Moolenaar: No One “Can Say They Did Not Know” About Uyghur Genocide
This week, Select Committee Chairman John Moolenaar delivered remarks at the Uyghur Genocide Resistance event, hosted by the Uyghur Human Rights Project alongside Campaign for Uyghurs, the Uyghur Academy, and partner organizations. Chairman Moolenaar honored the Abbases and all Uyghur advocates for their courage, condemned the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing genocide, and reaffirmed the need to enforce the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and hold the CCP accountable.
Chairman Moolenaar's remarks as prepared for delivery:
Good afternoon everyone,
Thank you to the Abbases for the invitation to be here today, for continuing to fight for their sister. I know that as advocates for Uyghurs you yourselves are sometimes targeted for persecution even as you live outside of China. The hardships and pain you have endured because of what is happening to your loved ones is unimaginable and you will forever have my respect and admiration for your courage to fight the CCP.
Communism is a broken and bankrupt ideology. It does not work economically, it does not make a country more secure, and it does not work spiritually. Everywhere it has been tried, it targets people of faith. It is incompatible with the basic human desire for faith in a higher power than what is available here on Earth. In communism, everything belongs to the state and there is nothing greater than the state, but the state is run by people who make mistakes and who sin, and so we know there is an even a higher power than the state. That is why the CCP disdains people of faith. It wants everyone to believe that it is perfect, that it does not make mistakes. It censors its critics, jails dissidents and commits genocide against your people because of your beliefs.
The party believes in the “Sinicization of religion,” which is a full-scale assault against courageous people in China who choose to believe in a power higher than communism. The ongoing Uyghur genocide’s internment camps, the destruction of mosques, and the forced sterilization of women are all horrors we must never look away from.
It is our job to continue to share their stories and highlight their fight for basic human rights. One of the historical figures who I hold in the highest regard is William Wilberforce. He was in the British parliament in the 18th and 19th centuries and he fought for decades to abolish slavery there. He faced long odds, but he knew he was on the right side of justice and he never gave up. He once said to his critics, “You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
On the Select Committee, my colleagues and I are shedding light on the atrocities of the CCP. Every day we tell lawmakers, other government officials, companies, diplomats, and the public about China’s human rights abuses and how it uses forced labor in the supply chains of so many products. Enforcement of the UFLPA is critical to stopping the abhorrent forced labor happening in Xinjiang and other parts of China. Companies may want to pretend their supply chains are clean, but every time they partner with a company linked to the ongoing genocide, they betray their customers, their morals, and the founding values of unalienable rights from our Creator that has guided this land of liberty for 250 years. They may all look away, but they will never be able to say they did not know.
Thank you for being here, thank for all you do, and thank for never looking away in this fight against the CCP.
Chairman Moolenaar delivers remarks at an event addressing the Uyghur genocide and honoring Uyghur identity.