Press Release
UN Report on the Uyghur Muslims

The UN Human Rights Office has released a report on the seriousness of the “human rights violations” against Uyghur Muslims by China. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) states to have found convincing evidence of torture and other human rights violations that could be described as “crimes against humanity”. The report describes in detail how Uyghurs and other Muslims are systemically exposed to torture and physical abuse. A little excerpt from this long list of crimes is for example the usage of torture chairs in which one is bound by their hands and feet whereafter they are tortured, women and girls are raped, forced abortions and sterilizations take place and prolonged solitary confinement.

Publishing the report took no less than five years only to conclude that which the Uyghurs and other human rights organizations have been saying for years. The almost unreal situation of the Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps, forcing Muslim women to marry Chinese non-Muslims and banning numerous Islamic customs, have been known for years. This was the reason for us, as Hizb ut Tahrir / The Netherlands, to organize a national campaign in the beginning of 2019 to address the tyranny of the Chinese government and the suffering that has been inflicted upon our Muslim brothers and sisters.

The report, that has been published only after years of open anti-Islamic politics by the Chinese government is too little too late. It shows that addressing the crimes by China against the Muslims has no direct priority. Meanwhile the Chinese regime has victimized hundreds and thousands of Muslims. The timing of publishing the government is therefore not aligned with what that the Chinese government does with the Muslims. Rather, it is aligned with American interests; strategic or otherwise. Due to the simple fact that the UN is a tool which is in the hands of America, brought about by them after the Second World War as to assert its influence and dominance upon the rest of the world through “soft power”. The timing of publishing the report should be seen within the context of the American strategy against upcoming China. The report serves as leverage alongside numerous other initiatives within the containment politics against China.

There is a very small possibility that through this leverage, which is in America’s interest, pressure against the Muslims is reduced. The problem however is that the Chinese policy against the Muslims is based on the same rhetoric, the so called “war on terror” (war against Islam). It was America who, for decades, wreaked havoc in the Muslim world, to the likes that would make the Chinese regime envious. Is it then, not naïve to hope for the mercy and compassion of the UN and America? Placing the security of Islam and the Muslim in the hand of these institutions and states will only lead to a dead end. Nothing is more obvious than the Muslims guarantee the security of Islam and Muslims themselves by working towards an Islamic state that will unify them and will stand up for them and the rest of humanity.

Okay Pala
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir
in The Netherlands