On Tuesday last week, after a long silence, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned Uighurs at the 79th UN General Assembly. “We are sensitive to the protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Muslim Uighur Turks in a way that does not in any way harm the ‘one China policy’ and China’s territorial integrity and sovereign rights,” he said.
Even though Erdogan’s speech did not mention one of the world’s saddest situations — such as that more than 3 million Uighurs live in camps, that Uighur expatriates abroad have been unable to even talk to their families back home on the phone for seven years, a dangerous situation such as the vertical decrease in the birthrate of Uighurs in the past three years — Uighurs are still happy that their name was mentioned.
That is because China’s Uighur policy — whether through foreign relations or in domestic policy — aims to make the world forget about Uighurs and hide the massacre Beijing is committing. That is also why China used its diplomatic power last year to delay the publication of a report on Uighurs prepared by UN experts and also prevented the issue from being discussed at the UN Human Rights Council.
China organizes monthly “Xinjiang visits” to neighboring countries and organizations, shows fake scenes, covers up genocide, and even encourages others from abroad and in neighboring countries to praise this crime. Erdogan’s mentioning Uighurs at the UN is a historic event, a genuine attitude that inspires and gives hope.
That said, Uighurs were mentioned behind the problems of Palestine, Ukraine, Syria and even the Rohingya. Uighurs are grateful, but it is not enough because they did not hear in Erdogan’s speech a strong tone against China, an urgent call to the international community, a concrete demand or an initiative, even a sentence, to improve the situation.
Erdogan has not forgotten the Uighur issue and his presentation on a subject that China, an ally in many international arenas, does not want to listen to, has pleased not only Uighurs, but also the states and organizations that support justice and rights in the world, especially those that support the oppressed and the oppressed. That stance has shown Erdogan’s honesty and courage in his call for justice and rights.
It is known to everyone who pays attention to the issue and whose minds are consciences and alert that while blood flows in wars and conflicts, in the camps and prisons in East Turkestan — Xinjiang to China — blood is turning into pus and bodies are rotting. While mothers cry on battlefields, embracing their children’s corpse, Uighur mothers cannot access the remains of their children or even information about their deaths, and are thrown into prisons for crying or complaining. Bodies are counted on battlefields, but the bodies in the Uighur genocide are not, and China does not allow them to be.
The Uighur situation is much worse than current war zones. The problem deserves to be presented in a loud tone with urgent calls for action. We hope that our brother Turkey’s role in the international arena will be even more active, its stance even more strong and that its side will always be separate from that of the oppressors.
Rebiya Kadeer is a former president of the World Uyghur Congress. Kok Bayraq is a US-based Uighur observer.
In a stark reminder of China’s persistent territorial overreach, Pema Wangjom Thongdok, a woman from Arunachal Pradesh holding an Indian passport, was detained for 18 hours at Shanghai Pudong Airport on Nov. 24 last year. Chinese immigration officials allegedly informed her that her passport was “invalid” because she was “Chinese,” refusing to recognize her Indian citizenship and claiming Arunachal Pradesh as part of South Tibet. Officials had insisted that Thongdok, an Indian-origin UK resident traveling for a conference, was not Indian despite her valid documents. India lodged a strong diplomatic protest, summoning the Chinese charge d’affaires in Delhi and demanding
The wrap-up press event on Feb. 1 for the new local period suspense film Murder of the Century (世紀血案), adapted from the true story of the Lin family murders (林家血案) in 1980, has sparked waves of condemnation in the past week, as well as a boycott. The film is based on the shocking, unsolved murders that occurred at then-imprisoned provincial councilor and democracy advocate Lin I-hsiung’s (林義雄) residence on Feb. 28, 1980, while Lin was detained for his participation in the Formosa Incident, in which police and protesters clashed during a pro-democracy rally in Kaohsiung organized by Formosa Magazine on Dec.
Watching news footage of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries with their counterparts across the Taiwan Strait, I could not help but feel a profound sense of temporal displacement. As a member of the generation born after the lifting of martial law and raised under modern civic education, I truly want to ask the KMT: “Do you not see who the true villain is?” In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party used a bloody civil war to drive the KMT into exile in Taiwan. In the decades that followed, it has sought to completely erase the existence
President William Lai (賴清德) on Sunday congratulated Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on their historic landslide victory in Japan’s general election. The LDP secured the largest single-party majority in post-World War II Japan, winning 316 seats. The win is expected to strengthen ties with Japan’s allies and potentially deter Chinese aggression in the region. American Institute in Taiwan Director Raymond Greene on Monday said that under Takaichi’s leadership, he anticipates deeper coordination among the US, Japan and Taiwan to promote regional stability and prosperity. US President Donald Trump has also shown his strong support for Takaichi,
RSS