Meet Rayhan Asat, whose fight for her brother became fight for Uyghurs

Beijing [China], October 23 (ANI): Rayhan Asat, who started her fight for her captive brother, is now a leading figure in the campaign against the Chinese genocide in Xinjiang, reported a US media publication.
Rayhan Asat, who belongs to the Uyghur community, grew up in Xinjiang along with her brother. But, while she was pursuing her passion by graduating from the Harvard Law School, she got a huge setback, as her brother Ekpar suddenly vanished.
According to the Vox media, it was after some time that she learned that her brother has been forcibly disappeared into Xinjiang’s internment camps. But, he was not the only one to encounter that, as more than a million Uyghurs have since been forced into the camps over the past five years.
Asat decided to use her legal training to combat the situation and publicly advocate for her brother and the rest of the Uyghurs.
“My legal training was screaming in my mind, ‘Rayhan, what about the risks?’ I thought: What if my advocacy goes wrong? What if retaliation happens? What if they go after my parents (in China)?” she told Vox.
But, one of her legal lessons only was going to come up as a hindrance for her.
‘Trolley Problem’ refers to a classical thought experiment when one has to make a tough choice. Here, one has to either make an active choice and divert a runaway trolley to kill one person, if many other people are saved by it, or let several people die passively by not doing anything.
Asat had learned about the experiment at Harvard, and now she was herself experiencing it. If she would have approached the private channels, there was very little chance of getting his brother released, as Chinese experts had told her. However, if she foes the public in exposing Xinjiang’s camp system, she might help thousands of Uighurs, but her own brother can pay the direct price.
“There was a time when I was blaming myself for not being brave enough (by speaking out earlier). It took me so long to forgive myself and realize, it’s not about me not being brave, but rather thinking, ‘If I speak up, would that hurt him?” I was just being thoughtful and strategic. Finally, I was able to forgive myself,” she told Vox.
She has used law as a concrete tool and developed guidelines for how Customs and Border Protection can implement the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. She has also advised other countries that contemplating adopting their own forced labor legislation, from Sweden to the Netherlands to New Zealand, reported Vox media.
Over the past two years, she has testified before the US Congress, the Canadian House of Commons, the UK House of Commons, the European Parliament, and several more.
Hatred, she said, has no place in her worldview. For a decade, she has tried to connect Uyghurs and the dominant Han Chinese, by organizing conferences or by tweeting about problems afflicting non-Uyghur populations in China, reported Vox media.
As per Vox media, the Chinese government permitted her brother Ekpar a rare but supervised video call with family. In the call, he urged his family to continue to be kind and to take care of their community.
Asat says that when she realised that how much her brother cared for the Uyghur people, she felt assured for her choice. He calls that moment and her brother as her inspiration that has kept her driving on her mission.
Ultimately, she had found her solution to the ‘trolley Problem’. By choosing to represent her brother’s values, she had chosen both him and the Uyghur people, whom he loves so much.
China recently launched thousands of 5G base stations throughout its Xinjiang region, raising concerns the technology will be for greater digital surveillance of Uyghurs rather than the state use of economic development, according to a US government-funded news service.
China’s Information Technology Ministry last month announced the number of 5G base stations in use across China has exceeded 1.96 million.
Recently, the UN Human Rights Council rejected a draft decision on the “debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China”, by a vote of 17 in favour, 19 against, and 11 abstention.
China’s Xinjiang province is home to 1.2 million Uyghur Muslims. International human rights organizations have been complaining that various types of oppression are being carried out on these Muslims.
Even several human rights organizations have flagged serious human rights violations in Xinjiang. However, China has continued to deny such allegations. (ANI)