A proposal to discuss the Uighur issue at the UN Human Rights Council meeting was rejected by a vote of 19-17 on Thursday last week. Based on the 19 votes against the proposal, Chinese Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Hua Chunying (華春瑩) declared the vote a victory for China.
While Hua claimed this victory against Uighur activists, who are considered national enemies in China, these same Uighur activists do not consider the vote a failure, because we did not pay for the 17 votes in favor of the proposal. We did not pressure or put a yoke on any country. Those 17 votes resulted from facts and truth.
This difference of votes is likely to be a failure in terms of the global human rights movement and the influence of the West on the international stage.
However, for Uighur activists, it is a victory to be able to knock on the door of the UN Human Rights Council. China has tried its best to prevent the Uighur issue from being raised at the international body for years and even repeatedly had Uighur activists expelled from UN meetings. Uighur students abroad were sent back, and Uighur citizens in East Turkestan, also known as Xinjiang, were banned from obtaining passports.
The aim of all these actions was to block the Uighur issue from reaching the threshold of the UN.
However, despite the proposal not being adopted, the Uighur situation is now on the agenda of the international arena. We took one step forward.
Hua also called the vote “the victory of developing countries over the West and America.” This statement is incorrect. It is developing countries following a murderous country out of necessity. It is a countermeasure for countries like Cuba and Venezuela that want to hide their own human rights issues. Even if there are 1,000 Cubans, 1,000 Pakistanis and 1,000 Venezuelans who follow China for profit, it is enough to have one Lithuanian, one French or one Czech citizen standing behind us for the sake of justice. This is our pride, strength and hope.
Hua said that the vote is a victory of justice over injustice, but in reality, it is a victory of deceit and violence over truth. This is a transitory victory because China is waging a war not only against Uighurs, but also against humanity and God through genocide.
The proposal’s rejection is not a consequence outside our estimation. Therefore, we are not swayed from our paths and goals.
Six years ago, when we said that China imprisoned more than 1 million Uighurs, the world did not believe it. Two years later, Gay McDougall, a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited estimates that 2 million Uighurs and Muslim minorities were forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in the Uighur region.
In 2020, when 39 Western countries issued a statement criticizing China’s Uighur policy, 65 countries signed a statement against it. However, after the UN Uighur report, that number dropped from 65 to 21.
As a people who have been oppressed by Chinese rule for 70 years, we fully understand the Chinese threat, which is why we believe that those who voted in support of Beijing will one day not only be ashamed, but will also regret their vote and will be punished by history.
In 1997, when then-US secretary of state Madeleine Albright first raised the Uighur issue at the UN, she began by saying: “There is a people called Uighur in China.” Clearly, it needed to be explained that we existed. Today, the issue of whether there is a Uighur genocide is about to be discussed.
Over the past 30 years, China has accelerated its plan to exterminate Uighurs to the level of genocide and Uighur activists have brought the Uighur cause to the UN Human Rights Council’s threshold. This is the beginning of our victory. We have no doubt that while the score was 19-17 last week, it will be 1-46 someday, because the 19 voices against the proposal shed light on the evil reality of the world today, while the 17 voices in favor showed the noble nature of humanity and revealed our prospects.
Of course, from this result, we have a deeper understanding of the world, including our neighbors and “brothers.”
Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the countries and people of the 17 representatives who voted for us on behalf of more than 3 million Uighur captives who have been in prisons and camps for six years.
Rebiya Kadeer is a former president of the World Uyghur Congress. Kok Bayraq is a US-based Uighur observer.
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