World Uyghur Congress, 23 August 2019

German Parliamentary Committee Cancels China Visit

Even after official interventions by the German Foreign Affairs Office and the Bundestag, China kept refusing entry to the Green Party member of parliament Margarete Bause, who was supposed to participate in a visit of the parliament’s Digital Committee set to leave for China on August 23, 2019. Ms. Bause had been declared persona non grata by the Chinese government after vocally supporting the Uyghur human rights cause.

The Digital Committee this week officially cancelled their trip as a response, stating that they had expected that China would show more acceptance for the fact that the composition of their delegation was a self-determined matter of the German parliament.

WUC-President Attends Reception by Qatari Embassy in Berlin

On Thursday, August 22, WUC President Dolkun Isa attended the opening ceremony of an exhibition held by the Embassy of the State of Qatar under the title “30 Years Fall of the Berlin Wall: Divided Memories, Different Realities, Shared Future”.

Mr. Isa thanked His Excellency Saoud Al Thani for his country’s withdrawal of support for China’s interpretation of human rights. This week, Qatar withdrew its signature from a letter which had been signed by dozens of countries in support of China’s human rights record.

China Releases White Paper on Uyghur Region

The Chinese government released a second white paper in only two months on the human rights situation in East Turkistan. The paper defends the internment camp system, which arbitrarily incarcerates between one and three million Uyghurs, as necessary in the government’s fight against terrorism.

Under the guise of counter-terrorism, China detains an undisclosed amount of Uyghurs and other members of Muslim minorities in East Turkistan, whereas this policy actually aims at assimilating, indoctrinating and controlling every aspect of the victims’ lives in conformity with Han-Chinese majority culture and the Communist Party’s paranoid vision of a state of total sureveillance.

Families of Missing Uyghurs Use Tiktok Video App to Publicize Detentions

Uyghurs are using the Tiktok video app to publicize the detention of loved ones. The videos illustrate how deeply troubling life is in the region, the absolute lack of communication channels as well as the profound fear and sadness for missing relatives.

Because it is well-known that the Chinese authorities are monitoring all communication channels, most of the 15 to 60-second-long videos only show pictures of missing family members and crying loved ones.