René Cassin // Campaigns // Genocide

UK Uyghur exile Rahima Mahmut speaks about her relationship with René Cassin:

The period of Nazi power, from 1933-1945, was calamitous for Europe’s Jews.

Hitler’s overt anti-Semitism had won him the votes and admiration of millions in Germany and in many of the countries it occupied such as Poland. He rapidly reintroduced discriminatory policies against the Jews, then planned and put into effect the ‘Final Solution’, a dramatic attempt to answer the ‘Jewish Question’ first posed during the French Revolution. The result was slave labour, detention in concentration camps and catastrophic loss of life. Over six million Jews, as well as many other undesirable üntermenschen were murdered, including LGBT, disabled, and 500,000 Romani Gypsies.

How could the Nazis get so close to success in their plans for genocide?

Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the word ‘genocide’, was able, using his library of Nazi documents, to describe the process:

The first step was denationalisation, making individuals stateless by severing the link of nationality between Jews and the state, so as to limit the protection of the law.

This was followed by dehumanisation, removing legal rights from members of the targeted group.

The third step was to kill the nation ‘in a spiritual and cultural sense.’ Jews were forced to register, wear a distinctive badge, then move into designated areas, ghettos.

Seizure of property, the fourth step, rendered the group ‘destitute’ and ‘dependent on rationing’. Decrees limited rations of carbohydrates and proteins, reducing the members of the group to ‘living corpses’.

Spirits broken, individuals became ‘apathetic to their own lives’, subjected to forced labour that cause many deaths, and to further measures of dehumanization and disintegration as they were left to await the ‘hour of execution’.

(from Philippe Sand’s summary of Raphael Lemkin’s analysis of Nazi Method, East-West Street (2017))

Campaign Updates:

Call to action – contact Volkswagen today

Seeing Auschwitz exhibition

Trigger Warning- this Seeing Auschwitz opinion piece contains images of genocide, which some readers may find uncomfortable viewing. In the lead-up to Holocaust Memorial Day, with the theme for this […]

René Cassin “key to building the profile of the Uyghur genocide in the UK”

It is a year since, in December 2021, an independent Uyghur Tribunal found the Chinese government guilty, without reasonable doubt, of the crimes of torture, crimes against humanity and genocide […]

Summary prepared by Sheldon Stone, René Cassin alumnus and Member of the Stop Uyghur Genocide UK Advisory Board On 31 August 2022, the Office of the High Commissioner of Human […]

Western companies should not be profiting from Uyghur forced labour

Millions of Uyghurs are currently being detained by Chinese authorities and held in concentration and forced labour camps in the Uyghur Region of China, or forcibly transported to work in […]

Ask MPs, businesses & wider society to counter China’s Olympics propaganda

Lots done in ’21, lots more to do in ’22

On 9 December, the International Day for the Prevention of Genocide, the Independent People’s Uyghur Tribunal panel found ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt for 9 out of 11 Crimes Against Humanity, […]

How a small human rights charity made a big difference in prompting action on an unfolding genocide

URGENT – Please ask your MP to support this motion

Let’s stop China using games to whitewash its attempt to destroy the Uyghurs

Day of action – Sunday 13 June

Act now – MPs will vote on Thursday 22 April

Poem By Jane Vuglar There is a thread that binds us, One to another, Yellow as the Star of David When Holocaust beckoned. Those who lived remember, We who wear […]

Call to Action – #MakeThisSederDifferent

“I am doing this because, as a Jew, I am horrified to think that another people is being enslaved and exterminated. I was particularly shaken by the BBC visit, during […]

René Cassin joins in a worldwide call for action on Uyghur genocide

By Ruth Barnett “If you find genocide inflicted on peoples far away from here does not matter – then don’t continue reading. BUT, if you find genocide inflicted on any […]

René Cassin statement on government’s blocking of ‘Genocide Amendment’

Mia’s plea to MPs: “Support ‘Genocide Amendment'”

Please make a donation to stop genocide of Uyghurs

René Cassin’s Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 statement

Urgent call to action – find out how you can get involved

“The Uyghurs need us look at what is happening to them, condemn it, and act to stop it.

“The levers to prevent genocide are manifold. It is about time we pull them”

For this year’s Human Rights Shabbat, we are focusing on the theme of Genocide and asking the question: ‘How can the Jewish experience and principles inform the prevention of genocide today?’

René Cassi recently signed on to a joint submission as part of the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region to the UK Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy […]

By Dr. Sheldon Stone, René Cassin Fellow and Campaign Associate, Advisory Group to STOPUYGHURGENOCIDE, World Uyghur Congress, London Office “Have you reserved?” “No!” I was prepared to do anything. Take […]

‘How can Jewish experience and principles inform the prevention of genocide today?’ Update 2 December 2020: Human Rights Shabbat Resource Pack now available Over the past few months, the Jewish […]

Judged by Lord Finkelstein. £100 prize. Deadline 9 November.

Please help Rahima and her fellow Uyghurs

Sunday 2 August is Roma Genocide Remembrance Day. It marks the 76th anniversary of the murder of 2,897 Roma men women and children in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in […]

René Cassin joins worldwide coalition of 198 organisations

11 July 1995

Watch a recording of the solidarity Iftar held on 4 May 2020

René Cassin Briefing Paper – May 2020 Close to three million Muslim Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic communities in East Turkistan, the Chinese North western region of Xinjiang, are forced […]

Support a Legal Challenge to Govt Decision to Allow Huawei 5G Network Access through this link. The legal challenge by two UK Muslims (Rahima Mahmut and Dr. Enver Tothi) to […]

As the Coronavirus pandemic brings the rest of the world to a halt, China, several months after it declared a global pandemic, has begun to ease its lockdown restrictions. The […]

by Sheldon Stone The UK government’s decision (28 January 2020) on future of Huawei, as a leading telecommunications provider in the country, undermines the UK’s long and celebrated tradition of […]

Policy is “designed to wipe the Uyghurs off the face of the earth”

It is estimated that close to two million Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities are being detained indefinitely in ‘re-education’ camps in China’s western Xinjiang Region, where they are forced to deny their religion and culture as ‘backwards and dangerous.

China must stop its brutal repression of Uyghur Muslims

Today marks 71st anniversary of the signing of the UN Convention against Genocide and World Genocide Day, established by the UN, to commemorate and honour the victims of genocides and […]

Key questions to put to anyone asking for your vote on 12 December

René Cassin Submission to Parliamentary inquiry into freedom of religion and human rights defenders

Inspired to act? Here’s what you can do to oppose the persecution of Uyghurs.

This René Cassin event examines religious persecution in China – Thursday 9 May, 7-8.30pm

The key questions to ask your candidates

Human Rights and the General Election

Bashir Sweeps Sudanese Elections Omar al-Bashir has extended his quarter-century rule of Sudan after a dubiously run election that saw him win 94 percent of the presidential vote, and his […]

Today, 27 January 2015, is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

René Cassin believes that one of the most critical legacies of the Holocaust is the understanding that the fight against human rights violations will never end, and that we as a society must be vigilant to any erosion of our human rights …