At least in the last four years two million people, mostly ethnic Uyghurs, a Muslim-majority minority in the Xinjiang region of western China, pass through an extensive network of detention centers throughout the region. Ex-prisoners say they were targeted intense political indoctrination, forced labor, torture and sexual harassment.

The United States, Britain and the European Union (EU) reacted in March 2021 and imposed sanctions on their native Chinese officials and companies for their responsibility in oppression. The list includes high-ranking regional and Xinjiang Communist Party officials whose EU assets were frozen and their visas withdrawn.

“We will use the new global sanctions regime to defend human rights,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian said upon arriving at the meeting, recalling recent EU sanctions against Russian officials over the arrest of opponent Alexey Navalny. China responded immediately and announced retaliation against ten European officialsincluding two members of parliament, as well as against four international human rights organizations.

On January 19, 2021, the day before leaving office, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed that China’s actions against the Uyghur minority group constituted a “genocide and crimes against humanity.” Antony Blinken, Pompeo’s successor, said he agreed with this characterization at his confirmation hearing.

And now, a year later, the members Interparliamentary Alliance in China they asked for a ban, so forcing investment companies not to finance companies related to forced labor and other abuses in Xinjiangas reported by South China Morning Post.

A group of 35 MPs from the UK, European Union and other countries have asked their countries to blacklist for prevent investors from financing companies linked to alleged human rights abuses against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China’s autonomous region.

“We cannot ignore the role big banks play in financing the abuses that are taking place in Xinjiang”, said Reinhard Bütikofer, German Green Member of the European Parliament and co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance for China (IPAC). “If they knowingly invest in companies that carry out forced labor and other human rights abuses, then they must be held accountable.”

United States Department of Entity List, where they look for inspiration, prohibit sanctioned companies from buying from US suppliers.

In the month of June, Joe Biden expands list of Chinese companies where US citizens are barred from investing because of alleged ties to the Chinese military or the sale of surveillance technology used against religious minorities and dissidents, including in Xinjiang.

A) Yesmore than a dozen British MPs ask Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government to create an investment blacklist.

“While the Uyghur people continue to suffer intolerable abuses at the hands of the Chinese government, which a growing number of independent jurists believe constitute genocide and crimes against humanity, we can’t let our financial company finance this atrocitysaid Helena Kennedy, a Labor MP in the House of Lords, and Iain Duncan Smith, a Conservative member of the House of Commons, in a letter signed by lawmakers.

British lawmakers voted in April 2021 to declare that China was committing genocide against the Uyghurs. However, the British government has refused to make a similar statement, saying it was up to the international tribunal.

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