We can throw escaped Uyghurs a lifeline by bringing more to Canada

2023/02/02 Leave a comment

Of note. Legitimate case – MPs voted unanimously in support:

At midnight on Dec. 27, Uyghur public speaker Abdulla Abdulhamit was home when armed Turkish police broke into his house. He was arrested and sent to a deportation centre. Despite numerous attempts by other Uyghurs in Turkey to learn his status, the authorities have not released any information and his fate remains unclear. His family and friends fear that he will be sent back to China, where he is likely to be executed.

In Canada, our Parliament has been clear that Beijing is perpetrating a genocide of the Uyghurs, and they voted unanimously to call it that, consistent with the United Nations 1948 Genocide Convention. While some have criticized Liberal cabinet ministers for being absent from the vote, we can be sure that if the Prime Minister had opposed it, the Liberal whip would have persuaded Liberal MPs to vote nay.

But what can Canadians tangibly do to help the Uyghurs? Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi proposed a motion to call on the government to design a program to bring 10,000 Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims to Canada over two years. These are Uyghurs in other countries where they are at daily risk of being arrested and deported back to China to be incarcerated in indoctrination camps – what witnesses described to the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development as concentration camps – where deaths, torture, rapes and forced sterilizations of women are common, and where some detainees are executed without trial.

Nearly two million Uyghurs have spent many months of indoctrination in China’s prison-like facilities before being sent to an actual prison or to factories in other parts of the country as forced labour. Few are sent home. According to Human Rights Watch, China has put half a million Uyghurs in prison after their time in a camp. This is often because they were not sufficiently contrite in renouncing their culture and religion or accepting the political ideology of Xi Jinping Thought. More than a million Uyghur children are already in indoctrination schools or state-run orphanages to learn Chinese and Xi Jinping Thought, many without sufficient food or clothing for cold weather.

Uyghurs who have escaped west to Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries have often left China without documentation, and so have become stateless. Officials and agencies in those countries may be vulnerable to China’s political and financial pressure. Consequently, the Uyghurs are often deprived of services such as health care, schooling, and work or residence permits that would allow them to integrate into the community. It is therefore difficult for them to meet their basic social needs or develop future employment prospects. These Uyghurs are also at serious risk of rendition to China. Thousands have already been sent back only to disappear into the camps and prisons, or worse.

China’s policy of genocide for the Uyghur people is well known around the world. Less known is Beijing’s identification of “nine forbidden countries,” including Turkey and the UAE, where Chinese citizens should not go unless they have an approved reason to be there. These countries are popular destinations for Uyghurs, as they are already home to established communities of that culture. By having an explicit policy, Beijing can try to pressure those countries to deport any Uyghurs. Indeed, it has been reported that the UAE has a Chinese-run detention centrefor Uyghurs and other critics of China in Dubai.

The vote on Mr. Zuberi’s Motion-62 will be held in the House of Commons on Feb. 1. The first and second debates in October were strongly supported by MPs of all parties, so success is a good possibility. If passed, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will design a funded program for 2024 to 2026 to bring Uyghurs and other Turkish Muslims as refugees from third countries to Canada, where they will be safe and will contribute positively to society as thousands of other Uyghurs have already. We have done this before for Vietnamese, Syrians and others who have become stellar citizens.

Hundreds of Uyghurs will be in the gallery of the House of Commons for the vote. If Motion-62 passes, it will give Canadians the concrete measures that Parliament’s earlier vote on the genocide really demands. And if cabinet ministers vote in favour, they will be giving a strong signal for meaningful action. Canada will be leading the world in supporting Uyghur refugees at dire risk – people such as Abdulla Abdulhamit.

Mehmet Tohti is executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project. Margaret McCuaig-Johnston is a senior fellow with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.

Source: We can throw escaped Uyghurs a lifeline by bringing more to Canada

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Ibbitson: Will Trudeau’s Liberal government open the door to at-risk Uyghurs?

2022/09/06 Leave a comment

Should be an easy decision to make:

This autumn, the House of Commons will debate a motion from Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi calling on the federal government to accept 10,000 Uyghur refugees who have fled China but are at risk of being deported back, where they would face severe persecution.

That motion achieved greater urgency with the arrival of a United Nations report on Wednesday that states the Chinese government may be guilty of crimes against humanity in its treatment of Uyghurs and other minorities.

The question is whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals government will act to protect Uyghurs at risk. On Thursday, the government was sending mixed signals.

Mr. Zuberi put forward the motion, which calls on the federal government “to expedite the entry of 10,000 Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in need of protection, over two years starting in 2024 into Canada.”

Motions, if passed, are not binding on the government, but they do represent the will of the House.

“Not only are you dealing with extremely vulnerable people, you are also dealing with the compounding issue of genocide,” Mr. Zuberi told me. “The UN report shows how immediate and concrete action on the part of governments is urgently needed.”

The report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights does not use the word “genocide.” But its findings are damning. “Serious human rights violations have been committed” in Xinjiang, concludes outgoing commissioner Michelle Bachelet, that “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

These crimes include arbitrary detention, torture, forced medical treatment, sexual offences, forced birth control, forced labour, suppression of religious freedom and family separations.

“We’ve known about these crimes against humanity for quite a number of years,” said Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, who is a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

“Now we have detailed documentation of the crimes, and official confirmation that all of this is happening.” She urged the federal government to swiftly launch a program that would bring government-sponsored Uyghurs into Canada. “I don’t believe they need to wait until 2024.”

But when the House unanimously declared last year that “a genocide is currently being carried out by the People’s Republic of China against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims,” Mr. Trudeau and most of the cabinet stayed away from the vote. Marc Garneau, then foreign affairs minister, abstained, “on behalf of the government of Canada.”

The Trudeau government walks a fine line in its relations with Beijing. It banned the Chinese company Huawei Technologies from participating in the rollout of Canada’s 5G network, but that came long after allied countries made the same decision.

The government is planning new legislation to toughen the rules banning the import of goods produced through forced labour, but we lag behind other countries.

In that context, Thursday was typical. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly issued a strong statement of support for the UN report. “The release of this much-anticipated report was critical,” it said. “The findings reflect the credible accounts of grave human rights violations taking place in Xinjiang. This report makes an important contribution to the mounting evidence of serious, systemic human rights abuses and violations occurring in Xinjiang.”

However, a statement sent to me by Aiden Strickland, press secretary to Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, was far more cautious. “The safety of Uyghur refugees is a high priority,” Ms. Strickland said. “However, we are not in a position to comment more specifically at this time as it could put this vulnerable population at risk.”

The statement made no mention of the UN report.

Few nations can match Canada’s record for swift action to rescue people at risk. More than 70,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Canada in the past six months; we brought in 25,000 Syrians displaced by civil war seven years ago; and while we have settled fewer than half of 40,000 Afghans at risk that we promised to bring in, at least the commitment is there.

Canada could easily absorb 10,000 Uyghur refugees. And we wouldn’t need to wait until 2024 to bring them here. We could do it right now, and we should.

Let’s hope the House strongly affirms Mr. Zuberi’s motion. Better yet, let’s hope the Trudeau comes to the help of Uyghurs, even if it does offend the regime in Beijing.

Source: Will Trudeau’s Liberal government open the door to at-risk Uyghurs?

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Feds under fire for deferring decision to declare China’s actions against Uyghurs as genocide

2022/04/07 Leave a comment

As MPs across the partisan spectrum question why the Canadian government has yet to declare that the Chinese government’s repression of Uyghurs constitutes genocide, Global Affairs says an international court or tribunal must be the one to make the declaration, but international law experts say that’s not the case.

As a state party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, more commonly known as the Genocide Convention, Canada has an obligation to declare a genocide is occurring when one is taking place, say international law experts, and deferring such judgement to an international court is nothing more than an excuse to not act.

MPs on the House Foreign Affairs Committee questioned Global Affairs officials on March 28 as to why the government hasn’t made a declaration of genocide more than a year after the House of Commons voted unanimously to declare that a genocide is being committed by China against its Uyghur population and other Turkic Muslims. The non-binding vote, which passed with 266 votes in favour and none against on Feb. 22, 2021, had the support of all parties, including 87 Liberal MPs. Cabinet members, however, abstained from the vote.

A March 2021 report from the Subcommittee on International Human Rights concluded that China is committing genocide as defined under the Genocide Convention. The report was adopted by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In it, the subcommittee called on the government to declare the Chinese government’s persecution of Uyghurs an act of genocide.

Beijing has long denied that a genocide of Uyghurs is taking place in Xinjiang.

Bloc Québécois MP Stéphane Bergeron (Montarville, Que.), his party’s foreign affairs critic, said in French that Global Affairs has “strangely enough” refused to acknowledge that genocide is taking place.

“It’s as if everything that is obvious for many people, including for Parliamentarians in Canada, was not for Global Affairs,” he said at the committee on March 28, asking what is stopping Canada from recognizing that a genocide is taking place.

Global Affairs official Jennie Chen, executive director for Greater China Policy and Coordination, said a declaration of genocide is one for the government to make, and officials will provide advice to ministers “when that time comes.”

But later in the committee hearing, Global Affairs director general and deputy legal adviser Carolyn Knobel said a “determination of whether a situation constitutes a genocide must be done by a competent international court or a tribunal, bearing in mind the complex legal thresholds that are involved.”

Knobel suggested that finding “specific intent” to commit genocide is “key” to making such a determination. She said without a finding of “specific intent,” breaches of international law would instead amount to crimes against humanity, or war crimes.

The Hill Times asked Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly’s (Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Que.) office whether the government believes that only an international court or tribunal can determine whether a genocide has taken place. A spokesperson for Global Affairs responded on behalf of the minister’s office.

“We have the responsibility to work with others in the international community in ensuring that any allegations of genocide are investigated by an independent international body of legal experts,” spokesperson Christelle Chartrand said in an email, noting that Canada is “deeply disturbed” by reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang.

Chartrand said Canada has “repeatedly” called on Beijing to allow the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN Special Procedures to have “immediate, unfettered, and meaningful access to Xinjiang.” 

In 2018, the Canadian government recognized Myanmar’s persecution against the Rohingya as an act of genocide through a motion in the House, which was supported by cabinet ministers. No international court or tribunal had made that determination at the time. A case under the Genocide Convention is currently before the International Court of Justice.

Speaking at the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 24, Joly said Canada takes allegations of genocide “very seriously, particularly in the Xinjiang Uyghur region,” noting that was a reason Canada did not send elected officials to the Beijing Olympics in February.

The U.S. government under then-president Donald Trump declared in 2021 that a genocide was taking place in Xinjiang. That determination has been upheld by the Biden administration.

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan, Alta.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Hill Times that the government’s delay in recognizing the situation as a genocide is “totally unacceptable.”

He said when the Subcommittee on International Human Rights conducted its study, it heard from many international law experts, including former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler, who made the case that nation states that are parties to the Genocide Convention have an obligation to recognize genocide when it is happening and to discharge their obligations under the convention.

“Canada has been failing to live up to its obligations under the Genocide Convention. It is an obfuscation and a denial of our responsibilities for the government to suggest that we shouldn’t act unless or until there is some determination by some to-be-identified international body,” he said. “Fundamentally, Canada’s responsibilities as a state party under the Genocide Convention are clear: it is to recognize and respond to genocide when it has happened, not to wait for somebody else to tell us first.”

Genuis said the government’s lack of determination to date is a decision in itself.

“The effect of continually saying that they are thinking about it is to not act,” he said.

Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi (Pierrefonds-Dollard, Que.), who subbed in at the March 28 committee meeting, told The Hill Times that while he understands why the government wants to wait on an international court to determine whether genocide is taking place, he stands by the subcommittee’s designation and his support for the House motion to recognize genocide.

“I believe that where we should be going as a country is to recognize that genocide is occurring,” he said, noting it would be “good” if the Canadian government follows the U.S. government’s lead.

Zuberi said in their testimony, Global Affairs officials recognized that hundreds of thousands of children are being separated from families, which he said is “one of the key elements of genocide.”

“So, I’m hopeful that we will land there as a country,” he said, adding that each country should make its own legal determination of whether a genocide is taking place. “Our determination doesn’t necessarily rest on those international [bodies] to determine genocide is in fact occurring.”

In the meantime, he said more can be done to prevent goods made with forced labour from entering the Canadian market.

Experts dispute the government’s position that it’s up to international courts and tribunals to determine whether a situation is genocide.

“[The government doesn’t] want to act. Their position is ‘we don’t know—we can’t really say, we’re not really sure, and therefore business as unusual. We can trade [and] and we can do all sorts of things.’ They’re avoiding their obligation,” said John Packer, the University of Ottawa’s Human Rights Research and Education Centre director.

“The Genocide Convention actually prescribes that states are supposed to act to prevent,” he said, noting that includes cases where there is an active genocide, or a risk of genocide. “If the argument of the government is that we can’t do anything until there’s a determination by the court of law, that’s post facto. That means you never have prevention. … ‘Never again’ becomes ‘forever always,’ because you’ve missed the whole raison d’etre of the thing.”

Packer said there is no provision or law that dictates that an international court must be the body to declare whether a genocide is taking place, and said a state must make that determination itself before bringing an action before an international court.

“In order to bring a case, you must allege a case, and to allege a case in international law means that you must determine that there is a breach,” he said.

International human rights lawyer Sarah Teich, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, echoed Packer, saying the Canadian government has an obligation to act.

“If you look at the Genocide Convention, nowhere does it say that that an international court must declare genocide before it can do anything,” she said, noting that Canada, as a state party of the convention, has treaty obligations to punish genocide.

If Canada waits on international courts to declare a situation to be genocide, it would probably be in breach of its obligations, Teich said, adding that it’s “long overdue” for Canada to declare the Chinese government’s persecution of Uyghurs as genocide.

“If Canada is so concerned about wanting it to come from an international court, then Canada should refer the situation to an international court and start taking those steps. But we don’t actually see that happening,” she said. “This is another indicator that really this is kind of just an excuse.”

Mehmet Tohti, executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, said that by citing the need for an international court determination, the Canadian government is not upholding its “international legal responsibility to prevent genocide, and prosecute those responsible for genocide and protect the vulnerable victims of genocide.”

Tohti said it’s “troubling” that the government is still focused on pushing for an independent investigation, as Beijing hasn’t allowed unfettered access to Xinjiang. He said he has little optimism for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s visit to China in May.

“The Chinese government has made clear to the high commissioner that there is no unfettered access, meaning she cannot go wherever she wants to go. She cannot visit the places she wants to visit. And she cannot talk with the people she wants to talk,” he said.

Liberal MP Ali Ehsassi (Willowdale, Ont.), chair of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, asked Global Affairs officials at the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week why a declaration of genocide has taken so long after the House voted in favour of recognizing the situation as genocide.

In her testimony, Chen said the government is looking forward to Bachelet’s visit to China. “What’s been important for us is it has been an independent investigation by international experts. This has long been our position for many years now,” she said.

Bergeron called Canada’s stance “bipolar,” while Genuis said there is a “clear divergence between the legislative branch and the executive” in declaring whether a genocide is taking place.

“It is frustrating for me, it’s frustrating for Liberal MPs, and it’s frustrating for Canadians because Canadians elect Members of Parliament. They don’t elect the executive, but the legislative branch is supposed to hold the executive accountable for the steps they’re taking and the executive has been able to get away with inaction,” he said.

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Source: Feds under fire for deferring decision to declare China’s actions against Uyghurs as genocide

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Organization of Islamic Cooperation Accused of Ignoring Uyghur Muslims in China

2022/03/26 Leave a comment

Indeed. Much easier to other countries than China despite the ongoing oppression and indeed genocide of Uyghur Muslims:

A U.S. declaration that China has committed genocide and crimes against humanity against its mainly Muslim minority in western Xinjiang province appears to have had little impact on the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which this week honored Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a high-level forum.

Invited by host Pakistan, Wang attended the 48th session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Islamabad as a special guest and spoke at the summit opening. He followed up Thursday with a surprise visit to Afghanistan, whose Taliban-led interim government is eager for Chinese investment and support.

The confluence of events was distressing to the Campaign for Uyghurs, a Washington-based rights group, which condemned both Wang’s attendance at the summit and OIC’s silence on China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority, including mass incarceration in so-called reeducation camps.

“It was appalling to see that Pakistan invited Wang Yi as a ‘guest of honor,’ while Uyghur Muslims do not have the right to identify as Muslims or practice Islam,” Campaign for Uyghurs said on its website.

According to Hasan Askari, an international affairs analyst, Pakistan’s invitation to the Chinese foreign minister at the OIC summit as an observer is part of an OIC tradition that allows the host country to invite high level diplomats from non-member OIC countries.

The U.S. accused China of genocide and crimes against humanity in the Muslim majority Xinjiang region in western China, including forced labor, sterilization of Muslim women and arbitrary detention of more than 1 million Uyghur Muslims in internment camps.

Beijing denies the allegations and says people of all ethnic groups live happily in Xinjiang.

The OIC summit addressed the plight of Rohingya Muslims as well as Muslims in Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories, Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere, but mostly ignored the Uyghur genocide in China, the Campaign for Uyghurs said.

Only Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu brought it up.

“In China, Uyghurs and other Muslims have difficulties protecting their religious rights and cultural identity,” Cavusoglu said at the OIC meeting. “Is it right to ignore the situation of the Uyghurs?”

Turkish politicians are usually the most outspoken defenders of Uyghur rights among Muslim politicians, said Robert Bianchi, professor of international law at the University of Chicago, because of their ethnic and cultural ties throughout Central Asia.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party “is particularly sensitive to demands from right-wing nationalists who are junior partners in his governing coalition,” Bianchi said. “He can’t survive without their support, so he often agrees to accept more Uyghur refugees and to speak out against Chinese repression.”

At the summit, Wang said that his country pledged to provide 300 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Islamic countries.

According to Abdulhakim Idris, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Uyghur Studies, many Muslim-majority countries receive billions of dollars from China in the name of financial investment.

“By receiving billions of dollars from China, these countries are not only forced to remain quiet on the genocidal atrocities against Uyghur Muslims in East Turkistan but also commanded from Beijing to do whatever the PRC wants,” Idris told VOA, calling Xinjiang by the Uyghurs’ preferred name of East Turkistan.

Source: Organization of Islamic Cooperation Accused of Ignoring Uyghur Muslims in China

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Turkey Turns Down Citizenship for Some Uyghurs – Voice of America

2022/03/18 Leave a comment

Of note:

Turkish authorities have rejected the citizenship applications of some Uyghur refugees, telling them they were suspected risks to Turkey’s “national security” or “social order,” some of the Uyghurs told VOA.

“Phone communication” was the reason Turkey rejected one Uyghur family for citizenship last year. While the family doesn’t know what that means, rights organizations say the term could mean that the person applying for citizenship has communicated with someone connected to an extremist organization in another country, such as Syria.

“My whole family’s application was rejected, including my wife and children,” the Uyghur refugee told VOA. He requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal in Turkey.

Erkin Ekrem, director of the Ankara-based Uyghur Research Institute, said Turkish Deputy Minister of the Interior Ismail Catakli told him and other Uyghur representatives last year that some foreign nationals in Turkey, including Uyghurs from China, were considered risks to national security.

“Catakli told us that it’s not only some Uyghurs. There are other foreign nationals as well,” Ekrem told VOA. “Catakli also said that it takes time to do background checks one by one.”

“He told us that people should wait patiently about their cases,” Ekrem said. ” ‘After we did a thorough background check, we will determine who is eligible and who is not.’ That’s what Catakli told us.”

The Turkish Embassy in Washington did not respond to multiple requests from VOA for comment on this story.

Uyghur foreign fighters have been known to operate throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, although the exact number has been difficult to pin down. In Syria alone, Uyghurs fighting for militant groups range in number from the hundreds to the thousands. Uyghurs have also carried out terror attacks in China in the past 20 years, according to a 2017 report from the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.

Uyghurs in China

About 8,000 Uyghurs did become Turkish citizens last year, according to a rights group that wished not to be named for fear of reprisal.

Most of them were from China. In recent years, an estimated 50,000 Uyghurs fled to Turkey from western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where rights groups say the Chinese government is committing human rights abuses on local Turkic populations such as Uyghurs and Kazakhs.

International rights organizations and some Western countries including the U.S. say China has arbitrarily detained more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in internment camps in Xinjiang since early 2017.

Beijing says the facilities are not internment camps but “vocational training centers” where people learn skills and the Chinese language. Beijing has also said it has taken measures to counter “the three evil forces in Xinjiang,” namely “ethnic separatism, religious extremism and violent terrorism.”

Alimjan Turdi, a Uyghur, left Xinjiang for Turkey in 2013 with his wife and three daughters.

“I came to Turkey escaping China’s assimilationist policies in pursuit of a better education for my children,” Turdi told VOA from the Netherlands.

He became a rights activist in 2017, after the Chinese government had arrested some of his relatives and former colleagues and had detained them in Xinjiang internment camps, Turdi said.

“Chinese police contacted me on social media and asked me to work for them,” Turdi told VOA. “They said that if I want to help my relatives [and] colleagues and have a profiting business, I should work for them.”

Turdi refused the request and, along with other Uyghurs, became a vocal activist in Turkey, demanding the release of family members from China’s internment camps in Xinjiang.

In October, he stopped his activism in Turkey and decided to leave the country after the Turkish government had rejected his application for citizenship.

“I got excited and thought that my application for citizenship was accepted, after they [Turkish authorities] asked me to bring two passport-size pictures and sign relevant papers,” Turdi said.

When he went to the immigration office in Istanbul, he was told his application for citizenship had been rejected.

“I asked for an explanation. They said they don’t know the reason,” Turdi said. “I thought that my activism wouldn’t be harmful to Turkey.”

In December, Turdi left Turkey for the Netherlands, where he is seeking political asylum.

Turkey’s Uyghur position

The Turkish people have been sympathetic to Uyghurs, observers say.

Uyghurs and Turkish people are ethnically related and have a lot in common, both culturally and linguistically, explained Ilyas Dogan, a Turkish human rights lawyer based in Ankara who is handling 18 Uyghur cases, including Turdi’s.

“Uyghurs are treated badly in China, and even genocide is carried out against them,” Dogan said. “And almost everyone in Turkish society reacts to the injustice [the] Uyghurs have suffered.”

When a 2009 Uyghur-led protest in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi resulted in almost 200 dead, then-Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs as genocide.

Western countries have also accused China of genocide in its treatment of Uyghurs, which China says is the “lie of the century.”

In recent years, however, Turkey has also developed closer ties with Beijing, relying heavily on China’s financial support, Dogan said.

The trade volume between Turkey and China increased from $1.1 billion in 2001 to $23.6 billion in 2018, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. In that same span of time, Turkey’s gross domestic productgrew from $202 billion to $778 billion.

China’s growing influence on the Turkish economy has become the greatest obstacle to Turkey’s support of Uyghurs, Dogan said.

“China wants the Uyghurs who came to Turkey in recent years to leave Turkey,” Dogan said, “because there’s such a strong support for Uyghurs from Turkish society.”

According to Dogan, one reason given for the citizenship rejections is “risk to Turkey’s national security in the future.”

Source: Turkey Turns Down Citizenship for Some Uyghurs – Voice of America

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China genocide motion smacks of ‘moral superiority,’ Senator says

2021/06/09 Leave a comment

Harder should know better than to apply such relativism. Bob Rae provides the example: China ‘attempting to defend the indefensible’ in Xinjiang: Bob …YouTube · CBC NewsMar. 30, 2021:

The Trudeau government’s former representative in the Senate says a proposed motion in the Red Chamber to condemn China’s treatment of ethnic Muslim minorities as genocide smacks of “moral superiority and self-righteousness,” given Canada’s past conduct toward Indigenous people including in residential schools.

Senator Peter Harder, a former deputy minister of Foreign Affairs who later headed the Canada-China Business Council, recently spoke in the Senate to oppose a motion that would say the Chinese government’s repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims fits the United Nations’ definition of genocide. A similar motion has already passed the Commons, although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet abstained from voting.

Activists and UN experts have said a million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been subject to mass detention in Xinjiang. China denies abuses and says the centres provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism in the remote western region. Reports have emerged about Beijing’s success in slashing the birth rate of Uyghurs and other minorities through mass sterilization, forced abortions and mandatory birth control.

Senate motion No. 79, which has not yet been put to a vote, notes that two successive U.S. administrations have labelled China’s behaviour as genocide. It also proposes calling upon the International Olympic Committee to deny Beijing the 2022 Winter Olympics by relocating the Games to another country “if the Chinese government continues this genocide.”

The Dutch, British and Lithuanian parliaments have in recent months adopted similar motions recognizing the treatment of Uyghurs as genocide.

Mr. Harder, however, urged fellow senators to consider Canada’s conduct toward Indigenous people before they vote.

He noted that the debate is occurring after “the tragic discovery” of unmarked graves containing the remains of 215 children and “adds to the indictment of our centuries-long practice of residential schools, forced sterilization and what the former chief justice of Canada described as cultural genocide of our Indigenous peoples,” the senator said.

“This horrifying reality of our history stands in rather cynical contrast to the tone of moral superiority and self-righteousness contained in the motion before us tonight.”

The former Trump administration declared the repression of the Uyghurs to be genocide and U.S. President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said he concurs with that assessment. In addition, a March, 2021 State Department report on human rights issued under the Biden administration declares that “genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during [2020] against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.”

Mr. Harder, speaking to the Senate motion late last week, said this is not the way to engage with China.

“We should get off our high horse and seek to engage more appropriately, not bellicosely and belligerently, with countries – not just China, but countries that we need to engage.”

Ottawa has already joined with the U.S., Britain and the European Union in imposing sanctions on several Chinese government officials for “gross and systematic human-rights violations” against Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other largely Muslims groups.

Senator Leo Housakos, the sponsor of motion No. 79, said that unlike China, Canada has acknowledged its atrocities. “China still doesn’t acknowledge what they are doing is ethnic cleansing.”

David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China, said Beijing’s use of technology to monitor, coerce and control a whole people is providing a how-to manual for other authoritarian powers to follow. “It’s writing the book on genocides of the future,” Mr. Mulroney said.

He said Canada’s shameful treatment of Indigenous people shouldn’t preclude Canadians from identifying and calling out misconduct elsewhere. “We call out the Uyghur genocide and question Beijing’s hosting of the Olympics not as a political statement but as a moral statement,” Mr. Mulroney said.

“Surely if we have learned anything as a country it is that you need to act swiftly against genocide anywhere.”

Mr. Harder also said he worried that the motion declaring China’s conduct to be genocide could jeopardize the treatment of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the two Canadians locked up by Beijing after Ottawa arrested a Huawei executive on a U.S. extradition request.

In addition, he cited concerns that it could also inflame anti-Asian violence in Canada and hurt Ottawa’s ability to find common cause with China in fighting climate change and building stronger global trading rules.

Asked for further comment, Mr. Harder said Monday that Canada should be humble. “It’s not that we lack moral authority as much as we should speak with humility and acknowledge our own historic (and recent) failings,” he said in an e-mailed statement. “Regardless of the motivation of our governmental and church leaders at the time, history has shown that we were wrong.”

The Globe and Mail asked Perry Bellegarde, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, for comment on whether he feels Canada’s conduct toward indigenous people – in particular, its record of residential schools – precludes Canadians from criticizing China. Chief Bellegarde’s office said that he was not able to respond Monday afternoon.

Source: China genocide motion smacks of ‘moral superiority,’ Senator says

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Removal of Islamic Motifs Leaves Xinjiang’s Id Kah Mosque ‘a Shell For Unsuspecting Visitors’

2020/05/25 Leave a comment

Of note:

Since 2016, the Chinese authorities have been systematically destroying mosques, cemeteries, and other religious structures and sites across the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Last year, the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) published a report detailing this campaign, titled “Demolishing Faith: The Destruction and Desecration of Uyghurs Mosques and Shrines”; the report was referenced in the 2020 annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The report uses geolocation and other techniques to show that anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 mosques, shrines, and other religious sites in the XUAR were destroyed between 2016 and 2019. In some cases, only the domes and towers were destroyed from certain structures, while in others, characteristically Islamic elements such as stars and crescents, domes, and scripture plaques were removed. In some cases, entire mosques have also been felled.

China has made no official response to the report or to claims about the large-scale and widespread destruction it has undertaken. However, the Chinese authorities have continued to bring international visitors to mosques such as Id Kah in Kashgar, as well as to other religious sites around the region, and to publish articles depicting the mosque in state-run media, all in support of the official line that Uyghurs enjoy religious freedom in the region.

Id Kah is the largest and oldest mosque in the XUAR and the largest mosque in all of China. Uyghurs have long regarded Id Kah as a symbol of Islamic culture and a representative of Islamic architecture in the region. While the mosque is still standing mostly intact today, there are some very alarming signs that it is merely a shell of what it used to be. In 2018, authorities removed the star-and-crescent structures from the tops of the mosque’s dome and minarets, along with the colorful scriptural plaque that long hung above its front entrance. As of 2020, those features appear not to have been restored to the mosque. The plaque, which dates to hijra 1325 (1908 C.E.) contains Quranic scriptures along with information about the construction of the mosque and the identity of the artist who made the sign.

Ahead of Eid al-Fitr, which on May 23 will mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, RFA’s Uyghur Service spoke with Turghunjan Alawudun, director of the Religious Affairs Committee for the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) exile group, and Henry Szadziewski, a senior researcher with the UHRP, about the significance of the missing plaque.

A close up view of the plaque adorning the front entrance of Id Kah mosque, taken before its removal.
A close up view of the plaque adorning the front entrance of Id Kah mosque, taken before its removal. RFA

Alawudun: The disappearance of the scriptural plaque from the entrance to Id Kah is one aspect of the Chinese regime’s evil policies meant to eliminate the Islamic faith among Uyghurs, to eliminate Uyghur faith, literary works, and language—and Uyghurs themselves. This scriptural plaque above the door into Id Kah, like the [mosque’s] minarets, has an Islamic character and is a symbol that has been there from the founding of the mosque until today. The Chinese regime can’t bear this, it can’t stand it, and the inner hatred they feel toward Uyghurs has boiled over such that they had the plaque removed.

They’ve left Id Kah [itself] there for the international community, as part of a bid to fool the world. By taking visitors from Islamic countries there every once in a while to see it, showing it to international visitors who come to investigate [the situation in the region], and sharing it in the media every now and then, they’re pursuing policies that deceive the world. Even so, we can still see that the cruel things that China is doing—the destruction by the Chinese regime of things connected to Uyghurs, Uyghur culture, symbols of the Uyghur people, expressions of Uyghur culture—are signs of the Chinese regime’s horrible plan to eliminate the Uyghurs.

Szadziewski: Religious freedom is not a reality for Uyghurs. Across their homeland, mosques, shrines, and other sacred spaces have been bulldozed into history. In the camps, Uyghurs are indoctrinated into the supposed evils of religion. Id Kah in Kashgar has remained standing. Its disappearance would cause outrage given its importance. The significance of its existence to the Chinese authorities is to demonstrate to the world observance of Uyghurs’ religious freedoms. However, the removal of Islamic motifs from the building tells a different story. It tells us Id Kah is being stripped of religious meaning to become a shell for unsuspecting visitors. There is no reason to remove Islamic motifs from the building other than to demonstrate to Uyghurs that belief in Islam belongs to the past. As such, the despoiling of Id Kah signals a move toward an effective ban on the Islamic faith.

Source: Removal of Islamic Motifs Leaves Xinjiang’s Id Kah Mosque ‘a Shell For Unsuspecting Visitors’

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Muslim nations are defending China as it cracks down on Muslims, shattering any myths of Islamic solidarity

2019/07/25 Leave a comment

All too true. Will be even harder to take their representations on anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia seriously:

Last week, 22 mostly Western countries launched the world’s first major collective challenge to China’s crackdown on Uyghur Muslims and other minorities.

In a joint statement to the High Commissioner of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, the nations criticized Beijing for what they described as “disturbing reports of large-scale arbitrary detentions” and “widespread surveillance and restrictions.”
A day later, 37 other countries jumped to Beijing’s defense, with their own letter praising China’s human rights record, and dismissing the reported detention of up to two million Muslims in western China’s Xinjiang region. Nearly half of the signatories were Muslim-majority nations, including Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, according to the Chinese government.
“Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers,” the letter said, according to Reuters, which saw a copy of the letter. The letter went on to say that there had been no terrorist attacks in the past three years in the region, and that the people there were happy, fulfilled and secure.
The language in the letter echoed previous claims made by China, which has denied allegations of torture or forced political indoctrination in Xinjiang and said that the camps were “vocational training centers” designed to fight terrorism and combat Islamic extremism.
But reports of China’s abuse of Muslims in the Xinjiang region are rampant. Many Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities are believed to have been hauled into conditions that activists call re-education camps. Accounts given to CNN by former detainees describe being forced into the camps under the threat of violence. Detainees who have since fled China say they were forced to renounce Islam while pledging loyalty to China’s ruling Communist party, according to a report by the Council of Foreign Relations.
So why are some Muslim-majority countries coming to Beijing’s defense?
“I was surprised that (Muslim countries) would put it in writing and put their names on it and sign a document to actually praise China,” Azeem Ibrahim, a director at the DC-based Center for Global Policy, told CNN. “It’s one thing to keep quiet and abstain. It’s another thing to overtly support (the policies) when there was no need for them to do so.”
“I think that’s indicative of the influence and power that China has,” he said.

…

Source: Muslim nations are defending China as it cracks down on Muslims, shattering any myths of Islamic solidarity

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Xinjiang’s Uyghurs were enslaved and forced to convert to Islam, Chinese white paper claims

2019/07/23 Leave a comment

Sigh…. Rewriting and reinterpreting history (and yes, Islam dates from the 7th century, spread by conquest and conversion, but to question its legitimacy 1,400 years later?)

Perhaps the 2020 International Metropolis Conference in Beijing will have this or other tendentious presentations justifying this approach to integration:

Uyghurs in Xinjiang were forced to become Muslim and have been an integral part of China for thousands of years, Beijing said in a new report, in an attempt to justify its controversial crackdown against the ethnic minority in the far-western region.

Key points:

  • China has sought to justify treatment of Uyghurs that Western countries have condemned as “cultural genocide”
  • Beijing’s report hits back at “double standards” of critics and defends “anti-terrorism” efforts
  • Experts say the white paper is a classic case of China’s ongoing information warfare

A white paper released yesterday by China’s State Council Information Office — the Government’s propaganda arm — presents the ruling Communist Party’s interpretation of history, claiming “Islam is neither an indigenous nor the sole belief system of the Uyghur people”.

The report also said that Islam spread into Xinjiang by “the Arab Empire” and that the Turkic Uyghur people “endured slavery” at the hands of “the Turks”.

“Conversion to Islam was not a voluntary choice made by the common people, but a result of religious wars and imposition by the ruling class,” it said, declaring that the Government nevertheless respects “the Muslims’ right to their beliefs”.

More than a million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim ethnic minorities are thought to be detainedin what the Communist Party calls vocational education centres, referred to by the UN as “re-education camps”.

Those living outside the camps are also subject to mass surveillance, with Beijing declaring it wants to “Sinicise Islam” — a hardline policy increasingly referred to by observers as “cultural genocide”against the Turkic minority group.

The report was published as part of Beijing’s broader campaign to deflect international criticism of its crackdown against the Uyghurs, and reiterates its stance that repressive measures in Xinjiang are “counter-terrorism” tactics against Uyghur separatists and Islamic extremists.

“I don’t think anybody outside China who follows what happens in Xinjiang is fooled by this white paper,” Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch, told the ABC.

Red dots indicate the suspected locations of 're-education' camps across Xinjiang province as mapped by researchers.PHOTO: Researchers have identified almost 100 suspected ‘re-education’ camps and detention facilities across Xinjiang. (ABC News)

James Leibold, a La Trobe University expert on Uyghurs and other Chinese ethnic minorities, said the white paper is a “classic case of China’s ongoing information warfare.”

“Like any piece of propaganda, it’s filled with partial truths,” he said.

But state-run English-language newspaper the Global Times applauded the report, claiming that with the paper, “kind-hearted people can distinguish between right and wrong.”

“It is hoped malicious agitators will zip their lip,” it said.

Beijing claims Turkic Uyghurs have always been Chinese

The Uyghurs are a mostly Turkic-speaking minority who share more in common linguistically and culturally with Turks than they do with China’s ethnic Han majority.

Historians believe parts of the Xinjiang region have been referred to as Turkestan since the medieval era.

According to China’s white paper, however, the region has “long been an inseparable part of Chinese territory” and has never been East Turkestan — a term it claims is used only by separatists in their “clamour for independence”.

Mr Leibold said this claim was “frankly not true”.

Beijing’s report claims that “from the very beginning”, Uyghur culture “reflected elements of Chinese culture” and was an integral part of Chinese civilisation.

“It’s foolish to speak about the existence of a unified Chinese nation 5,000 or even 3,000 years ago to include what is today Xinjiang and the Uyghur people,” Mr Leibold said, adding that claims about religious freedom in Xinjiang were “laughable”.

“Xinjiang always upholds equality for all religions,” the white paper said.

But the Communist Party’s crackdowns against Muslims and other faith communities including Christians and the Falun Gong are well documented.

A report from Amnesty International in 2018 claimed that public expressions of faith in Xinjiang were now deemed “extremist” by authorities, including growing a beard, praying or fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

“We have seen many ways in which Uyghur identity has been suppressed in recent years,” Ms Pearson said, noting that China has also banned names deemed too Islamic.

Mass incarceration criticised by Western countries

Australia has expressed criticism of China’s treatment of Uyghurs, recently joining 21 other countries at the UN Human Rights Council including the UK, Canada and Germany in calling upon China to end its detention of ethnic Uyghurs.

Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to China’s treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang as “one of the worst human rights crises of our time” and “the stain of the century”.

China’s white paper criticised unnamed countries it said “apply double standards to terrorism and human rights and have issued unjustified criticism of Xinjiang’s effort.”

“This kind of criticism betrays the basic conscience and justice of humanity, and will be repudiated by all genuine champions of justice and progress,” it added.

Thirty-five countries including Saudi Arabia, Russia, and North Korea recently accused the West of “politicising human rights” over the Uyghurs and commended what it called China’s “remarkable achievements” in human rights.

Dozens of Australian citizens have been caught by the dragnet of China’s crackdown against Muslims in Xinjiang, many of whom have family members detained in the province.

An investigation by the ABC’s Four Corners revealed last week the extent of China’s attempts at cultural genocide against Uyghurs, including a forced labour scheme to produce cotton bought by Western clothing manufacturers.

It also found that several Australian universities were linked to surveillance technologies used against Uyghur Muslims.

Source: Xinjiang’s Uyghurs were enslaved and forced to convert to Islam, Chinese white paper claims

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