At the 47th session of the UN Human Rights Council on June 22, 44 Western countries criticized China for human rights violations in the Xinjiang region, with some accusing Beijing of genocide, while 65 countries supported China.
Ironically, most of the pro-Beijing countries were religious brothers of the Uighurs.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that more than 1,200 diplomats, journalists and religious personnel from over 100 countries have visited Xinjiang. The chief of the UN Human Rights Council called on China to allow a full, independent and unfettered investigation in Xinjiang.
“They saw the region with their eyes, realizing that what they witnessed was different from some Western media reports,” China claimed.
Let us listen to some of those visitors:
“We fully understand because we have the same problem,” Syrian ambassador to China Imad Moustapha said during an interview after visiting.
It is really a masterful portrayal of a parallel reality, which is common for all visitors and Chinese officials.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wants to be the lifelong king of the Syrian people without an election. In China, all the chairpersons, the mayor and even the village chief in the Uighur region want to be kings under the guidance of their own “Super King,” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Thus, Moustapha fully understood the need for China to establish the camps.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman supported China’s killing of Uighurs, telling Xi: “China has the right to take anti-terrorism and de-extremism measures to safeguard national security.”
Bin Salman has a parallel reality in that he needs support to exonerate himself for allegedly killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Pakistani ambassador to China Sayyid Muhammad Moin-ul-Haq described the trip as “an experience of a lifetime,” and praised the region’s infrastructure, including the concentration camps, as “people-centric development.”
No one, not even a Uighur activist, has denied the “development of Xinjiang,” but the problems attached to it include unbalanced sharing of the development, complaints of victimization and the tragedy of what is being destroyed in the process.
Moin-ul-Haq covering up the robbery of colonial land is understandable because Pakistan has problems similar to those of China. While China urgently needs the natural resources of East Turkistan to make the Chinese dream a reality, Pakistan needs money to feed its poor population and build a strong military against its old enemy, India.
Shockingly for the Uighurs, Palestinian ambassador to China Fariz Mehdawi was also impressed by the “development” he witnessed.
“One should not believe that diplomats are so naive that they could be maneuvered to take and buy anything,” Mehdawi said, adding that “the diplomats are not part of a conspiracy that would justify something against what they had seen.”
In this statement, he has confessed that he accepts China’s narrative with no logical evaluation about what he has seen. Thus, he is neglecting the harsh reality of the local residents with whom he met and who have no ability to speak the truth under the watch of officials.
His true motivation seems to be a shared agenda with Chinese officials. Mehdawi holds anti-US sentiment over its support of Israel, and China holds anti-US sentiment over its creation of obstacles to China becoming a world superpower. This is why Mehdawi believes that the Uighur problem is not a humanitarian issue, but rather a geopolitical matter “created by the US,” which is disturbed by China’s global rise.
Using the logic of “whataboutism,” China and its supporters refer to the genocides in the US, Australia and Africa decades and centuries ago.
However, China fails to consider the difference in the periods, the lack of available information at the time and recent globalization. The Uighur genocide is occurring in the era of the Internet, when satellite images prove that there are 380 camps, detention centers and jails where people are openly dying slowly and painfully.
The list of countries supporting China’s Uighur policy and the ongoing genocide is a most shameful record in history. The Uighur people are also victims of a parallel reality, living in a world where a poor country has a strong dictatorship.
The illegitimacy and incredibility of the investigations in the Uighur region stem from being organized and directed by the accused, and there were no representatives of the accuser. To believe what puppets and captives say during a visit is naive. There is no way to learn the truth on the street; only people in the jails and camps can speak the truth, and they only do so if they believe that the investigators are independent and can grant their safety.
Given the above, it is important to hear a dissident voice on the situation.
A Uighur mother, Patigul Ghulam, who lost her son in deadly riots in Urumqi in 2009, described what the Uighur situation was like when she was looking for her son:
“Syrian mothers are happier than me. They can cry when their child dies. Palestinian mothers are lucky. If they cry, thousands of reporters come to them. If we have thousands of our children abducted and destroyed, no journalists come to us. Palestinian and Syrian children can throw stones at their enemy, and in the worst case, they will die instantly from a bullet or bomb, but they will not have their organs taken or be forced to work until they are dead and their bodies can be found.”
Ghulam said that the people in the worst situation in the world are the Uighurs, not the Palestinians. While Israel is bombing some “terrorists” in Gaza, China is “spraying chemicals on the entire crop to eradicate hidden weeds.” The Palestinians have rockets; the Uighurs have not even a single stone in their hands against China’s government, and all those who can imagine that stone are in prisons or forced-labor camps.
Ghulam cried as she said: “We are too weak and helpless. Not only are we betrayed by our enemies but [by] our neighbors, our blood brothers; our religious brothers also can easily sell us.”
Perhaps Ghulam could have added: “...even a Palestinian who considers himself oppressed.”
However, she is in prison, where she has been since 2017, for speaking to the international media.
Shohret Hoshur is a Uighur American journalist.
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