Dr. Olsi Jazexhi’s visit to Chinese “re-education” centers: Went in to expose “Western Propaganda”, came out exposing the concentration camps

tipilmas August 26, 2019

Uighur Times

Aug 26, 2019

“I am sorry my Chinese friends, what you are doing to these people there is no law in the world that can justify it.” This is what Dr. Olsi Jazexhi said after his recent trip to the “re-education” camps in East Turkistan, which was organized by the Chinese regime.

Dr. Olsi Jazexhi is a Canadian-Albanian historian who is specialized in the history of Islam, nationalism and religious reformation in Southeastern Europe. His interest covers nationalism, radicalism, religious and ethnic identities in the Balkans. He holds a fairly negative attitude against western powers led by the US, especially their policies and influence in Albania. This is probably one of the reasons why the Chinese regime invited him as one of the reporters on the pre-arranged “visit” in Xinjiang (a.k.a. East Turkistan) to tell the world via these reporters that concentration camps are just a false “propaganda” of the west.

However, Dr. Jazexhi and other reporters from India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey have all witnessed modern-day concentration camps and a model of George Orwell’s “1984” in the real world.

In his video testimony published on Youtube, Dr. Olsi says that his original intention when he visited Xinjiang (a.k.a. East Turkistan) was to obtain proofs for the American led international “propaganda” against the Chinese government on the issue of Uighur concentration camps. On the contrary, he has witnessed prison-like camps and mass detention of innocent Uighur people.

This was a pre-arranged orchestrated “visit” and all the reporters were only allowed to visit designated areas and interview people that were approved by the Chinese officials. Wherever the reporters went, they were always followed by the Chinese officials. If these reporters are horrified by what they have seen, then how much worse the real situation is?

“When I went to Xinjiang, I did not intend to report anything bad about you. I came with a good intention. I wanted to understand what is going on and to defend you against the Western propaganda” tells Dr. Olsi to the Chinese authorities, “But when I saw what is going on I was shocked, how can you tolerate these things?”

Dr. Jazexhi also compares the current persecution of Uighurs and the so-called “re-education centers” to the persecution of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians by Yugoslavia. He and other reporters were ‘threatened’ not to report anything negative about China by a Chinese official named Mr. Li prior to their departure from China.

Finally, Dr. Jazexhi calls on the Chinese government to learn from the history, to accept Islam as part of China, to close the concentration camps and to leave the Uighurs and other ethnic groups to live freely and respect their rights. He says that China’s current policy of mass detention of Uighurs will lead to worse violent resistance movement by Uighurs against China.