Qatar’s decision to withdraw its signature from among the 37 countries who signed a joint letter to endorse China’s concentration camps in East Turkistan (so-called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) is not only showing sympathy towards the Uyghur people suffering in the camps, but more importantly it is about protecting its national image around the world. I applaud Qatar on both aspects, and I also want to express my gratitude on behalf of the oppressed Uyghur nation to Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
The decision of withdrawal has stopped Qatar from being accomplice with an authoritarian regime in an on-going silent ethnic genocide in the 21st century. By doing this, Qatar has not only done its religious and humanitarian obligation towards the oppressed Uyghur Muslims in East Turkistan, but also has given a righteous signal to its counterpart China to advocate it to come back to the right path and put an end to its crimes on the issue of the concentration camps.
The Chinese government will obviously be annoyed by the signal this decision of Qatar. However, I firmly believe that China will not eventually blame and despise the 22 countries who called for shutdown of the camps and respect the human rights of Uyghurs, but the 36 countries who endorsed it on the crimes has been committed upon the Uyghur people. Because, no matter what is the excuse (i.e. in the name of anti-extremism or counter-terrorism), the act of putting more than 3 million innocent people in concentration camps, forcefully separating people from their families for 3 years, torturing people physically and psychologically, and forcing people to denounce their faith is simply a crime against humanity. It is also the worst human rights violation the world has seen since the end of world ware 2.
We can see from the recent international news reports that this kind of crime has been committed by the Chinese government will show its true face to the world as long as it continues. Even publishing up to 10 “white papers” will not convince the international community to see an ethnic genocide as a “re-education”. I want to take this chance to call on China to stop its crimes and immediately shutdown the concentration camps once and for all. At the same time, I would like to remind the heads of the 36 countries who wants to get benefit from China by endorsing the ethnic genocide to imagine what is the current situation of the 3 million people who are in dire conditions due to the punishments and tortures. I would also like to ask these leaders to question their conscience.
Lastly, I would like to thank all the countries, community leaders, and all the independent news organizations such as Aljazeera News for their endeavors to have directly or indirectly helped Qatar for making the decision to withdraw its support for the concentration camps in China.
Yours respectfully,
Rabiye Kadeer
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