TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Chinese government is guilty of genocide, the independent Uyghur Tribunal has determined, a year on since it was formed.

The judgment was delivered in London at 9 a.m., U.K. time, by veteran prosecutor Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who the World Uyghur Congress asked to lead the tribunal.

Based on physical evidence and expert and witness testimonies at hearings since September last year, Nice said the tribunal is convinced the Chinese government has carried out systematic birth control and mass sterilization. This program was intended to reduce the Uyghur population and has indeed resulted in a steep population decline, especially in Xinjiang counties with an Indigenous majority.

The designation of genocide was derived from Article 2(d) of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime Genocide (Genocide Convention): "Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group" with the intention of destroying "in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group."

Wise said the tribunal found the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had committed "barbaric and cruel torture," and systemic religious persecution of the majority-Muslim ethnic group. He added there was forced labor, widespread forced disappearances, unjustifiable imprisonment of up to 1 million people, and systemic rape within its internment camps.

Wise said the hearings had shown the responsibility for abuses resulting from such policies had been proven by leaked documents to go all the way to the top in the CCP leadership. The tribunal ruling comes amid diplomatic boycotts of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing by the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia over the treatment of the Uyghur population.