World Uyghur Congress, 18 January 2019

Civil Society and Scholars Call for Release of Uyghur Scholar Ilham Tohti on 5 Year Anniversary of His Arrest

On the five year anniversary of the arrest of Uyghur professor Ilham Tohti, the world Uyghur Congress organised a joint appeal from 18 civil society groups and 132 scholars called for China to grant his immediate release and to heed calls for the release of an untold number of Uyghur scholars currently detained.

Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur economist, writer and professor, founded the website “Uighurbiz.net” in 2006 to promote conciliation between Uyghurs and Han Chinese, but was arrested on January 15, 2014. Despite the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention finding his detention to be arbitrary in March 2014, Tohti was sentenced to life in prison in September of that year on charges of “separatism” after just a two-day trial.

Professor Ilham Tohti, for a number of years, criticised oppressive policies against Uyghurs and wrote extensively on constructive approaches to overcome unequal treatment between ethnic groups. Notably, he called for dialogue and reconciliation, using his web platform as the primary vehicle.

At the time, Ilham’s case stood as a warning shot directed at Uyghur intellectuals and activists in China more broadly. The Chinese government has evidently failed to yield to his advice and now operates one of the most obtrusive surveillance states in the world while arbitrarily locking up Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz in political indoctrination facilities. Estimates of the number detained range from several hundred thousand to well over a million.

WUC Project Manager Peter Irwin also wrote an opinion piece in the Hong Kong Free Press, saying, “Five years into this experiment leaves us with dwindling hope, but it is today that Professor Tohti’s words resonate. If Xi truly wants harmony and stability as is often claimed, they would do well to heed the advice of the scholar they chose to silence, when his voice was most necessary.”

WUC Expresses Deep Concern About the Mass Arrest of Bitter Winter Reporters in China

The WUC issued a press release this week expressing its deep concern about reports that more than 45 contributors for Bitter Winter have been arrested or have disappeared in China since August 2018. Bitter Winter is a magazine published by CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions, headquartered in Torino, Italy, which focuses on issues of human rights and religious freedom in China. These reporters had risked their lives to report on and raise awareness of numerous human rights violations and suppression of religious freedom across China. The WUC is very concerned for their safety and calls for their immediately release.

The reporters were arrested, interrogated and charged with espionage by the Chinese government for reporting on the real situation in China, including on the internment camp system in China. Since April 2017, over 1 million Uyghurs and other ethnic Turkic peoples have been rounded by Chinese authorities and arbitrarily detained in these camps, where they are subjected to serious human rights violations including torture and forced indoctrination. Some of the Bitter Winter reporters have been reportedly sent to internment camps themselves to undergo forced indoctrination, or have been subjected to torture and other forms of abuse.

Their excellent reporting has shined a light on the persecution of Uyghurs, Christians, Tibetans and other groups in China. While the Chinese government consistently misrepresents conditions on the ground in East Turkistan, reporting from Bitter Winter has given the world a glimpse at horrific persecution of ethnic and religious groups. Their efforts are greatly appreciated by the WUC and the wider Uyghur community. These courageous individuals risked their lives and well-being to inform the world about what is happening inside China.

Human Rights Watch Highlights Persecution of Uyghurs in Annual Report

Human Rights Watch issued their annual human rights report for 2018 this week and highlighted the persecution of Uyghurs, especially the mass arbitrary detention of over 1 million people in internment camps, as an issue of particular concern. The report singled out China as one of the worst violators of human rights in the world today and said the situation in the country is as bad as it has been since the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

The report noted the numerous serious human rights violations occurring across the world, but asserted that we were now seeing a significant, and largely unprecedented, pushback from states and civil society against authoritarian states and serial human rights violators. Despite the severity of the situation in East Turkistan now, Human Rights Watch insisted that there is reason for hope, for the Uyghurs and for the world more generally.

Six MEPs Pose Parliamentary Question to High Representative Mogherini on the EU’s Response to the Crisis in East Turkistan

This week, six Members of the European Parliament tabled a written Parliamentary Question to the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Ms. Federica Mogherini, asking for clarification about the EU’s response to the mass arbitrary detention of more than 1 million Uyghurs in internment camps in China. The MEPs who tabled the question include: Mr. Ramon Tremosa Balcells, Mr. Fabio Massimo Castaldo, Mr. Sógor Csaba, Mr. Mark Demesmaeker, Mr.  László Tőkés and Mr. Petras Austrevicius.

While the EU and European officials have been reasonably vocal and raised the situation on a number of occasions, the WUC and other concerned parties have been urging the EU to take a stronger and more concrete approach focused on closing the camps. The question therefore focused on:

– What the EU is doing to close the internment camps?
– How the EU is implementing the EP Urgency Resolution on the issue passed on 4 October 2018?
– Is the EU considering sanctions on Chinese officials responsible fo the camps?

The parliamentary question is a follow-up to a previous question tabled in September 2018. The question is an important way to get clarification on the EU’s position, to urge them to take more concrete action to resolve the situation and to keep the camps and the persecution of Uyghurs firmly on the agenda of the EU.

US Congressmen Introduce Legislation to Counteract China’s Human Rights Abuse Against Uyghurs

US Congressmen Congressman Chris Smith and Tom Suozzi reintroduced bipartisan legislation to give US policymakers the tools and information necessary to meaningfully address the human crisis in East Turkistan.

Representative Chris Smith stressed the need for a coordinated and bipartisan response from the US government and the international community to hold Chinese officials accountable for their egregious human rights violations and to protect the Uyghur people. He further stated, “This is now one of the world’s most pressing human rights challenges, (…) we cannot be silent when such atrocities occur.”

The legislation is an important step and complements previous efforts to push for concrete action to be taken by the US government. The WUC sincerely thanks them for their initiative.