Airbnb asked about Xinjiang business in the midst of Uighur ‘genocide’ | Uighur Stories

More than a dozen Airbnb operators in Xinjiang are on the verge of belonging to a company that has been on the US sanctions list since 2020.

Two members of the US Congress have said they are concerned about the business of Airbnb Inc. Xinjiang Chinese Province, while Washington claims that Beijing is assassinating Uighur Muslims and other ethnic groups.

Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative James McGovern, two Democrats who are currently chairing and chairing the Congress of the Executive of China, have sent a letter to Airbnb (PDF) inquiries about others who wrote in Xinjiang and others.

The lawmakers said they were asking “questions about Airbnb’s commitment to human rights and anti-discrimination in China because it supports the Beijing Winter Olympics” which began next month.

“While Airbnb continues to maintain XUAR lists, it has not publicly condemned the killings taking place there, or violated the human rights of minorities in China,” the letter said, quoting Xinjiang Uighur. Autonomous Region.

China denies violence in Xinjiang.

Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.

The operation suspends any U.S. property for companies and government officials and often barred Americans from participating.

The letter referred to the US government department as saying that the XPCC is a “coercive and possibly human rights” military operation in Xinjiang.

The two councilors said Airbnb “continues to operate in a country whose laws require hospitality to be discriminatory on the basis of race, ethnicity, or lack of a passport, while the possibility of obtaining a passport may be impossible for people of other races”.

Airbnb did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2019, an online rental company was strongly opposed by Palestinian independence groups. continue to register rental properties in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank that were seized.

Xinjiang has been the scene of tensions between Western and Chinese governments in recent years, as UN experts and human rights groups estimate that more than a million people, mostly Uighurs and a few Muslim members, have been interned in camps there.

The Chinese ambassador to Washington on Friday reiterated his opposition to the harassment in Xinjiang and said some members of Congress “repeatedly repeated these issues and pressured companies”.

@CECCgov Chairs @SenJeffMerkley and @RepMcGovern send a letter to @Airbnb seeking answers on his business activities in #Xinjiang. https://t.co/XdlUBbM5JP pic.twitter.com/TsCFGzT9uL

– China Commission (@CECCgov) January 7, 2022

It said some lawmakers had a “bad idea of ​​stealing business and political policies and making China uncooperative with Xinjiang-related issues”.

Tuesday, Tesla was also criticized following his announcement to open an exhibition center in Xinjiang.

Under intense pressure from the US Congress, President Joseph Biden signed a new law in December banning production in Xinjiang over human rights abuses.

The law enacts a law banning the export of U.S. goods from Xinjiang to require sellers to first ensure that their goods are not manufactured under duress. Xinjiang is a major supplier of cotton and solar panels.

China has called the US action “a means of” economic bullying “. Beijing also imposed sanctions on four members of the Commission on International Religious Freedom in the US government in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Chinese officials in the Xinjiang case.