Lawyers call on intl court to investigate Uyghur treatment
Headline Legal News
Lawyers on Monday renewed calls for the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim groups in China’s Xinjiang region as they presented a dossier of evidence to prosecutors.
Activists and lawyers accuse Beijing of crimes against humanity and genocide against the groups. China’s ruling Communist Party has vehemently denied all reports of human rights violations and genocide in Xinjiang.
Monday’s filing is the latest attempt to have the global court open an investigation into widespread allegations of abuse against Uyghurs by Chinese authorities.
The group that submitted the evidence said it includes testimony from a witness who escaped from a camp in 2018 and alleges that he and others were tortured and forced to undergo medical procedures including “being injected with unknown substances.”
The latest dossier also seeks to support their assertion that ICC prosecutors have jurisdiction despite China not being a member of the court by arguing that Uyghurs and others are being rounded up on the territory of an ICC member state and transferred to China.
That assertion seeks to use a precedent set when the court’s judges ruled that the ICC has jurisdiction to investigate abuses against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority, despite Myanmar not being a member of the court, because thousands of Rohingyas were force to flee to Bangladesh, which is an ICC member.
British lawyer Rodney Dixon said evidence presented to the court’s prosecutor’s office uncovers “a pervasive plan to round up Uyghurs in neighboring countries, including an ICC member State, and elsewhere, to force them back into China.”
“The ICC has jurisdiction over these crimes that commence on ICC territory and continue into China, and is urged to act immediately to open an investigation,” the group filing the dossier Monday said in a statement.
The filing comes a year after lawyers called on the ICC to open an investigation.
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USCIS Will Begin Accepting CW-1 Petitions for Fiscal Year 2019
On April 2, 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting petitions under the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)-Only Transitional Worker (CW-1) program subject to the fiscal year (FY) 2019 cap. Employers in the CNMI use the CW-1 program to employ foreign workers who are ineligible for other nonimmigrant worker categories. The cap for CW-1 visas for FY 2019 is 4,999.
For the FY 2019 cap, USCIS encourages employers to file a petition for a CW-1 nonimmigrant worker up to six months in advance of the proposed start date of employment and as early as possible within that timeframe. USCIS will reject a petition if it is filed more than six months in advance. An extension petition may request a start date of Oct. 1, 2018, even if that worker’s current status will not expire by that date.
Since USCIS expects to receive more petitions than the number of CW-1 visas available for FY 2019, USCIS may conduct a lottery to randomly select petitions and associated beneficiaries so that the cap is not exceeded. The lottery would give employers the fairest opportunity to request workers, particularly with the possibility of mail delays from the CNMI.
USCIS will count the total number of beneficiaries in the petitions received after 10 business days to determine if a lottery is needed. If the cap is met after those initial 10 days, a lottery may still need to be conducted with only the petitions received on the last day before the cap was met. USCIS will announce when the cap is met and whether a lottery has been conducted.