Policy / Support the Uyghur Policy Act

Support the Uyghur Policy Act

Southern Baptists affirm that every life is worthy of dignity and protection, including the lives of vulnerable people groups. In the 2019 resolution “On Biblical Justice,” Southern Baptists resolved to “address injustices through gospel proclamation, by advocating for people who are oppressed and face wrongs against them. Additionally, in the 2018 resolution “On Reaffirming The Full Dignity Of Every Human Being,” Southern Baptists resolved that “we affirm the full dignity of every human being of whatever political or legal status or party and denounce rhetoric that diminishes the humanity of anyone.”

The U.S. government has made an official determination that the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide against the Uyghur people. Since April 2017, China has systematically detained more than 1 million Uyghur Muslims and placed them into “re-education camps.” In these internment camps, Uyghurs are prevented from engaging in their religious practices and forcibly “re-educated” to the Communist Party’s ideological standard. China has constructed upward of 1,000 of these camps to detain 1-3 million Uyghur people; at these camps, physical and psychological abuse is commonplace including rape, torture, malnourishment, and forced organ harvesting. Despite this reality, the U.S. has done little to prioritize this issue in negotiations with China.

In 2021, Southern Baptists became the first denomination to rightly call what is happening to the Uyghur people a genocide. Specifically, this resolution called for advocacy seeking to bring an end to this genocide, prioritize of the Uyghur people to the U.S. under refugee status, and continue in prayer for the Uyghur people and aid workers and missionaries.

The ERLC supports the bipartisan Uyghur Policy Act, which will mandate that the countering of the Uyghur genocide be prioritized in all U.S. dealings with China. The U.S. must continue to counter China morally, and this bill provides helpful tools to the U.S. in doing so. The House has already overwhelmingly passed this bill, and the ERLC urges the Senate to act swiftly.