Fri, Jan 20, 2023 page8

• Xinjiang tour blatant propaganda

  • By Gulfiye Y and Abdurehim Gheni Uyghur
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  Thirty Muslim leaders and academics from 14 Islamic countries visited the Uighur homeland of Xinjiang in China at the invitation of the Chinese government on Jan. 8. Most of the invitees are members of the World Muslim Communities Council — including clerics and intellectuals from Albania, Bahrain, Bosnia, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates — led by Ali Rashid al-Nuaimi.

  China was very selective about who was invited to “tour” the region. No independent journalist made the cut and all invitees were connected to some form of government entity. The whole affair was blatant propaganda, with the delegation a willing participant.

  With the exception of Albania, none of the listed countries were signatories of the Joint Statement on Behalf of 50 Countries in the UN General Assembly Third Committee on the Human Rights Situation in Xinjiang, China, which was signed on Oct. 31 last year, or the joint statement on the human rights situation in Xinjiang at the 47th Session of UN Human Rights Council signed on June 22, 2021, in Geneva, Switzerland. Those who were on the Human Rights Council also voted “no” to a UN debate on China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims on Oct. 6 last year. China chose well.

  The participants were treated to a series of guided tours and staged events. Apparently no one thought to ask for off-tour impromptu visits to mosques, cemeteries, markets, cultural events or even residential areas and talk with local people.

  The cultural events were staged “indigenous” shows of merriment and happiness, in isolation of any occasion. This was the extent of any “investigation” into the Uighur situation.

  The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated: “Xinjiang-related issues are not human rights issues at all, but issues of counter-terrorism, de-radicalization and anti-separatism,” and as such it was of little surprise that one of the first stops of the tour was a visit to the Museum of Combating Terrorism and Extremism in Urumqi.

  “We congratulate China on the completion of the counterterrorism plan in Xinjiang,” al-Nuaimi said in a statement, adding that “caring for Muslims in China is a great necessity,” while “respect for identity, religion and belonging need to be fortified by an educational discourse.”

  He also wrote that “the level of attention that we found in Xinjiang embodies the determination of the Chinese leadership to serve all components of the people in the region.”

  It would be a waste of time and energy to refute the obvious fallacy of such trash, something even Chinese could not have done better if they had composed it for their “guests.”

  The only statement missing from this love-fest was to declare the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in full expression in Xinjiang.

  However, the entire world is aware of the Uighur genocide.

  This was a red-carpet welcome, five-star hotel and lavish banquet event with no deviation from the set plan, a complete reality disconnect billed as being in the interests of historic “friendship, cooperation and alliance” between the Islamic civilization and China.

  This puts the legitimacy of the entire mission into question and makes it an irrelevant, monstrous falsehood, an embarrassment and a millstone of shame on these individuals and their organizations.

  However, their testimony would help continue the Chinese Communist Party’s narrative to the detriment and demoralization of Uighurs everywhere.

  There are Uighurs, Tibetans, South Mongolians, Hong Kongers and others whose human rights do not exist in occupied East Turkistan, Tibet and other regions in China.

  I have had no communication with family or many friends for more than five years. I am not alone in this: Many of the Uighur diaspora similarly have no communication with, nor knowledge of, the status of relatives and friends.

  For me, this is personal. Nineteen family members are missing. For more than five years I have had no word of whether any are alive or dead, imprisoned, or have suffered some atrocity. Many friends are missing. Evidence of the atrocities is unquestionable and unbearable. My family is the evidence of China’s genocide against Uighurs.

  I see the lack of concrete results in the many human rights efforts by organizations and governments despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The so-called intelligent clerics testifying to the utopia of the Uighur add to that pain.

  These Muslim clerics and intellectuals have contravened the teachings of the Koran by lying about fellow Muslims and delivering them into the hands of an adversary. Islam and communism are incompatible. Eternal shame be upon them.

  However, I fight on as one can. Why would I conduct my one-person protest every week if what the delegation reported was true?

  I have made every effort to contact family through different channels. Others, who somehow got through to loved ones, see and hear their fear through their refusal to talk.

  Hundreds of Uighur intellectuals are imprisoned or missing — such as Ilham Tohti and Rahile Dawut. How do these clerics explain this, condemning them all as terrorists, separatists and extremists, in line with the Chinese narrative?

  These 30 individuals have unleashed a backlash that should haunt them forever.

  They participated willingly, as they could have turned down the invitation knowing that it was a propaganda show. Their stab at the heart of Uighurs demonstrates how fragmented the world is on the topic of genocide.

  Gulfiye Y and Abdurehim Gheni Uyghur are Uighurs living overseas.
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