As China marks 50 years as UN member, Uyghurs and Tibetans continue to despair

Beijing [China], October 30 (ANI): For Uyghurs and other minority and suppressed groups like Tibetans, the celebratory claim by China’s President Xi Jinping of “blazing a path in human rights development” as the country marked 50th anniversary of its membership in the United Nations is nothing but despair.
According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), President Xi Jinping in his speech claimed that the Chinese have “upheld the authority and sanctity” of the United Nations.
“China has acted by the spirit of the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and earnestly applied the universality of human rights in the Chinese context,” RFA quoted Jinping as saying touting the country’s commitment to global development, world peace and multilateralism.
“It has blazed a path of human rights development that is consistent with the trend of the times and carries distinct Chinese features, thus making a major contribution to human rights progress in China and the international human rights cause,” RFA further quoted him as saying.
The speech comes at a time when China is facing charges of genocide over the forced birth control policies in Xinjiang by countries in North American and Europe. There have also been calls to boycott February’s Beijing Winter Olympics.
Vice-Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Nury Turkel said that China has disregarded international rules despite being a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
“China has attempted to weaken and subvert the international human rights system and norms within the U.N. by arguing that economic progress should precede respect for individual rights, including the right to religious freedom,” RFA quoted Turkel as saying.
“China not only attempts to minimize international scrutiny over its human rights abuses — particularly its genocidal campaign against the Uyghurs — but also to further its efforts to promote a distorted concept of human rights in international fora,” the publication quoted Turkel.
China’s Xinjiang has become a hub of a manmade humanitarian crisis of the Uyghurs as the country makes billions of dollars by alleged forced organ harvesting, according to a media report.
According to Herald Sun, of particular condemnation is Beijing’s mass imprisonment of an estimated 1.5 million people, with many allegedly subjected to barbaric acts including forced organ harvesting and sterilisation.
The minority community are put under strict surveillance and are monitored through CCTV cameras. They are prohibited from leaving the area and have barriers on the area they can cross.
The places of worship of the community have been taken down without issuing any warnings by the government, reported the newspaper. The Uyghur Muslims are sent to the ‘education centres’ after being dragged from their homes, reported Herald Sun.
The prisoners are beaten and violent methods of interrogation are taken up for obtaining false confessions. Seen as an attempt to control the population control, the women are sterilised on a mass scale, according to the newspaper.
Nearly 80,000 Uyghurs were trafficked to factories across the country between 2017 and 2019, the newspaper reported citing the ASPI report.
“In factories far away from home, they typically live in segregated dormitories, undergo organised Mandarin and ideological training outside working hours, are subject to constant surveillance, and are forbidden from participating in religious observances,” Herald Sun quoted the report.
Besides, the advocates for the Tibetans say that the Chinese pressure has sidelined their cause to initiate a debate in the UN on the issues of arbitrary detention and the violation of religious freedom, according to RFA.
Executive Director of the German office of the nonprofit advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), Kai Mueller said that China has always prevented any debates about Tibet in the UN.
According to RFA, Mueller noted that more than 50 rights experts had called for the constitution of human rights monitoring mechanism in June 2020 at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“This unfortunately never materialized, and this is indicative of the influence of the Chinese government on other member states at the United Nations Human Rights Council,” RFA quoted Mueller as saying. (ANI)