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By: Jerry Dunleavy, For Washington Examiner -- A House Republican leader in the national security arena called on the Democratic-led House Oversight Committee to hold an “immediate” hearing to deal with the Chinese Communist Party’s " genocide" of the Uighurs in western China.

Rep. Glenn Grothman, the GOP’s ranking member on Oversight’s Subcommittee on National Security, made the urgent request of Democratic Chairman Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts in a letter Monday.

“We write to urge you to hold a hearing examining the atrocities being committed by the Chinese Communist Party against religious minorities in that country,” the Wisconsin Republican wrote. “We must determine the extent of the CCP’s suppression of minorities, ensure that the administration is doing everything in its power to respond, and examine whether there is a need for additional legislation. It is time to shine a bright light on these atrocities and the actions of the CCP.”

Since 2017, as many as 2 million Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities have been moved into detention camps, often referred to as concentration camps, in the western Xinjiang province of China. There, Uighurs are allegedly put through rigorous "deradicalization" programs and are mocked and tortured by Chinese guards. But the camps are just one part of alleged large-scale surveillance and oppression inflicted on China’s Uighur population.

“We are particularly disturbed by recent evidence — coming from data taken from the CCP’s own documents that the CCP is conducting mass forced sterilizations of women, forced abortions, and utilizing mandatory invasive birth control measures to reduce family size among the Uyghur people. Those who resist or violate these forced abortion and birth control policies may be placed in internment camps, which already hold over a million ethnic Uyghurs,” Grothman wrote. “The CCP was already systematically working to exterminate the presence of Uyghur culture and religion, including by incarcerating over a million people, but now they are even trying to eliminate Uyghur families and suppress births. This is genocide and it demands immediate action.”

The Chinese Communist Party has reportedly imposed forced birth control, sterilizations, and abortions on the Uighur population in a race-based effort to reduce the minority Muslim population in the country, with a late June analysis by the Associated Press finding that Beijing is imposing “draconian measures to slash birth rates” among Uighur Muslims and other minorities “as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population” while the Chinese government “encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom called on the State Department to investigate whether China’s reported campaign of forced birth control and abortion against the Uighur population constitutes genocide.

Last week, the Trump administration announced sanctions aimed at Chinese Communist Party officials whom the United States believes have been involved in carrying out human rights abuses against Uighurs and other minorities in China. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control revealed the sanctions against a Chinese Communist Party entity and four Chinese Communist Party officials “in connection with serious rights abuses against ethnic minorities” in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in western China. These designations under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act include XUAR Chinese Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo and former XUAR Deputy Party Secretary Zhu Hailun. The Xinjiang Public Security Bureau was also targeted by U.S. sanctions, and the U.S. also designated XPSB Director and Communist Party Secretary Wang Mingshan and former XPSB Party Secretary Huo Liujun.

The U.S. said the Chinese government officials were being designated “for their connection to serious human rights abuse against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, which reportedly include mass arbitrary detention and severe physical abuse, among other serious abuses targeting Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim population indigenous to Xinjiang, and other ethnic minorities in the region.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo simultaneously announced that he was also designating the Chinese Communist Party's Chen Quanguo, Zhu Hailun, and Wang Mingshan, and others “for their involvement in gross violations of human rights” against the Uighurs and others. The Chinese government retaliated on Monday with sanctions targeting Republicans, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, and Ambassador Sam Brownback.

“This Subcommittee must determine what more can be done to stand up for the oppressed and hold the CCP accountable for these egregious violations of human dignity. We cannot sit idly by and permit the CCP to wipe out a religious minority,” Grothman said on Monday. “I request an immediate in-person hearing to examine the role of the CCP in perpetrating genocide and determine whether any gaps exist and what legislative solutions are needed to fill them. Even if this was not a pressing domestic and global national security issue, it is our moral duty to stand for those that cannot stand for themselves.”