For two decades, Code Pink has been a pillar of protests and among the most vocal critics of U.S. foreign policy. It declares its mission, in part, "to challenge militarism globally." Like so many social justice groups, it has allowed anti-American animosity to trump any principles for which it supposedly stands.

Case in point: Rather than stand up for justice, Code Pink is now at the forefront of apologia , if not outright genocide denial, with regard to China’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims. The group argues that China’s reaction to terrorism is not much different than that of the United States after the 9/11 al Qaeda attacks. Adults can debate the Afghanistan and Iraq wars (when not shouted down by groups inimical to free speech), but there simply is no comparison: China has established the largest network of concentration camps since the Holocaust and imprisoned 2 million Uyghurs because of their ethnicity and religion. It arrests anyone found to have a prayer rug or Quran in their home and even detains for reeducation any Uyghur who uses the common greeting, essalam eleykum, a local variant of the Arabic phrase “Peace be upon you.” Communist authorities force Uyghur women not only to house Han men but to share the same bedroom. The Chinese government goes further, however, and now bulldozes thousand-year-old cultural heritage out of spite.

Code Pink’s response is simply to amplify Chinese Communist Party propaganda. It offers as a resource not Human Rights Watch , which apparently is not left-wing enough for Code Pink, or the U.N. Human Rights Commission, a group that traditionally buries all but the most egregious human rights violations but came out to document the atrocities perpetrated against the Uyghurs, but the Qiao Collective, a group that openly promotes “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” That’s equivalent to denying the Holocaust and then directing inquiries to a diaspora German group in 1950s Argentina to affirm their point of view. Also on Code Pink’s resource list is Margaret Kimberley, a columnist with Black Agenda Report, who has become the David Irving of Uyghur camp denial , satellite imagery and eyewitnesses be damned.

Code Pink avoids any reference to credible groups like the Uyghur Human Rights Project that uses objective methodology to assess the Uyghur situation. Perhaps to Code Pink, the best way to try to win an argument is to avoid any reality that would acknowledge the moral bankruptcy of their ideology.

This is not the first time anti-Americanism has led peace activists to descend the moral abyss. As word trickled out of Cambodia that the virulent communist and racist Khmer Rouge were committing acts of genocide, the group found no better defender than the American Friends Service Committee. John McAuliff, the group’s Indo-China division chief, dismissed reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities by saying those voicing such concerns were simply seeking to discredit an “example of an alternative model of development.” Not to be outdone, the Quaker organization’s New England regional director dismissed “bloodbath stories” meant to punish countries who resisted “exploitation by multinational corporations seeking raw materials, markets for surplus, and cheap labor.” Today, the American Friends Service Committee compounds its intellectual dishonesty by erasing its past rather than learning from it .

This appears to be the path Code Pink seems determined to walk. Their willingness to treat Uyghur Muslims as political pawns reeks of both racism and Islamophobia. Their dishonesty and willingness to embrace a regime guilty of the greatest slaughter of the 20th century should make them a pariah in Washington, D.C. Any group — the Quincy Institute, National Iranian American Council, and Friends Committee on National Legislation — that endorse Code Pink events and petitions may believe their action comes at no cost, but Uyghurs would disagree.

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Michael Rubin ( @mrubin1971 ) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.