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What a wonderful story
Stephen Sullivan
(Date): 02-08-04 06:15
Seven members of the Uygur ethnic minority of Xinjiang
China on a Chinese organised cultural touring party to
Canada left their minders and presented themselves to
Canadian officials claiming asylum and seeking refugee
status.
The seven, were all members of an official Chinese
acrobatic troupe visiting Canada for the Chinese New
Year celebrations.
In scenes reminiscent of the Cold War the group
clandestinely contacted the local Uygur emigre
community and, after having to spell out the name on a
nearby football stadium to identify their location,
organised their mercy dash for freedom with a no doubt
amazed local Uygur.
Later that day whilst their minders were not looking
the group rushed to a waiting getaway car and sped off
to a possible new life and freedom in Canada.
"We were very afraid and we could hear each other's
heartbeats when we got in the (getaway) car," a group
member named Sirajidin told the Canadian Star
Newspaper.
The seven, five men and two women are a part of the
minority Uygur ethnic group of Xinjiang an
“autonomous” region in China’s north west.
The Uygur are a Caucasian, Muslim peoples of Turkic
origin numbering some 8.5 million in China and have
for long been a victim of gross human rights
violations including restrictions on basic freedom of
association and religion, false imprisonment and even
executions.
Since "9/11" the Chinese have used the "War on Terror"
to mask even greater privations aimed at breaking the
will of the Uygur who, for a period in the 1990's,
showed a desire to follow their "Turkic brothers" of
the former Soviet Central Asian states in achieving
independence.
Under the guise of the "War on Terror", the People's
Republic of China have cracked down harshly on any
form of dissent by the Uygur in Xinjiang. Human rights
groups such as Amnesty International have chronicled
numerous incidences of false imprisonment, torture and
executions whilst the Chinese attempt to portray to
the world that, apart from some “Uygur terrorist”
activity, all is well among the ethnic groups of its
far north west region.
"We performed for the government and they used us to
create this image of ethnic unity. We didn't have a
choice. We had no right to oppose," juggler Dilshat
Sirajidin told the "Star Newspaper"
The Star goes on to report that yesterday the acrobats
were “greeted like heroes” by the entire Uygur
community of Toronto at a local restaurant. Most of
the close knit Uygur family of Canada are themselves
exiles who fled what they called "political
persecutions and ethnic discrimination” the Star
reported further.
But Toronto was not the only place for Uygurs to be
celebrating.
Uygur Internet forums and chat rooms were awash with
news of the defections. It brought with it cheers and
congratulations and a strange new lease of life among
the Uygur in diaspora who plod on relentlessly in the
hope of getting the wider world to pay attention to
the plight of their brothers in China.
The defections could have not come at a better time
for those Uygur as recently reporting of the Uygur
situation had increased markedly in the world media
perhaps breathing new hope in lungs tired from calling
in the wilderness.
Rudolph Nureyevs they may not be but something tells
me this group of Uygur performers may have just
completed their best show
.
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