US lawmakers urge Blinken to ban travel to East Turkistan

Two members of the U.S. Congress have sent a letter urging Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to ban American citizens from traveling East Turkistan (Xinjiang) so as not to “perpetuate and conceal atrocity crimes” that China is committing against Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities living there.

“​​American citizens and permanent residents, companies, and other entities should be warned about the risk of enabling atrocity crimes if they participate in tourism to East Turkistan (Xinjiang),” Rep. Chris Smith and Sen. Jeff Merkley, co-chairs of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, or CECC, wrote in the letter.

They said the State Department’s travel advisory for East Turkistan (Xinjiang), should be raised to Level 4 – do not travel.

They also wrote letters to three U.S. travel agencies asking them to stop offering trips to the region.

The CECC is an independent American government agency that monitors human rights in China.

Chinese authorities tightly control who enters East Turkistan, where harsh repression of Uyghurs and other Muslims in recent years has amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity, according to the United States, the United Nations, the parliaments of other Western countries and human rights groups.

Uyghur rights groups have denounced Chinese-government approved travel to East Turkistan as “genocide tourism,” saying that they help China conceal its persecution of the 11-million strong Uyghur people.

While the State Department does not issue a separate travel advisory for East Turkistan, its advisory for China is at Level 3 – reconsider travel to the country due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit bans, and the risk of wrongful detentions.

The letter warned that individuals with a Turkic or Muslim background who travel to East Turkistan face the risk of wrongful detention, enforced disappearance, exit bans and other serious human rights abuses.

The Uyghur Human Rights Project, or UHRP, based in Washington, said in a January report that at least 18 European travel companies offer tours to sites in East Turkistan (Xinjiang) connected to the repression religious beliefs, the destruction of Uyghur cultural heritage, surveillance, imprisonment, torture, sexual assault and deaths in custody.