WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th February, 2021) US lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill to ban all imports of Chinese goods for which there is a "rebuttable presumption" they were produced by forced Uyghur labor, Congressman James McGovern said in a press release on Thursday.
"The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would create a 'rebuttable presumption' that any goods made in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) are made with forced labor and prohibited from entering the United States unless 'clear and convincing' evidence is shown to the contrary," the release said.
The legislation is an updated version of resolution (HR) 6210 that passed in the House of Representatives on September 22 by a vote of 406 to three, the release noted.
"We have watched in horror as the Chinese government first created, and then expanded a system of extrajudicial mass internment camps targeting Uyghurs and Muslim minorities. We now know the entire XUAR economy is built upon a foundation of forced labor and repression," McGovern said in the release.
Congress needed to hold the Chinese government accountable and give a strong voice to the millions of Muslim Uyghurs, Congressman Chris Smith, co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, said in the release.
