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OPEN LETTER TO H.E. GERHARD
SCHROEDER
H.E. Gerhard Schroeder
Chancellor
Federal Republic of Germany
November 9, 2005
Your Excellency,
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) presents its
compliments tor your excellency and has the honour to
refer to the following urgent matter.
Eastern Turkestan, also known with its colonial name
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, continue to be a
venue of systematic human rights violations by the
Chinese athorities. Today, the Uyghurs in Eastern
Turkestan are waging a life and death struggle for
survival. Fundamental human rights and freedoms of the
peoples of Eastern Turkestan including civil,
political, economic , social and cultural rights
continue to be violated by the Chinese authorities.
The Uyghurs seeking only to live with dignity continue
to be arrested, tortured and executed on political
grounds. However, after the unprovoked barbaric
terroristic attack on the United States on September
11, the Chinese authorities staged a world-wide
campaign to portray Uyghurs as “terrorists”. Despite
the warnings of the international community, the
Chinese autorities are still using the war against
international terrorism as an excuse to arrests,
torture and execute Uyghurs in Eastern Turkestan.
According to Amnesty International, since September
11, 2001, the Chinese authorities have arrested more
than 3.000 Uyghurs, arrested Uyghur jave become a
target of inhuman torture and more than 200 Uyghurs
have been executed on political grounds. According to
Amnesty Internationa, recently, the Chinese
authorities have also sentenced 50 to death for
so-called seperatist and terrorist activities.
It is not the first time that the Chinese authorities
are blaming the Uyghurs for the turmoil in Eastern
Turkestan. In the last 55 years , the Chinese
authorities have tried to brand Uyghurs as “ The
Agents of the American Paper Tigers”, “The puppets of
the Soviet hegemonists”, “Counterrevolutionaries”, “Pan-Turkists”,
“Spillitists”, “Seperatists” and “Islamic
Fundamentalists” , depending on which suited their
political agenda. It is not difficult to imagine that
Uighurs are experiencing identity problems as a result.
China’s current efforts to lable the Uyghurs as
“terrorists” is clearly a part of their strategy as
outlines in a secret document of the Standing
Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, “Defending
the Stability of Xinjiang” , adopted on March 19. 1996
which stated that the Chinese government must “through
disinformation, prevent by all means, the seperatist
forces from making the so-called Eastern Turkestan
problem international”.
At present, however, the steady flow of Chinese
settlers, together with coercive birth control among
Uyghur women and the systematic sinozation of the
Uyghur literary language pose the biggents threat to
the survival of the Uyghurs as a nation.
Before 1949 there were only 300 thousand Chinese
settlers in Eastern Turkestan. Now there are more than
7 million according to the Chinese census. The ever
growing Chinese population has brough wide-spread
unemployment, hunger and disaster to the Uyghurs in
Eastern Turkestan. The Chinese have nort monopolized
not only official rank of authority and influence, but
positions in almost all walks of life in Eastern
Turkestan. As a result, there is no unemployment among
the Chinese in Eastern Turkestan, but among the
Uyghurs unemployment rate is very high. Despite
Eastern Turkestan’s natural wealth, the Uyghurs live
at bare substance level.Almost 80 percent of the
Uyghurs live below the threshold of poverty.
In order to restrain the growth of the Uyghur
population coercive birth control is being carried out
among the Uyghur women. In fact, this policy directly
contradicts China’s stated policy of implementing
special, preferential population policies for the
nationalities.
At present, the Chinese authorities are pursuing a
policy of systematic sinozation of the Uyghur literary
language. If preventive steps are not taken, the
Uyghur literary language, a most representative
language of the Altay Language Familiy, which played a
major role in the enrichment of Central Asian
civilization for almost two thousand years, will
gradually dissapear from the linguistic scene in the
coming decades. Moreover, the Chinese authorities have
also banned all Uyghur language schools in Eastern
Turkestan. Uyghur language schools have been merged
with Chinese language schools, imposing Chinese as the
language of instruction. Hundreds of thousands of
books has been destroyed.
As a result of this policies, Uyghurs at home are in a
very hopeless, desperate and frustrated situation.
Continued hopelessness could lead to violence. Were
there is no justice there is invariably violence.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to defuse the
rising tensions in Eastern Turkestan. Respect for
human rights in an essential element in conflict
prevention. Thus, the WUC kindly urge your excellency
to the gross and systematic violation of human rights
of the Uyghur people in Eastern Turkestan be given the
highest priority during Chinese President Hu Jintao’s
visit to Berlin.
Thanking you in anticipation,
Erkin Alptekin
President WUC
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