TTT – New Delhi: Indian Muslims are now contemplating a verbal outburst through Internet and international media aimed at China’s ongoing oppression of its Uyghur population, and are mustering for a solid campaign to condemn the atrocities faced by Turkic Muslims in the so called ‘re-education’ centres in China.
Many Indians feel, these detention centres in which ‘imprisoned’ Muslims are subjected to daily bouts of physical and mental torture, and are forbidden to be heard blocks their fundamental rights.
The détenus and detenues are forced to shed their Muslim identities and to follow Chinese ideologies by embracing Communism and pledging loyalty to China’s all-powerful Communist Party – seen by the world as a total violation of basic human rights.
The Muslim intelligentsia is worried about the online firewall that China has put in place to prevent journalists and bloggers globally from expressing their solidarity with the Uyghurs inside China’s borders and have in India at least started to denounce China.
“Somebody has to reign in China and stop its vengeance,” said Issac, a small-time soothsayer staying in the slum colony of Turkman Gate in Central Delhi.
A shopkeeper nearby, Mustafa, echoed similar sentiments but retorted angrily that hatred against Indian Muslims must also be stopped.
He also claimed that he had heard that China was trading its COVID-19 vaccine in exchange for Uyghurs who had taken refuge in Turkey.
No effective international action has been initiated against the Dragon that is China primarily because it is not a participating party to any of the major Human Rights treaties.
India and United States in unison are being seen as the greatest opponents to the policies of China at present.
India’s government, however, unfortunately, has not come out openly in support of the Uyghur Muslims but its media has been off and on raising the issue in a subdued way for some time.
Over in Washington meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden, political analysts feel, may condemn the persecution of the Uyghurs and take the matter up once again at the United Nations (UN). That remains to be seen.
Recently, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on a few Xinjiang / East Turkistan officials by freezing their assets and banning them from entering the U.S. using the Global Magnitsky Act to hold them accountable for human rights violations.
China though has been ‘clever’ enough not to allow any effective independent international investigations into human rights violations in the region.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has observed the ‘Chinese government under President Xi Jinping – who had his term limits removed in 2018, effectively making him president for life – significantly tightening societal controls and the supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party.
The government has imposed increased curbs on religion, civil society, the Internet, the media and universities. It has prosecuted numerous activists and journalists on baseless charges; persecuted Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang and other ethnic minorities while at the same time drastically dismantling freedoms in Hong Kong.
But until there is a collective call by world leaders against China’s atrocities on Muslims on its territory, the Uyghurs will keep lamenting their fate, and cursing the Chinese – as the rest of us watch from afar.
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