Saturday, March 16, 2019
Yale geneticist provided data used for Chinese surveillance of Uighurs
School of Medicine emeritus professor Kenneth Kidd shared genetic data with scientists from China’s Ministry of Public Security, the data then has been used to profile and oppress the Uighurs in the occupied East Turkistan. According to the New York Times report, China’s now-comprehensive DNA database — which was built with help from Kenneth Kidd and a U.S. biotechnology company Thermo Fisher — can help the Chinese regime identify and track Uighur dissidents.
Read the full story at yaledailynews.com, Feb 22, 2019
Bachelet presses China for U.N. access to Xinjiang’s Uighurs
United Nations Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Wednesday (March 6, 2019) that she is seeking access to China to verify continuing reports of disappearances and arbitrary detentions, particularly of Turkic Muslims in the occupied East Turkistan where there are mass detention camps holding more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslims.
At a panel event on Wednesday (March 6, 2019), Sarah Brooks of the International Service for Human Rights said: “This brutal and surgical suppression of fundamental freedoms of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities demands a heightened response”.
Read the full story at mobile.reuters.com, March 6, 2019
China is ‘at war with faith’ says US ambassador at large
Sam Brownback, US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, has accused the Chinese Communist Party of being “at war with faith,” and warned that its policies risk stoking extremism.
Speaking at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Hong Kong, Brownback said: “What does the Chinese Communist Party have to fear from its faithful people? Why can’t it trust its people with the Bible? Why can’t Uyghur children be named Mohammad? Why can’t the Tibetans choose and venerate their own religious leaders like they have for more than a thousand years?”. Brownback’s speech joins a growing tide of international condemnation of Beijing following reports that more than a million Muslim majority Uyghur have been detained by the Chinese Regime in massive camps in the occupied East Turkistan.
Read the full story at www.cnn.com, March 7, 2019
Kazakh rights defender Serikjan Bilash arrested over Xinjiang activism, office ‘shut down’
Kazakh police on Sunday (March 10, 2019) arrested Kazakh activist Serikjan Bilash, who has campaigned for victims of China’s concentration camps in the occupied East Turkistan. Bilash has led a loud awareness drive centered on ethnic Kazakh victims of China’s crackdown in the region and has hosted regular press conferences, highlighting the plight of Kazakhs and other majority-Muslim groups.
Read the full story at www.hongkongfp.com, March 10, 2019
China’s Economy: Not So Big After All
New research suggests that China’s economy is only half the size of America’s—and growing much more slowly than officially reported. China has been over-reporting its growth rate by an average of 1.7 percentage points every year since 2008, and as a result, China is now overstating its true GDP by nearly 20 percent.
Read the full story at nationalinterest.org, March 12, 2019
State Dept. Accuses China of Rights Abuses Not Seen ‘Since the 1930s’
The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared on Wednesday (March 13, 2019) that China is “in a league of its own when it comes to human rights violations”. Although did not explicitly mentioned Nazi Germany on the creation of concentration camps, Michael Kozak, who heads the State Department’s human rights bureau, compared CCP’s roundup of Muslim minorities in the camps to movements not seen “since the 1930s.” These two statements are the most direct condemnation the US has made regarding the roundup of millions of Uighurs and other minorities.
Read the full story at www.nytimes.com, March 13, 2019
China’s Treatment of Uighur Muslims Is a Cultural Genocide
Tasnim Nazeer, an award-winning journalist, says: “Beijing’s attempt to strip Uighur Muslims of their identity, of their religion and of what they stand for is nothing short of a cultural genocide. Calling the international community for Justice, she says: “Uighur Muslims have faced repression from the Chinese authorities for far too long, and it is time now for Beijing to be held accountable and for justice to prevail — even if it means bringing the world’s second largest economy to shame.”
Read the full story at www.fairobserver.com, March 13, 2019
U.S. Steps Up Criticism of China for Detentions in Xinjiang (occupied East Turkistan)
As China prepared to defend its record before the United Nations Human Rights Council, the United States on Wednesday (March 12, 2019) led Western governments, academic experts and human rights supporters in challenging Beijing over its mass detention of Muslims in East Turkistan. Adrian Zenz, a German lecturer and an expert on East Turkistan, told the gathering that China’s re-education and detention centers have expanded rapidly in the past two years and as many as 1.5 million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities are being held. He called China’s tactics “nothing less than a systematic campaign of cultural genocide.”
Read the full story at www.nytimes.com, March 13, 2019
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation “commends” China for its treatment of Muslims in East Turkistan
The Council of Foreign Ministers under the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held a meeting in Abu Dhabi on March 1 and 2. It adopted a resolution on “safeguarding the rights of Muslim communities and minorities in non-OIC member states,” which included a positive reference to China. The World Uyghur Congress said it was “extremely disappointing” that the OIC failed to raise the issue of the mass detention of Uighurs in East Turkistan. Patrick Poon, a researcher at Amnesty International, also called the resolution disappointing.
Read the full story at www.hongkongfp.com, March 14, 2019
