Despite China continuously denying any wrong-doing, Isa and other human rights groups are calling upon the international community to reconsider all diplomatic and economic ties with China, as the country continues to act with impunity in regards to its severe human rights abuses and violations.
Despite China continuously denying any wrong-doing, Isa and other human rights groups are calling upon the international community to reconsider all diplomatic and economic ties with China, as the country continues to act with impunity in regards to its severe human rights abuses and violations.
Dolkun Isa, the president of the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, has spoken out in light of the recent two incidents of leaked official Chinese documents that highlight the growing genocide of ethnic Muslims within the northwestern province of Xinjiang.
The leaked documents, alongside numerous testimonials, satellite images, and investigative journalism, showcases evidence of the mass detention of ethnic Muslims, mainly Uyghurs, in what is being called the largest mass incarceration of peoples since the Holocaust itself. Speaking on Wednesday, Isa stated:
These documents were leaked, there is no longer any excuse for silence. The documents show everything very clearly. The documents bring more international attention, more international pressure to the Chinese government…It is not time for business as usual.”
Despite China continuously denying any wrong-doing, Isa and other human rights groups are calling upon the international community to reconsider all diplomatic and economic ties with China, as the country continues to act with impunity in regards to its severe human rights abuses and violations.
Encouraging the international community, including countries like the United States, to cut business ties with China until the horrendous genocide against the ethnic Muslim minorities is halted, Isa has also stated that the number of those detained in these concentration camps, previously thought to be around one million, could be as high as three million now.
The first collection of documents leaked were smuggled to The New York Times, containing 403 official pages from the Chinese Communist Party that outlines the state’s brutal tactics towards ‘containing’ the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. In these documents, official speeches by President Xi Jinping have quoted him encouraging for a complete “struggle against terrorism, infiltration, and separatism, [showing] absolutely no mercy”. In another part of the collection of speeches, Chen Quanguo, the party boss for the region of Xinjiang, was quoted as ordering local officials to:
[Prepare for a] smashing, obliterating offensive…round up everyone who should be rounded up. Wipe them out completely, and destroy them root and branch.”
The second collection of leaked documents, obtained and verified by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, highlighted in detail the inner workings of China’s mass concentration camps. Documenting mass surveillance systems, locked double-doors and watchtowers, as well as “manner education” for the Uyghur Muslims, these documents have only added to the mountain of evidence in regards to China’s complete ethnic cleansing of the ethnic Muslim population of the region.
The international community has begun to voice concern in a few instances, although concrete support or action against China and in protection of the Uyghur Muslims being persecuted is still almost non-existent. The European Commission has stated: “[China must] to uphold its international and international obligations and to respect human rights including when it comes to the rights of persons belonging to minorities especially in Xinjiang but also in Tibet and we will continue to affirm those positions in this context in particular”.
In Germany, where the Holocaust of WWII is still alive in living memory, the foreign minister Heiko Mass has stated: “If indeed hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs are being detained in camps, then the international community cannot close their eyes”. As the number of those being detained are projected to now be in the millions, new evidence has emerged that China is also now destroying documentary evidence of these concentration camps.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, a Uyghur man living in exile who wishes to remain anonymous has stated that a Uyghur cadre contacted in October with evidence that Chinese officials are now ordering local government offices in Xinjiang to burn all papers and documents that hold any information or evidence towards these mass concentration camps. Much of the information on specific Uyghur citizens or family members are now stored online in a wider artificial intelligence system, as identified in the most recent leaked documents.
As the world continues to remain largely silent on one of modern history’s most horrifying human rights abuses, those in Xinjiang continue to suffer and die in concentration camps spread across the region. The number of those held in the camps have now reached up into the millions, with still no concrete hope for any international help.
