US brings in Uyghur Act against China's forced Muslim labouring

Washington: The United States President Joe Biden signed a new law in the country imposing a blanket ban on products made in the Xinjian region of China. The minority Muslim Uyghur community residing here are reportedly oppressed, abused to forced labour etc., Al Jazeera reported. Xinjiang is a major producer of cotton and solar panels.

The US passed the law, Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act, in the House of Representatives and the Senate last month with unanimous votes.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the US welcomed Biden's move. China is conducting genocide against minority Muslims including Turkic economic minority groups in the Uyghur region, it said in a statement.

Biden has provided the US government with the powerful tool, Uyghur Act, to ensure no American corporation will profit from Uyghur slave labour and contribute to China's genocide, it added.

As per estimates by the US experts and human rights groups, more than a million people from minority communities have been jailed in recent years in camps in the Xinjiang province. They call it 'genocide'.

But China has denied this and said that countries and rights groups are targeting Beijing with slander attacks.

However, the law will impose sanctions on firms responsible for forced labour in Xinjiang, thus destabilising supply chains of the US companies that source materials from China.

Among a series of sanctions, the US had decided earlier this month to boycott the Winter Olympics hosted by Beijing.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday China imposed sanctions on four members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom as a response to the US imposing penalties on Chinese officials for the alleged abuses on minorities.