Written By Marc Vandepitte 0riginally on GlobalResearch via thefreeonline. illustrations added.
The long-awaited report on the Uighurs is out. It is sharp on China but contradicts the massive accusations that have been circulating in the West. The report was the subject of much wrangling and it threatens to become a weapon in the great geopolitical game between the West and China.
UN Report on the Uighurs, a Piece on the Geopolitical Chessboard?
The context
It has been a long time coming, but finally the UN Human Rights Committee (OHCHR) report on the Uighurs has been released. The Uighurs are a Muslim population group in Xinjiang, a province in western China.
There is a great deal of controversy about this population group. Western countries in particular accuse China of “cultural genocide” while countries of the South,[1] including several leading Muslim countries, view it completely differently. For example, at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit in Pakistan in March 2022, China was invited as the ‘guest of honour’.
In the past, a lot of fake news about the Uighurs has been produced. That should come as no surprise. From the West, China is increasingly under fire. The use of human rights à la carte is a tried and tested means of pushing countries into a corner and arousing public opinion.
The report itself has been the subject of much debate. It took three years to get permission to publish it. There was a great deal of pressure from both Western governments and Beijing regarding the content and the date of publication. In such a context of wrangling and struggle for influence, neutrality is a relative term.
The report starts from the fact that the contested Chinese approach towards the Uighurs takes place against the background of “riots” and “violent incidents which the [Chinese] Government has consistently characterised as terrorist in character. In 2009, racist riots led to 197 deaths, mostly Han Chinese.
In Pictures: The Uyghurs of Xinjiang | | Al Jazeera
An estimated 300 terrorist attacks followed, resulting in dozens of deaths. During the civil war in Syria, thousands of Uighur Muslim extremists were active there, and sooner or later they would return to their homeland. According to the renowned American trade magazine Foreign Policy, it became increasingly clear that China had become a new target of the Jihad.
In response to these serious terrorist attacks, Beijing has embarked on a vigorous anti-terrorism policy.
The OHCHR released simultaneously with its report a 121-page report from China, which states that the state’s fight against terrorism in the region is “necessary and just,” takes place within “the rule of law,” and “fully respects and safeguards human rights”. However, OHCHR precisely considers China’s counterterrorism approach to be “highly problematic” in terms of respect for human rights.
The report
The UN report is based on the one hand on forty in-depth interviews of witnesses, and on the other hand on a number of official Chinese documents[2] which the report says are “highly likely to be authentic”. In both cases, however, it is not clear whether they are separate individual cases or a pattern of behaviour by the Chinese government. Either way, every individual is entitled to respect for his or her human rights.
For the many allegations in its report, OHCHR generally does not provide hard evidence. In addition to individual testimonies, the UN body draws conclusions or estimates based on certain indicators. Therefore, the report often expresses itself in the conditional mood.
We list the main conclusions of the report:
Continue reading “UN Report on Uighurs: China partly Vindicated but China-Phobia already Rife in USA”
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