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EAST TURKESTAN/ABOLITION BY THE CHINESE AUTHORITIES OF
THE TEACHING IN UIGHUR LANGUAGE. QUESTION TO THE
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Brussels, 13 August 2002. According to the Chinese Xinhua agency, "the top
university in China's largely Muslim Xinjiang region
will start to teach major subjects in Chinese rather
than in the local language partly because students
have asked for it" and in order "to meet the growing
needs of economic and social development".
This decision contrary to the Chinese constitution
which guaranties teaching in Uyghur language at higher
educational level, is taken in a demographic context (although
accurate figures are not available) of a total
population estimated at just over 19m, among which
less than 8m Uighurs, with a migration rate of Han
population estimated at 7000 a day (In 1949 the Han
population was estimated at 300 000 while the Uighur
population amounted to 5m). In the wake of the
attempts by China to link Uighur separatism as one of
the items in the agenda of the international alliance
in the war against terror this decision appears as a 'crackdown'
on 'cultural identity' of Uihgur population in a
region where universities have been offering for more
than 50 years a variety of classes in local language.
Question of Olivier Dupuis, member of the European
Parliament, radical, to the European Commission
"Had the Commission been informed of this decision
taken by Chinese authorities ? If is it the case, had
the Commission told to the Chinese authorities that
the repression of the cultural rights of the national
minorities is not part of the agenda of the war
against terrorism ? Furthermore, which initiatives the
Commission intends to undertake in order to see the
chinese authorities abolishing their decision to
suppress the teaching in uighur language in East
Turkestan (Xinjiang) and, consequently, respecting
their own constitution ?"
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