The federal prosecutor’s office will not initiate an investigation into several managers of German clothing brands and retailers on suspicion of aiding and abetting state-ordered forced labor of Uyghurs in the Chinese region of Xinjiang. According to a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor’s office, a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced that there were “according to the available findings no sufficient factual evidence” for the persons reported to have been involved in crimes against humanity or in other criminal offenses that justify the prosecution’s jurisdiction. “The initiation of a preliminary investigation is therefore currently out of the question.”
The human rights organization European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) filed the complaint a good four weeks ago. “The door is not yet closed,” said the human rights lawyer Miriam Saage-Maaß from ECCHR. One is not convinced of the findings of the Federal Prosecutor’s office and will possibly add more content. The NGO wanted to prove that German companies indirectly support forced labor on Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region prescribed by Chinese authorities by buying textiles from suppliers who either employ forced labor themselves or who have processed cotton, whose production uses forced labor. But it is precisely this proof that the organization failed to provide. Because the Federal Prosecutor’s Office said, “in particular, there are currently no sufficient factual indications that forced laborers were actually involved in the manufacturing process of the textile deliveries referred to in the criminal complaint.”
According to estimates by experts, up to half a million Uyghurs are likely to pick cotton in the region, mostly by hand and against their will. The first indications that forced labor may be used in the region have been around for almost three years. China’s government denies the existence of forced labor in Xinjiang and speaks of training and work programs to combat extremism in the region.