WUC, 5 May 2014

Thank you chairman.

The World Uyghur Congress welcomes the work of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Yet, the World Uyghur Congress is extremely concerned about the continuation of human rights violations against Uyghurs in China and would like to point out some of the main issues faced by the Uyghur in China. 

The Uyghur continues to suffer from widespread discrimination and marginalization in several aspects of their daily life.

First, they are excluded from important positions in administrative, economic, and political bodies, which are mainly occupied by Han Chinese. Consequently, Uyghurs often remain unrepresented as well as unemployed, or employed under extremely poor working conditions.

Uyghurs, especially, Thousands of Uyghur women and young girls have been removed from their communities and families in East Turkestan and placed into abusive and poor working conditions in eastern China.

East Turkistan is very rich in natural resources. More than one third of the oil reserve and two third of the coal reserve of China are in Uyghur region. Gold, Uranium, copper and other metals and mineral ores are also very abundant.

Despite the wealth, more than 90% of local Uyghur still live below the poverty line. the natural resources are used to serve only the needs of the exploding Chinese population. It does not benefit the Uyghurs at all.

Unemployment among Uyghurs is extremely high, while the Chinese in East Turkestan are fully employed. For example, the petroleum industry in Uyghur region  hires close to half a million people, but it hires almost exclusively Chinese workers. many Uyghur college graduates cannot find a job.

The right to health is particularly violated, as the government does not provide the region with adequate health care facilities. Additionally, Uyghurs often face discrimination when being treated by Han Chinese doctors. At the same time, they have to live in a degrading surrounding environment that still suffers from the nuclear testing that took place from  1964 until 1996. The situation is so severe that the likelihood of contracting cancer in the uyghur region  is 30% higher than in the rest of China.

The living standard of Uyghurs is further deteriorated by the Chinese Government’s resettlement programs for nomadic herders. The WUC rejects the Chinese government’s claim that these resettlement programs will improve the living standards of nomadic herders.

The Chinese government is planning sweeping educational changes in East Turkestan which will force all Uyghur Schools to merge with Chinese schools, Uyghur students are being forced to use Chinese in schools starting from elementary school to university, although Uyghur language has been the official language of the Uyghur Autonomous Region since 1955 by law.

The Mandarin-focused “bilingual” education has damaged the career prospects of Uyghur teachers without sufficient Mandarin skills, particularly middle ages and older teachers.

Besides this, under the call to clear all the “poison books”, they started “book burning” movement. Chinese authorities have burned tens of thousands of books as part of an effort to curb separatism among ethnic Uyghurs.

In May 24, 2002, only in Kashgar, they burned more than 50,000 books. On 26 April  2014 April, on public square in Urumchi more than 668.000 books, CDs and other publication materials were burned.

The Chinese government has destroyed Uyghur cultural heritages. Kashgar’s Old City has been called “the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in Central Asia”.

Whereas in 2009 the Chinese Government announced a USD 500 million ‘Kashgar Dangerous House Reform’ program of urban reconstruction, which, since 2009, has been progressively destroying the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar. The plan is to demolish 85% of the traditional Old City, replace it with modern apartment blocks.

Uyghur cultural rights activists are often met with severe repression and arrest, with the tragic examples of Professor Ilham Tohti and language rights activists Abduweli Ayup, Muhammad Sidiq and Dilyar Obul.

Additionally, Uyghurs’ religion freedom is strongly limited, as all clergy needs to be officially registered by the government, women with headscarves are socially marginalized, and Muslim practices are often restricted.

The Chinese government is directing a crushing campaign of religious repression against the Uyghurs. According to a report released by Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China on April 11, 2005, “the world-wide campaign against terrorism has given Beijing the perfect excuse to crack down harder than ever in East Turkestan.

Especially after Sep.11, in order to control the religion in East Turkestan, the Chinese government made some new rules such as: employers, communist party members, workers, teachers, students and young people under the age of 18 are prohibited to go to mosque, even not allowed to pray. Every Friday, policemen were sent to mosque to keep watch to the praying activities of the people.

After the July 2009 events, the Chinese authorities banned East Turkestan with the heaviest information blackout ever implemented. During almost 10 months residents’ Internet and e-mail access and international phone calling and text messaging capabilities were shut down in order to avoid that information on the unrest is filtered to other countries.

In order to address these violations of the economic, social, and cultural rights of the Uyghurs in China, the WUC would like to emphasize the following recommendations:

-Put an end to widespread discriminatory employment practices that lead to high unemployment and underemployment among Uyghur communities; 

-Ensure that Uyghurs have access to healthcare by making healthcare accessible to rural areas, by taking measure to safeguard the local environment, and by preventing discriminatory treatments in hospitals, 

-End the forced relocation of nomadic herders and the exploitation of their natural environment, 

-Respect Uyghurs’ cultural and religious rights, by lifting regulations that restrict their religious practices and the use of the Uyghur language.  include Kashgar into the list of Silk Road sites in its submission for their inclusion to UNESCO

-Put an end to the arbitrary arrest and detentions of Uyghur cultural rights activists

Thank you for your attention.