Daily Times

Senior diplomats from permanent missions of eight countries to the United Nations Office at Geneva visited the Chinese Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to get first-hand information about the religious freedom, human-right situation and skill development programs in the region last month. Diplomats from Venezuela, Cuba, Egypt, Cambodia, Russia, Senegal and Belarus and Pakistan toured Xinjiang on the special invitation of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. This was the second such delegation to visit Xinjiang.

Earlier, diplomats from 12 countries including Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Thailand, and Kuwait visited Xinjiang’s Hetian district on January 8, 2019 to witness de-radicalisation programs on the invitation of Governor of China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Shohrat Zakir, who is also deputy secretary of CPC Xinjiang Committee.

These diplomatic visits are truly eye-opening, and aim to sensitize the world about Xinjiang’s ground realities and help fizzle out uncalled for speculations. Unfortunately, there are many myths surrounding these programs, even though they are needed to fight terrorism and extremism in the Xinjiang province. Ironically, most people who have been criticising Chinese deradicalisation camps for violating human rights have never even visited the country. The situation has become exacerbated because instead of making heads or tails of ground realities by paying official visits, media personnel they have been releasing reports entirely based on half-truths.

Frankly speaking, most of these make-believe stories are being churned out with the help of Uyghur’s self-exiled diaspora sponsored by western powers. These reports badly fail to produce clear evidence and substantial proof of human rights violations in these rehabilitation facilities. What they illustrate and portray are based on the verbal statements of self-exiled Uyghur people or those who spent some time in these centres. Their stories have not been verified so far by any independent sources.

If analysed critically, links and sources of these reports originate from the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, Australian East Turkestan Association, Australian Uyghur Association, Viktoria Uyghur Association, Belgium Uyghur Association, Uyghur Canadian Association, East Turkistan Association in Finland, France Uyghur Community, East Turkistan Union in Europe (Germany), Uyghur Women’s Committee in German, Japan Uyghur Union, Uyghur Youth Union in Kazakhstan, Society Union of Uyghur National Association (Kazakhstan), “Ittipak” Uigur Society of the Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan), Eastern Turkistan Uyghur Association in Netherlands, Norway Uyghur Committee, Swedish Uygur Committee, Sweden Uyghur Education Union, Switzerland East Turkestan Association and Uighur U.K. Association and the International Uyghur Human Right and Democracy Foundation.

Xinjiang is currently fighting an insurgency by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which is allied with the TTP

They also come from Islamic country Turkey with Eastern Turkistan Foundation, East Turkistan Culture and Solidarity Association, Eastern Turkistan Culture and Solidarity Association – Ankara Section Euro-Asia Foundation in Turkey, East Turkistan Youth and Cultural Association.

Given the situation, it can be easily traced out that the reason behind the recent criticism sparked out by Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy against VETCs in the second week of February, 2019.

The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) has been founded by the Uyghur American Association (UAA) with a supporting grant from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). America is trying to set its score by playing with the sentiments of misled Uyghur people. The US-led UAA is funding anti-China groups by providing good space to their engineered stories in print and electronic media around the world. Human rights watch, Amnesty International and the UN share the same sources.

It appears highly illogical and quite funny that none of these organisations have gone to see VETCs themselves to get to the bottom of the matter. Just on the basis of assumptions and disinformation, these centres have been labelled internment camps. Anti-China lobbyists claim that these centres involve intensified use of traditional policing measures, the deployment of high-tech surveillance and monitoring systems, the involuntary collection of DNA and other biometric data, restrictions on travel, and curbs on religious practices. The claims further say that detainees, barred from interacting with their families, have been living in isolation with constant threats of getting killed.

However, in order to help the international community distinguish between falsehoods and truth, China has begun arranging tours of UN relevant experts’ to the VETCs. On January 6, 2019, Shohrat Zakir stated that Xinjiang was an open region and said China welcomed anyone who wanted to come could listen to the voice of a majority of people in an objective and unbiased manner.

Besides, China has also taken onboard mainstream media to present the truth to the world. It also arranged a fact-finding trip to reporters at three centres in Kashgar, Hotan and Karakax, all in the heavily Uighur-populated southern part of Xinjiang, where much of the violence erupted in recent years.

Reporters were exposed to the fact that students received a graduate degree when they were assessed to have reached a certain level with their Mandarin, de-radicalisation and legal knowledge. “They are allowed phone calls with family members, but no mobile phones. They are provided halal food,” reporters sought information from various students.

Kashgar deputy party chief Zark Zurdun, a Uighur from Ghulja in northern Xinjiang, where many ethnic Kazakhs live, said that “stability is the best human right”.

Xinjiang is currently facing an insurgency from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). It is allied with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan along with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Al-Qaeda and ISIS. ETIM, which has claimed responsibility for attacks in Xinjiang, has been identified as a terrorist organization by the governments of China, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and the United States, as well as the UN.

The writer is a senior analyst and journalilst on foreign affairs and President of Institute of International Relations and Media Research

Published in Daily Times, March 9^th 2019.