Xinjiang facing worst kind of ethnic genocide, says activist

The Xinjiang autonomous region is facing the worst kind of cultural and ethnic genocide at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said an Uighur activist.

In an article for the Jerusalem Post, Dr Burhan Uluyol, an associate professor at the Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University and an Uyghur activist, said that the Chinese government refuses to categorise Uyghurs as an indigenous population and describe Uighurs as a regional minority.

"The Xinjiang autonomous region in China is facing the worst kind of cultural and ethnic genocide. There is a long history of dissonance between the indigenous ethnic Uighur and Chinese authorities... Evidence suggests that China is systematically targeting Uighur Muslims through a state-planned birth-control process," the activist wrote.

"Women survivors from these camps say they were beaten, raped and given mysterious injections. A study of concentration-camp survivors suggest that Chinese authorities have adopted brutal methods to stop new Uighur births. Forced pregnancy checks, medications that stop menstruation, forced abortions, sterilizations, IUDs, and unidentified injections are given to Uighur women by Chinese officials," Uluyol added.

He called for a strong international response to push back China's attack on human dignity. US President Joe Biden reaffirmed his commitment to counter China on human-rights abuses and raised the issue during his first phone call as president with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said, "This is a sign of hope for the Uighur movement."

"The Uighur movement has received attention and support from Western governments, which has internationalized the issue. Support from different communities, orgzations and individuals has improved the movement," the activist said.

He pointed out that Since 1949, China has used a policy of racial discrimination, mass killings and imprisonment under the pretext of national security. China, meanwhile, politicizes its investments and mutual cooperation with other countries to get its political goals fulfilled.

"It seems as if China bought the silence of many countries by using Chinese money. Countries need to open their diplomatic gates so that the Chinese state evolves a political architecture that will allow the Uighurs to maintain their identity and peacefully co-exist," the associate professor pointed out.

UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab called on the UN Human Rights Council on Monday to address the human rights violations in China stating that the international body does not "consistently" pinpoint areas of the prevalence of the most pressing human rights issues.

"We see almost daily reports now that shine a new light on China's systematic human rights violations perpetrated against Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang. The situation in Xinjiang is beyond the pale. The reported abuses - which include torture, forced labour and forced sterilisation of women - are extreme and they are extensive," he saidat the 46th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, of which China and Russia are both members.

China has been rebuked globally for cracking down on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forcible re-education or indoctrination.

Beijing, on the other hand, has vehemently denied that it is engaged in human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang while reports from journalists, NGOs and former detainees have surfaced, highlighting the Chinese Communist Party's brutal crackdown on the ethnic community, according to a report.

The US Department of State under then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the crackdown on Uyghurs as 'genocide'.

( With inputs from ANI )