{"id":4500,"date":"2018-11-17T19:46:56","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T19:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/11\/17\/why-wont-muslim-countries-defend-chinas-muslims\/"},"modified":"2018-11-17T19:46:56","modified_gmt":"2018-11-17T19:46:56","slug":"why-wont-muslim-countries-defend-chinas-muslims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/why-wont-muslim-countries-defend-chinas-muslims\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Won\u2019t Muslim Countries Defend China\u2019s Muslims?"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to senior Chinese diplomats<\/a> addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council at China\u2019s periodic review on November 6, Xinjiang is \u201cvery beautiful, safe, and stable,\u201d and \u201ca nice place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If only that were true!<\/span><\/p>\n

The review of China\u2019s human rights actions and policies featured plenty of profoundly dishonest claims by China<\/a>. It lied about its failure to ratify core human rights treaties and the broad range of offenses punishable by death, the arrests of human rights defenders<\/a>, and its record of thwarting<\/a> international human rights institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the tidal wave of documentation from academics, journalists, and human rights organizations regarding rampant human rights violations in China\u2019s northwestern Xinjiang region shows just how disingenuous the delegation\u2019s Xinjiang claims are. There is little \u201cstability\u201d or \u201csafety\u201d for the approximately one million Turkic Muslims arbitrarily detained in \u201cpolitical education\u201d camps in Xinjiang, spending their days being forcibly indoctrinated in Xi Jinping Thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those outside the camps have no choice but to \u201cwelcome\u201d government and Communist Party officials to stay in their homes, where family members\u2019 behavior is under close surveillance. Human Rights Watch research documents<\/a> pervasive restrictions on the practice of Islam in the region, ranging from confiscating copies of the Quran to prohibiting daily prayers.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the Universal Periodic Review, 13 countries challenged China to close the camps, and some echoed the call from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to allow access to Xinjiang<\/a> investigate the scope of abuse. More expressed concerns about restrictions on the freedom of religious belief and on ethnic minority groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

But not a single government from an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation member country explicitly called out China for its shocking abuses of Muslims, making it easier for Beijing to paint the criticism as another \u201cWestern\u201d conspiracy. Only Turkey acknowledged the problem, speaking about \u201cconfinement of individuals without legal grounds,\u201d but without specific reference to Xinjiang.  And some of those governments have been complicit in Beijing\u2019s \u201cStrike Hard\u201d campaign \u2013 forcibly returning Turkic Muslims, particularly Uyghurs, to China, denying them safe passage to third countries, providing information about their identities to Chinese authorities. Few have even challenged Beijing for persecuting Turkic Muslims who have visited, studied in, or had family members emigrate to their own country.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear why the defense of Muslims in China fell almost exclusively to Western governments. But an end to the crisis for that community will need intervention from <\/span>a broad<\/span> chorus. Will the Muslim-majority countries step up? <\/span><\/p>\n

Source: Human Rights Watch<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to senior Chinese diplomats addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council at China\u2019s periodic review on November 6, Xinjiang is \u201cvery beautiful, safe, and stable,\u201d and \u201ca nice place.\u201d If only…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-4500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4500"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=4500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}