unequivocally state the strong opposi-
tion of the United States to the legally flawed 
trials, executions, and harsh prison sentences 
against peaceful Uyghur protestors; 
(B) raise those human rights concerns 
publicly and in all meetings with Chinese offi-
cials; 
(C) restate the interest of the United 
States to open United States consulates in 
Lhasa, Tibet, and in Urumqi, Xinjiang; and 
(D) as a matter of policy, direct the 
United States Embassy in Beijing to automati-
cally request permission from the appropriate 
Chinese authorities for United States Embassy 
staff to observe trials if credible reasons exist 
that such trials may not meet internationally 
recognized human rights and legal standards. 
Æ 
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