UK cracks down on Chinese imports over Uyghur Muslim rights violations

London:  The UK government on Tuesday announced sanctions on sourcing from Chinese businesses in retaliation of the harrowing human rights violations being perpetrated in the Xinjiang province of the country against the Uyghur Muslim minority.
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a House of Commons statement that the United Nations (UN) should be allowed access to the region to review the reports of abuse and meanwhile Britain plans to increase diplomatic pressure on China to stop and to remedy its actions.
Xinjiang’s position in the international supply chain network means that there is a real risk of businesses and public bodies around the world whether it’s inadvertently or otherwise sourcing from suppliers which are complicit in the use of forced labour, Raab said.
We must take action, to make sure that UK businesses are not part of the supply chains that lead to the gates of the internment camps in Xinjiang.
“And to make sure that the products of the human rights violations that take place in those camps don’t end up on the shelves of supermarkets that we shop in here at home, week in week out. We have already engaged with businesses with links to Xinjiang, we’ve encouraged them to conduct appropriate due diligence, he said.
As part of the crackdown, the minister said his own Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) department and the Department of International Trade (DIT) have issued new, robust and detailed guidance to UK businesses on the specific risks faced by companies with links to Xinjiang and underlining the challenges of conducting effective due diligence there.