The Taiwan Friends of Uighurs (TFU) has joined the cause voiced by the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) in calling for an end to the Chinese government maltreatment of Uighurs by staging a sit-in demonstration at Taipei Main Station.
The group, founded in June last year, said it received a call from WUC president Rebiya Kadeer on Friday afternoon informing it of the worldwide demonstration that has been scheduled to take place in Taiwan, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, US and Canada between Friday and tomorrow.
According to a statement on the congress’ official Web site, the demonstration “seeks to draw attention to the Chinese government’s systematic human rights violations, especially extrajudicial killings, against Uighurs in East Turkestan,” also known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“We are hoping that the event will raise awareness of the suffering of the Uighur people under China’s rule among the Taiwanese public,” TFU executive director Marie Yang (楊月清) said yesterday.
“The Chinese government has continued to suppress minorities in China. Tibetans have received more public attention due to their world-renowned spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, but Uighurs’ plight is less well known,” she said.
The relative inattention might have to do with the branding of the WUC by the Chinese government as a terrorist-related separatist organization and its leader “an ironclad separatist colluding with terrorists and Islamic extremists,” according to the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily, along with the Taiwanese government’s ban on Kadeer’s entry into the nation in 2009 citing “security concerns.”
Yang called the accusation baseless.
“The WUC’s office is just a block away from the US Congress and the organization has also received funding from the US government,” Yang said.
TFU chairman Paul Lin (林保華) said there were at least 10 known incidents of bloodshed in the restive western autonomous region last year, adding that they were “bloodshed” rather than “terrorist attacks” as described by some Taiwanese, Hong Kong and overseas Chinese media repeating the Chinese government’s stance.
“However, the Chinese government has failed to ferret out a single gun from the resisting Uighur people in these ‘terrorist attacks.’ All they found were machetes, other kinds of knives and the so-called improvised explosive devices that were simply bottles filled with oil,” he said.
Lin mentioned an incident in 2012 that was claimed by the Chinese government to be a “hijack attempt,” which was in fact simply “a fight between six Uighurs and some Han Chinese on the plane.”
Two Uighur passengers died as the result of the fight, and the other four were arrested, of which three have since been executed, Lin said.
“The Chinese report later claimed the Uighurs involved had carried explosives onto the plane, but withdrew the accusation after receiving protests from the ground crew, who would be held accountable for negligence if the allegation was true.”
The Han people involved were praised as heroes and lavishly rewarded, which Lin described as “hush money.”
Lin called on Taiwanese to be aware of the human rights violations in China, especially at a time when Western democracies are bowing to Beijing’s economic power.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
RSS