NEW YORK: The Uighur Turks and other Muslim communities in China have asked the United Nations and other international organisations to put pressure on China and investigate the acts of genocide perpetrated against the Uighurs.
A report titled “Genocide in East Turkistan” holds China responsible and says that despite the Covid 19 pandemic, the Chinese government continues its oppression and persecution of Uighur Turks and other Muslim communities for its own political and economic interests.
The report says that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) systematically continues to pressure and torture Uighurs to force them to assimilate and then destroys them.
“The Beijing Administration breached the “Prevention of Genocide” contract which was signed and approved by them before the international community,” the report said.
“As such, the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Secretary, Chen Quanguo, and other executives are all responsible and accountable for these crimes,” the report said.
The report has been prepared by the Campaign for Uighurs, which works to promote and advocate the human rights and democratic freedom of the Uighurs and other Turkic people in East Turkistan (referred to in China as Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region).
It demanded that in order to monitor China’s policies in the region, it is necessary to create an international commission which would take the necessary measures to effectively observe China’s actions in the region.
The genocide committed against the Arakanese Muslims who fled Myanmar was moved to the International Court of Justice by Gambia. This case was filed by Gambia (a Muslim majority nation) on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
“The Organization of Islamic Cooperation should act on the crimes of genocide committed in East Turkistan,” it demanded.
The report has demanded that China should be held accountable for all the human rights violations they committed, especially in the concentration camps.
The coronavirus gives a crucial insight into how China manipulates the world, and many countries are beginning to question the acts by the Beijing administration.
“Unfortunately, on our watch, Uighurs share a similar fate with the occupied people of Palestine. This is an international case. All countries, especially the Islamic world, should act before it is too late,” the report demanded.
“It is important that the United Nations and other international organisations take the necessary measures to put pressure on China and take actions to investigate the acts of genocide perpetrated against the Uighurs. These crimes must be brought forward by an international commission and their perpetrators must be prosecuted in the International Court of Justice,” the report said.
East Turkistan, officially called the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region by China, has in recent years become a place with the most widespread human rights violations.
The Chinese Communist Party is exerting increasing pressure and tyranny towards the Muslim communities, especially Uighur Turks, as a result of economic, political and geopolitical interests in those regions.
Since 2014 in particular, Uighurs have been forced to systematically assimilate with the objective of eradicating their ethnic identity and the population. In recent years, the events taking place in East Turkistan have met the definition of genocide listed in the ‘Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’ signed in 1948, the report said.
The Chinese government sent 1.1 million Han Chinese cadres to East Turkistan to control the daily lives of the Uighurs. Their job is to stay in Uighur homes, share the same bed with them if necessary, and control all aspects of their daily lives.
With the ‘Double Relative Programme’ initiated by the Beijing government, Han Chinese cadres make visits at least once every two months and stay for about a week.
During the stay, while constantly spreading the Chinese Communist Party propaganda, they also spy on them. During these visits, they encourage drinking alcohol and eat pork, which are forbidden in Islam. If a Uighur requests ‘halal meat’ from the market and if they do not drink, they are declared a suspect and sent to the camps.
“The most dangerous aspect of this double relative programme is that women, whose husbands are in the camps, have to share the same bed with the Chinese cadres,” the report noted.
The Campaign for Uighurs Executive Director, Rushan Abbas, pointed out that this situation has led to ‘government sponsored mass rapes’.
Forcing young Uighur girls to marry Han Chinese men is a step towards changing the demographics in East Turkistan, in particular, as a result of the Chinese who come to stay in Uighur houses as permanent guests and marry the young girls living there.
Parents are unable to object to the marriage because if they do, they are sent to the camps. In order to disrupt the Uighur family structure, the Beijing administration offers the Han Chinese money, jobs and free homes for these arranged marriages.
The Communist Party successfully spreads propaganda through films and advertisements and other broadcasting organs in order to recruit candidates for the forced marriages, the report found.
Another crime committed by the Chinese Communist Party is the forced transfer of people from East Turkistan into proper China to work in forced labour facilities. Just as the Nazis forced Jews to work, Uighurs are sent to work in factories with uniforms similar to prisoners.
The ‘Uighurs for Sale’ report prepared by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute contains striking information. In the report, it was revealed that more than 80,000 Uighurs were taken from the camps and sent to the factories to produce goods for globally renowned Wester companies, such as Nike, GAP and Apple.
The unconfirmed statistics put that number to over 500 companies.