Stop Uyghur Genocide group urges community to lobby MPs

UK-based organization asks people to support an amendment aimed at preventing the NHS from buying equipment from states where there is believed to be a credible risk of genocide

The Stop Uyghur Genocide group is asking people to lobby their MPs to support an amendment which was passed last week in the House of Lords, to the Health and Care Act.

What is known as the Genocide Amendment was successfully tabled by Lord Alton and Baroness Kennedy, with the intention of preventing the NHS from buying equipment from states where there is believed to be a credible risk of genocide.

The target of the amendment was China, which has provided most of the PPE (personal protective equipment) used in hospitals, clinics and care homes during the Covid-19 pandemic. The PPE procured is primarily made by Uyghur slave labour in China.

When the Health and Care Bill comes to the Commons the Stop Uyghur Genocide group hopes that people will ask their MPs — particularly those who hold ministerial office in the government — to support the Genocide Amendment. The campaign has already received backing from the British Medical Association.

Mia Hasenson-Gross, executive director of the human rights charity Rene Cassin, said: “Parliament and the UK government have a duty to pass this amendment, under the Genocide Convention, PPE is the mechanism, but passing the amendment [in the Commons] enables the UK to act on its obligation not to deal with states where slave labour and genocide takes place”.