SUMMARY: The Save Uyghur Campaign welcomes the United States Senate’s condemnation of China’s communist leader Xi Jinping, who has overseen a regime of mass incarceration and surveillance and forced labor over Muslims in the occupation of East Turkistan.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 19, 2026)
Justice For All’s Save Uyghur Campaign welcomes the United States Senate’s passage of S.Res. 444, a resolution condemning Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping for “engaging in a pattern of deceit, undermining prospects for peace and security, and orchestrating crimes against humanity.”
The resolution, introduced by Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), was approved by the Senate on June 16, 2026, by voice vote. The measure specifically condemns the Chinese Communist Party’s atrocities against Uyghurs and other Muslim populations in East Turkistan, including the mass detention of more than one million Uyghurs in prisons and forced labor camps. The resolution also reaffirms the U.S. government’s determination that the Chinese government is committing genocide against the Uyghur people, a designation first made in 2021 by the Trump administration and subsequently maintained by the Biden administration.
The Senate resolution states that under Xi Jinping’s rule, the Chinese Communist Party has orchestrated a “horrific, modern-day genocide” against the Uyghur people and other Muslim communities and calls for the application of all available sanctions authorities against Chinese Communist Party officials responsible for human rights abuses.
“Another notable aspect of this resolution is its recognition that the Uyghur homeland is also known as East Turkistan,” said Arslan Hidayat, Team Lead of Justice For All’s Save Uyghur Campaign. “For decades, official government documents have almost exclusively used the Chinese government’s designation for the region. The Senate’s acknowledgment of East Turkistan is a meaningful recognition of the Uyghur people’s history, identity, and connection to their homeland, and it challenges the narrative that our land and our story can only be described through the terminology imposed by the Chinese Communist Party.”
As a simple Senate resolution, S.Res. 444 does not require approval by the House of Representatives and does not have the force of law. However, its passage formally expresses the position of the United States Senate and encourages the use of sanctions, including authorities provided under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, against Chinese Communist Party officials implicated in serious human rights violations.
Justice For All’s Save Uyghur Campaign urges policymakers to build on this resolution by advancing concrete measures to protect Uyghurs, hold perpetrators accountable, prevent forced labor imports and support victims of transnational repression.
Justice For All is a human rights organization accredited by the United Nations focused on Muslim minority issues and anti-genocide advocacy
Contact: Arslan Hidayat, [email protected] Phone: 202-908-JUST
Website: https://www.justiceforall.org
