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Freedom, Independence and Democracy for East Turkistan ! |
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European Parliament Debates Human Rights in China
2007-01-24
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have
questioned once again China’s treatment and
suppression of its minority populations, in
particular the Uyghur population of East Turkestan.
China has long maintained that their campaign of
arrests, detention, and restriction of civil
liberties is the only means by which they can
fight bourgeoning terrorism. A concern for the
potential for terrorism in the region has been
expressed also by
Mr. Nirj Deva MEP.
Ms. Rebiya Kadeer, President of
the World Uyghur Congress, along with Mr.
István Szent-Ivanyi MEP and
Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, have
however, in a series of open letters, expressed
their strong opposition to this view, and
underlined the peaceful and legitimate nature of
the ongoing struggle for human rights and
democracy in East Turkestan.
Extracts from Ms. Rebiya Kadeer’s Letter to MEPs:
23 January 2007
Dear Members of the European Parliament,
I am writing this letter in response to an earlier
letter circulated by Mr. Nirj Deva, [see below] a
member of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and
Chairman of the EU-China Friendship Group. In his
letter, Mr. Deva mentioned his recent meeting with
Minister-counsellor of the Chinese Mission to the
EU and unequivocally endorsed the official Chinese
position on the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), the
organization that I chair, and Xinjiang, our
homeland that we call East Turkistan.
I have to say that it is really unfortunate that
Mr. Deva has jumped into conclusions too quickly
and endorsed the official Chinese position on
these important issues without checking any facts
or meeting with WUC representatives first.
[…]
U.S. State Department, U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom, U.S.
Congressional-Executive Committee, Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch all agree
that the Chinese government has been using the
tragedy of 9/11 as a convenient cover to further
persecute the Uyghur people since they are
Muslims. According to 2004 Annual Human Rights
Report of U.S. State Department, China executes
more people every year than the rest of the world
combined. According to Amnesty International,
China mostly executes Uyghur political and
religious prisoners even for their nonviolent
opposition. In fact, Human Rights Watch says in
its latest report that after Hu Jintao became
China’s president, the human rights situation
became even worse in China.
Let’s all not forget that China is not a democracy
but an authoritarian state. Therefore, you cannot
treat China as a democracy. There are no human
rights to begin with in China. If a Uyghur is
accused of being a terrorist, he is immediately
executed without any trial. Any Uyghur can be
accused of terrorism and executed at any time.
According to Manfred Nowak, UN Rapporteur on
Torture who visited East Turkistan in late 2005,
torture was widely used by the Chinese government
to extract forced confessions. Commenting on
China’s torture methods used on Uyghur prisoners,
Amnesty International said in it 1999 report that
horse-hairs were used to insert male genitals and
hot peppers used for females.
Any member of UN, EU or U.S. delegation who has
visited East Turkistan has sensed the severity of
gross human rights violations of the Uyghur people
by the Chinese regime. Many realize the terrible
persecution of the Uyghur people and the Chinese
lies about the real problem. Many find out that
the Chinese government is using the global war on
terror as a perfect excuse to persecute the Uyghur
people. Many also know that Uyghurs are not using
human rights and democracy as a cover for
so-called terrorism. They are aspiring for these
rights precisely because the Chinese regime has
denied these rights.
The World Uyghur Congress represents the
collective interests of Uyghurs both in East
Turkistan and abroad. The main objective of WUC is
to promote democracy, human rights and religious
freedom of the Uyghur people and use peaceful,
nonviolent, and democratic means to determine
their political future. If WUC is a terrorist
organization or has links to terrorist
organization as China claims or as Mr. Deva urges
others to believe, the government of Germany, a
key member of EU, would have shut it down and even
arrested its leaders. The U.S. government would
have arrested me and put me in jail. The reality
is that WUC is not a terrorist organization but a
peaceful organization that sticks peacefully to
its noble objectives.
[…]
Now I want you to know who I am and why I am
struggling for the human rights and democracy of
my people. During the mid-1990s, I was one of the
seventh richest persons in China because I was one
of the most successful businesswomen. At that
time, the Chinese government wanted to use me to
showcase the success of their so-called sunshine
ethnic minority policy. Later, Beijing gave me a
lot of official titles and even invited me to
become a member of China’s Parliament. The Chinese
government thought that I would act like a puppet
and help the government to repress my own people.
I didn’t play the role expected by Beijing.
Instead, I openly criticized the egregious human
rights violation of my people by the Chinese
government.
In February 1997, the Chinese government massacred
hundreds of young Uyghurs in the city of Ghulja
who peacefully went to protest the Chinese
persecution and discrimination. The Chinese
military sealed the city and arrested several
thousand young Uyghurs. In the following two
years, Amnesty International says, more than 200
Uyghurs were executed and dozens tortured to
death. I was shocked by the excessive and
unjustified use of force. In March 1997, I
criticized the Chinese government’s heavy-handed
repression of the young Uyghurs in Ghulja City
during the Parliamentary Session in Beijing. Then,
I was stripped off all my titles and put under
virtual house arrest. Since then, the Chinese
government saw me as a thorn in its eyes and
wanted to silence me.
On August 11, 1999 while I was on my way to meet a
member of the U.S. delegation and tell her about
China’s human rights violations, the Chinese
secret agents arrested me. In March 2000, I was
sentenced to eight years in a secret trial for
passing “secret information” to foreign
organizations. The Chinese prosecutor used openly
available newspaper clipping as evidence of my
crime. Then, the Chinese government imprisoned me
for nearly six years, two years in solitary
confinement. In March 2005, I was released by the
Chinese government to the U.S. for reasons of
medical parole after intensive international
pressure on China, especially from the U.S., E.U.
and human rights organizations.
Since then, I have been peacefully campaigning for
the human rights and democracy of the Uyghur
people. After coming to the U.S., I founded the
International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy
Foundation. Later I was elected as the President
of the Uyghur American Association and the World
Uyghur Congress. To retaliate my peaceful human
rights activism, the Chinese government destroyed
most of my property and froze my funds.
Furthermore, the Chinese government arrested my
three sons in June 2006 and put my daughter under
house arrest. On November 27th, 2006, on the very
day I was elected WUC President, the Chinese
government sentenced my youngest son to seven
years. I am a mother of eleven children. I love
all of them. What country in the 21st century
would imprison one mother’s innocent son for the
acts of his mother! It is China, the country that
Mr. Deva thinks “making progress on improving
human rights and democracy.”
If I were promoting terrorism or in an
organization that promotes terrorism as China
alleges, I would have never been given the human
rights award by Human Rights Watch in 2000, the
Rafto Award by the Rafto Foundation in 2004, and I
would have never been twice (2005 and 2006)
nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The simple
truth is that the Chinese government is lying
about the history of East Turkistan, about the
Uyghur people’s peaceful struggle for human rights
and democracy, and especially about me. I hope and
urge Members of the EP to listen to both sides of
the story before making any conclusion in
important matters such as the history of a distant
land and the struggles of persecuted peoples like
Uyghurs who need the understanding and support of
the international community for their very
existence under a brutal regime.
Rebiya Kadeer
President, World Uyghur Congress
Extracts from Mr. István Szent-Ivanyi MEP’s Letter
to MEPs
23 January 2007
Dear Colleagues,
Please allow me to briefly reflect on the thoughts
of Mr Nirj DEVA, MEP about the World Uyghur
Congress and Xinjiang circulated by an e-mail in
the EP [European Parliament]. […]
The issue of the Uyghur people living in Xinjiang
Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of
China (PRC) is a very complex one and all decision
makers who wish to take a stance should draw
information from a variety of sources. Mr Nirj
DEVA, MEP in his e-mail basically reiterates the
official position of the PRC concerning which I
have serious reservations.
As to the history and development of "terrorist"
and "secessionist" rhetoric on behalf of the PRC
[Peoples Republic of China] authorities, please
find attached a report published by Human Rights
Watch in April 2005 which speaks for itself. For
easy reference, I would like to quote some
passages:
"By exploiting the climate that followed the
attacks on the United States and the fact that
some Uighurs were found fighting in Afghanistan,
China has consistently and largely successfully
portrayed Uighurs as the source of serious Islamic
terrorist threat in Xinjiang. This perception now
has become dominant with the Chinese public, which
because of the lack of a free media has little
ability to compare sources of information and come
to independent judgement about this claim.
[...] Uighurs interviewed in the region point out
that opponents to Chinese rule in the area have
been given many labels over the past half-century:
they were described by the state as feudal
elements and as ethnic nationalists in the 1950s
and 1960s, as counter-revolutionaries in the 1970s
and 1980s, as separatists in the 1990s, and now,
since 2001, as terrorists.
[...] China has opportunistically used the
post-September 11 environment to make the
outrageous claim that individuals disseminating
peaceful religious and cultural messages in
Xinjiang are terrorists who have simply changed
tactics."
While unequivocally rejecting the use of violent
means to reach political objectives, I also
condemn all attempts to equate legitimate
activities to promote basic human rights and
democracy with terrorism. Mrs Rebiya KADEER was
awarded the highest recognition of Human Rights
Watch in 2000, the RAFTO Prize for Human Rights in
2004 and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
in 2006 - hardly a trademark for terrorists.
[…]
Yours sincerely,
István Szent-Ivanyi MEP
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
Letter from Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP to MEPs
23 January 2007
Thank you Istvan [István Szent-Ivanyi MEP] for
this essential and convincing riposte, and for the
opportunity to learn more about the Uyghurs and
East Turkestan.
Mrs Kadeer is evidently a very brave and
honourable person, rather far from being a
terrorist, much as China would like us to believe
that.
The whitewashing of China's human rights record
and its opportunistic exploitation of 'the war on
terror' must be resisted, so thank you for taking
the trouble to respond to Nirj Deva.
Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
Letter from Mr. Nirj Deva MEP to MEPs
22 January 2007
Dear colleagues,
I recently had a meeting with Minister-counsellor
of the Chinese Mission to the EU, and one of the
topics we discussed was the "World Uyghur
Congress" and Xinjing. I am sending you this email
to share my thoughts with you.
Xinjiang is the Chinese name of the Tarim and
Dzungaria regions of what is now northwest China.
It has been a part of China since 60BC, although
it has been briefly annexed by other countries
several times in the past. The
Chinese government therefore believes that
Xinjiang is an integral part of China.
After 1990 a nationalist ideology developed in
several central Asian countries, and out of this
grew a secessionist organisation for Xinjiang,
which they called " East Turkestan." They
encouraged religious fanaticism and terrorism, and
the bus bombs of February 25 1997 killed 9 and
injured 68 innocent people.
In December of 2003, China listed four
organisations as terrorist organisations, pursuant
to the UN resolutions on the war against
terrorism. These organisations are the Eastern
Turkestan Islamic Movement, the Eastern Turkestan
Liberation Organisation, the World Uighur Youth
Congress, and the East Turkestan Information
Center.
The East Turkestan Islamic Movement has been
listed by the UN as a terrorist organisation since
September 11, 2002. It was based in Afghanistan
and has very close relations with Osama Bin
Laden's al-Qaeda. After the war against the
Taliban in Afghanistan, the organisation
transferred its leading members to neighbouring
countries such as Pakistan.
The World Uyghur Congress comprises some key
elements of the World Uyghur Youth Congress. The
president is Ms. Rebiya Kadeer, who aims to detach
Xinjiang from China by "promoting what she calls
"human rights and democracy of the Uyghur people"
As a Member of the Subcommittee on Human Rights in
the European Parliament, I do of course agree with
the basic principles of human rights which
everyone in this world should have. However, we
must be very careful that people do not use Human
Rights as a cover for terrorism or to destabilise
or promote secession in any country in the world.
As a Member of the Subcommittee on Human Rights in
the European Parliament, I basically agree with
the basic principle of human rights which is
everyone in this world should be equal and have
the same rights. However, I strongly reject if any
people use Human Rights to secede any countries in
the world.
Human Rights should never be used as an excuse for
establishing country separations.
One of the roles of government is to improve the
livelihood of its own people. On the other hand,
people should have their own rights to determine
the livelihood of the future. In my opinion, if
these two elements are coordinated together
properly, they can represent the meaning of
democracy. If they could not be coordinated
together properly, it might only cause bad
confusions. Terrorism and secession are such the
examples.
Those of us who take an interest in China see that
they are making progress on improving human rights
and democracy, and in my view they deserve our
help in resisting terrorism and secession.
I do not want to see a situation developing in
China comparable to the situation in Sri Lanka,
where I was born. There the Tamil Tigers have
terrorised our people for decades and have killed
and maimed tens of thousands of men, women, and
children. This is not acceptable in
the 21 st century no matter what political
arguments may be used to justify it.
I hope therefore that you will be aware of this
problem, and that you will not give any support to
organisations such as those I have mentioned.
With all my good wishes,
Nirj Deva MEP Chairman EU-China Friendship Group http://www.unpo.org/article.php?id=6213 ... |
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© Uygur.Org 11.02.2007 10:47 A.Karakas |
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