This is a setback for human rights defenders. In April, the French justice closed without further action a preliminary investigation opened in June 2021 targeting clothing giants such as Uniqlo and Inditex, accused by associations of having profited from the forced labor of the Uighurs in China. The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT), which deals with crimes against humanity in France, confirmed this decision on Thursday May 4.
The investigation had been opened by the crimes against humanity unit of this prosecution after a complaint filed in April 2021 by the anti-corruption association Sherpa, the collective Ethics on the label, the Uighur Institute of Europe (IODE) and a Uighur who was interned in the province of Xinjiang (north-west China). The plaintiffs intend to file a new complaint so that a judge is appointed, said their lawyer, William Bourdon.
The complaint was based on a report published in March 2020 by the Australian NGO ASPI (Australian Strategic Policy Institute). The complainants accused Uniqlo France (owned by the Japanese group Fast Retailing), Inditex (which owns the brands Zara, Bershka, Massimo Duti), SMCP (Sandro, Maje, de Fursac, etc.) and the shoemaker Skechers of marketing products manufactured entirely or partly in factories where Uighurs are subjected, according to these associations, to forced labor. The plaintiffs also felt that these companies did not justify sufficient efforts to ensure that their subcontractors were not implicated in the persecution of this minority.
At the time, the four groups disputed any use of forced labor: Inditex said it was able to verify, via “traceability checks”, that the allegations arising from this complaint were unfounded. Uniqlo also claimed to carry out inspections with third parties to ensure that human rights were not violated by its suppliers. The SMCP group recalled Thursday that it had “always refuted with the greatest firmness these accusations” and considered that the decision “follows the withdrawal in October 2022 of the name of the SMCP group and its brands” from the report of the NGO Australian.
Other groups accused of profiting from exploitation of Uighurs
On April 12, however, the PNAT informed the complainants that the investigation was closed “for the reason of absence of violation, due to the incompetence of the PNAT to pursue the facts referred to in the complaint”. According to the first source close to the case, the public prosecutor considered that he could only prosecute the textile giants for concealment of offenses if he also had jurisdiction for the main offenses referred to, that is to say the crimes against humanity and genocide.
According to another close source, the PNAT however considers that these crimes are likely to have been committed in China by Chinese companies, the suppliers of the textile giants denounced in the complaint, which would therefore make it incompetent. “The PNAT’s spin is incomprehensible insofar as an investigation had been opened on the basis of concealment of crimes against humanity. Two years later, it is now considered an irrelevant qualification, “said Mr. Bourdon.
In addition to these four names, other major groups (Nike, Adidas, Shein, etc.) are accused of profiting from the exploitation of members of the Uighur Muslim minority in cotton fields and workshops in Xinjiang. For several years, the Chinese authorities have been accused by Western countries of having massively locked up Uighurs and members of other predominantly Muslim minorities, including Kazakhs, in re-education camps, after bloody attacks in Xinjiang. Their number is sometimes estimated at more than a million.
Washington and several countries refer to “genocide” and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights refers to crimes against humanity, accusations rejected by Beijing, which defends vocational training centers intended to combat the religious extremism and ensuring social stability. Some brands have made a commitment in recent years not to use Xinjiang cotton (a fifth of world production) but are struggling to show their credentials in the face of cascading subcontractors.