-In recent years, the People´s Republic of China has gone from bad to worse, growing ever more indifferent or even arrogant to whatever messages the country gets, be it directly from various trading partners around the world, or in international fora, including the UN. What is taking place, is something close to ethnic cleansing, Rebiya Kadeer stressed during the meeting at the Oslo Human Rights House yesterday. (31-OCT-06)

Text and photo: HRH-F / Niels Jacob Harbitz.

Kadeer emphasises, though, that the Uyghyr minority is not the only one in need of direct international support combined with further diplomatic pressure on the People´s Republic of China. -The Mongolians, the Tibetans and many other smaller groups are also severely discriminated against. The Uyghur language is no longer legally in use in any public context, and thousands of people are forcibly moved every year, out of the region, to be spred thinly all across Central the People´s Republic of China. Including thousands of children, this forced exodus is ‘legitimised’ by references to the ‘war against terrorism’. 16-19 year old girls are also forcibly moved, in exchange for promises of education and work, despite the fact that similar education already exists in East Turkistan. The money promised is also much less than what Han Chinese get from moving the other way. 

-As a people, we are being torn apart
-At the same time, Kadeer continues, -some 100.000 Han Chinese have been moved from Central the People´s Republic of China into Uyghyr territory, with promises of better jobs, better pay, and no limitations to the number of children a family can have. This constrasts starkly the numerous forced abortions suffered by Uyghurs, at any time during pregnancy, or even blatant killings of new-born babies to those not caught’ while still pregnant. Needless to say, such long overdue abortions often cause medical complications, leading to life-threatening conditions, such as infections of large parts of the interior, including all reproductive organs, the womb, the ovaries etc., and also the urinary system, ncluding the tract, bladder, kidneys etc. The social fabric of Uyghurs is also disintegrating by design, Kadeer continues, -due to the enormously high HIV / Aids rates in the region, with diagnosed sufferers of the disease from all over the People´s Republic of China being moved to East Turkestan to mix and mingle with the local population and thus contribute to the accellerated eradication of Uyghurs. The same goes for all kinds of criminals, but not the least drug addicts, also forcibly shipped to East Turkestan, to bring their destructive habit with them.

-Uyghurs are still being executed. Not one by one, but in large numbers
Kadeer moved form one category of human rights violations to the next: -Freedom of expression is no longer available to Uyghurs. While the People´s Republic of China no longer executes political opponents in what might be defined as ethnic home territories, this does not apply to the Uyghurs. In 2004, it was announced that the People´s Republic of China had executed no less than 55 representatives of different Uyghur organisations, all forbidden. In addition to this come all the secret executions, and also the hidden attacks and the widespread use of torture, both leading to unknown, but no doubt large numbers of deaths. By now, Kadeer summed up, -most Uyghur families have suffered harassment, persecution and loss due to the Chinese occupation.

the People´s Republic of China persecuting Uyghurs also in its neighbouring countries
Thanks to China’s combination of coercion and consent, bullying and forced cooperation, with its smaller and weaker neighbouring states, the 1,5 million Uyghurs in exile in these countries also suffer severe suppression and persecution. Uyghur activists are arrested in both Kazakhstan, Kirgisistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and deported to the People´s Republic of China where they are indiscriminately sentenced to death. In 1999, for instance, all the 25 Uyghurs who were returned were also executed. In March this year, an Uyghur who is also a Canadian citizen, travelling on his Canadian passport, was arrested while visiting exiled relatives in Uzbekistan. He was handed over to the People´s Republic of China, and is still imprisoned there.

No respect for international bodies like the UNHCR
-It is also dangerous for Uyghurs to visit the UNHCR offices in the neighbouring countries, Kadeer added. -These offices are reportedly all under close Chinese surveillance, and being caught on camera there of course equals being defined an enemy of the state in the People´s Republic of China. On 16 October this year, the highest ranking political leader of East Turkestan invited international journalists to a meeting in which he made it clear that ‘any Uyghur daring to raise his or her head, and also those we don’t like anyway, we will arrest’. Beyond this statement, the representative of the Chinese regime refused to answer any further questions about the Uyghurs. In the wake of this episode, I was approached by only two journalists. And what is worse, considering the urgent need for increased pressure on China to improve its human rights conduct, I did not register a single item of international coverage, in any medium, about this ‘press conference’.

Blatant injustice
Kadeer went on to exemplify the blatant injustice in how Chinese authorities treat Uyghurs and Han Chinese in East Turkistan. -Last year, she told, -the author Nurmamat Yasin wrote the short story ‘The little pidgeon,’ in which he allegorizes the Uyghur predicament to that of a pidgeon in a cage. In the story, there features also another pidgeon, outside the cage, and thus free. Unsurprisingly, the short story was well received by the Uyghur minority. Yasin, however, was arrested and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. The Han Chinese Director of the publishing house was not even summoned to court, while Korash Huseyin, the editor / proof reader for the book in which the short story appeared, was given three years behind bars. 

-We don’t care if your sources are open, just don’t tell the Uyghur story
Kadeer’s other example was the historian Tohti Muzart, who in 1998 was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment following the publication of his book telling the story of the Uyghur region and people. Even though Muzart could document that his book, which was part of his PhD at a university in Tokyo, relied only on open and officially available Chinese and Japanese source material, this did not count to his favour in court. While Yasin and Huseyin are noted on PEN International / Writer’s in Prison Committee’s case list for the second half of 2005, Muzart has been made honorary member of the following PEN centres: English, Perth, Catalan, Japan, American, Liechtenstein and Canada. 

Plenty of examples of the worst kinds of torture imaginable
Kadeer’s translator, who is also being used by Norwegian immigration authorities in cases concerning Uyghur refugees and asylum seekers, could also tell of numerous examples of gruesome torture on the part of Chinese authorities in the region. The translator had met several refugees who had had one or more fingers cut off, hair from the mane of horses, with all their tiny hooks, stuck up their urinary tracts through their penises and then pulled out again, causing terrible pain and very severe infections, leading to extremely painful inflammations, among other things of the scrotum, and people submerged in cold sewage for up to 48 hours. Kadeer has reason to fear that one or more of her own children will also be subjected to torture. When being allowed to leave the People´s Republic of China late 2004, she was informed that any further activism for the Uyghur cause on her part would lead to arrests and imprisonment of relatives still remaining in East Turkestan. In the time gone by since, the People´s Republic of China has proven true to its word: So far, four of Kadeer’s children have been arrested. Two of them were sentenced as recently as 26 October.