{"id":4513,"date":"2018-11-19T14:01:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T14:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/11\/19\/un-security-council-china-one-million-uighurs-detention-deserve-worlds-attention\/"},"modified":"2018-11-19T14:01:16","modified_gmt":"2018-11-19T14:01:16","slug":"un-security-council-china-one-million-uighurs-detention-deserve-worlds-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/un-security-council-china-one-million-uighurs-detention-deserve-worlds-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"The UN Security Council in China: One million Uighurs in detention deserve world\u2019s attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United Nations Security Council, which typically only leaves New York City to travel<\/a> to conflict zones, is heading to China later this month. Beijing, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council, has planned the trip to showcase the cities<\/a> of Shenzhen and Guangzhou and to spotlight its contributions to UN peacekeeping<\/a> around the world. So far, Council diplomats seem content to take the trip without addressing the elephant in the room: the Chinese government\u2019s ongoing repression of 13 million Turkic Muslims<\/a>, one million of whom are arbitrarily detained in \u201cpolitical education camps.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/p>\n

The United Nations. Photo: UN.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This year, the ambassadors of the 15 member-Council have taken trips to Afghanistan<\/a>, Myanmar, and Bangladesh,<\/a> and the Democratic Republic of Congo<\/a>. In addition to spending time with political leaders in capital cities, the diplomats also met with those affected by conflict and violence. Unfortunately, it appears they won\u2019t get that chance in China.<\/p>\n

The Chinese government is facing mounting criticism for its persecution of Turkic Muslims, including Uighurs and Kazakhs, in Xinjiang<\/a> and abroad<\/a>. Earlier this month, Chinese diplomats faced tough questions from many Security Council ambassadors\u2019 counterparts in Geneva, especially the Dutch, Americans, French, British, and Swedish, who demanded<\/a> a change in its policies in Xinjiang. While Chinese diplomats asserted that the camps amounted to little more than vocational training, there is strong evidence\u2014including research by Human Rights Watch<\/a>\u2014that indicates otherwise. Those detained have described torture and ill-treatment including beatings, being hung from ceilings, and shackling. Documents show that local government officials running these camps bought thousands of batons, cattle prods, handcuffs, tasers, and cans of pepper spray \u2013 hardly the tools for vocational training.<\/p>\n

\"Uyghur<\/p>\n

Photo posted by the Xinjiang Judicial Administration to its WeChat account, April 2017, showing detainees at a camp in Lop county, Hotan prefecture, Xinjiang. Photo: RFA, Oct. 2, 2018; cf. WaybackMachine Internet Archive, April 17, 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Traveling to China in 2018 and skipping Xinjiang feels akin to visiting Cape Town at the height of apartheid and ignoring prisoners on Robben Island<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If the 14 other countries currently sitting on the Security Council accept China\u2019s proposed terms for this trip, they risk enabling abuses in Xinjiang. This trip represents a key test of the idea that great powers can use the fig leaf of sovereignty to get away with atrocities without consequences. Will Council diplomats go along with the charade or use their trip to draw attention to this profound injustice?<\/p>\n

source: HKFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Nations Security Council, which typically only leaves New York City to travel to conflict zones, is heading to China later this month. Beijing, which currently holds the rotating presidency of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-4513","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\/4513","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=4513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4513"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=4513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}