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Bill Aiming To Defund UN Program Over Apathy To Uyghur Genocide Reaches 50 Co-Sponsors

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A member of the Uyghur community holds a placard as he joins a demonstration to call on the British parliament to vote to recognise alleged persecution of China's Muslim minority Uyghur people as genocide and crimes against humanity in London on April 22, 2021. - Lawmakers in the British Parliament will on April 22 debate a motion on alleged human rights abuses and persecution of China's Muslim Uyghur minority in the country's Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Last month Britain accused China of "gross human rights violations" against the Uyghur minority after Beijing slapped sanctions on UK lawmakers and lobby groups, widening a rift with Western powers over alleged abuses in Xinjiang. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP) (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Melanie Wilcox Contributor
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Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy introduced legislation Tuesday, April 13 that would stop American taxpayers from funding the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the U.N.’s “sexual and reproductive health agency.”

Members of the Uyghur community hold a placard and the flag adopted by the EAst Turkestan independence movement as they demonstrate to call on the British Parliament to (Photo by Justin Tallis AFP via Getty Images)

The ‘‘No Taxpayer Funding for the U.N. Population Fund Act” would restrict American tax dollars from funding “an international program that is openly complicit in China’s inhumane two-child policy and publicly praises China’s abusive population-control programs which include forced abortions and sterilizations,” Rep. Roy said. (RELATED: GARRISON: The UN Is Pushing Abortion On Developing Countries, But The Trump Administration Is Fighting Back)

The bill has 50 co-sponsors. The text itself, obtained by The National Review, states that “no funds available to the Department of State or any other department or agency may be used to provide contributions directly or indirectly to the United Nations Population Fund.”

“American tax dollars should never directly or indirectly support taking of innocent human life through abortion or the dehumanizing act of involuntary sterilization, and they certainly shouldn’t be used to support the oppressive, America-hating Chinese Communist Party in any way whatsoever,” Roy said.

The United States was the first country to recognize that the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region.

In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly first recognized genocide as a crime under international law. In 1948, when it was codified, U.N. member states agreed genocide “means any … acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Some acts include murder, causing physical or psychological harm on a group, and imposing population control.

On Thursday, April 22, British lawmakers voted to formally recognize that the Chinese government is committing genocide against Uyghur Muslim minorities.

Over one million people have been detained in 300 to 400 facilities across Xinjiang over the past four years, without due process, according to Human Rights Watch. Many have reported being tortured, sterilized and subjected to forced abortions, according to The Associated Press.