Rayhan Asat, a Uighur lawyer who is a United States resident in Washington, said sanctions imposed under the Magnitsky Act allowed the United States to hold Chinese officials accountable for what she called genocide in Xinjiang. Her younger brother, Ekpar Asat, was detained by security officials after he returned to Xinjiang in 2016 following a visit to the United States on a State Department cultural exchange program. A court reportedly sentenced him to 15 years in prison on criminal charges. Mr. Chen, the most prominent of the four officials facing sanctions, has been the Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang since August 2016. Mr. Zhu appears to have played an important role in the mass-detention drive, urging officials across the region and helping them cope with the practicalities of rapidly confining hundreds of thousands of people.

Source: International New York Times July 09, 2020 20:41 UTC