54th Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights - item 4: Economic, social and cultural rights, intervention by Enver Can

Thank you, Mr.Chairman,

I speak on behalf of the Transnational Radical Party to whom I belong. I come from a country which was invided by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in 1949. Since then this land of the Uyghur people and other non-Han people, located in the centre of Asia, is occupied by the Chinese regime and on the 1st October 1955 it became a colonial province named Xinjiang (that means New Territories) Uighur Autonomous Region.

Under the Chinese colonial occupation, the Uighurs are experiencing a life and death struggle for survival, their fundamental rights and freedom, including civil, social, political, and economic rights continue to be violated and even deprived. It is very common in today’s East Turkestan that the Uighurs are arrested, imprisoned and even executed by the Chinese authorities. The Uighurs are persecuted just because they advocate the adherence to human rights and plead to share equal rights as the Chinese in their political, economic, and social life.

47 years experience has proved that this autonomy exists only on the paper and it is the Chinese who take full control over all matters concerning the Uighur people and their land. Furthermore, this country is divided into many autonomous prefectures, counties, and even townships, which are run by other ethnic groups rather than the Uighurs. This kind of administrative structure is a typical reproduction of an imperial policy, which is to divide and rule, applied by previous Chinese dynasties over the non-Chinese people inhabited areas, so as to manipulate the interethnic relations and to gain advantage to the Chinese ruling over the minorities.

In order to exploit the natural resources in East Turkestan, industrial and commercial companies have been sent from China's inland provinces with proposed jobs in East Turkestan, bringing together with them their own labour force. The Chinese government is in fact encouraging its citizens to go to East Turkestan with a job in prospect. The Chinese monopolise absolutely the local labour market and they only hire people who speak Chinese. According to Mr. James Millward (an expert on the region at Georgetown University in Washington) the “Go West” drive will attract large number of Han workers and Uyghurs are simply not hired by Chinese firms. At job fairs, “Uyghurs need not apply” signs are standard,” he says.The enlarging scale of economic exploitation in East Turkestan doesn't benefit the local population so far as the Uighurs are concerned. As a matter of fact, more than 85% of the Uighur population work in agricultural plantation; the illiteracy is as high as 25%.

As more than 85% of the Uighur population in East Turkestan work in the agricultural plantation, it is the obligation of the Uighur people to produce the cotton demanded by the Chinese government. So, when the government reduced the purchasing price of cotton, it is the Uighur people who bear the economic consequences. The Chinese government admits that these cotton growing areas in the south part of East Turkestan are among the poorest. According to a recent report of China News Service, currently there are more than 440.000 people in East Turkestan who live below poverty line and more than half of them are residents of Hoten Prefecture. Roughly 90% of the population of Hoten are Uyghur farmers. Mr. Lin Yong, a Han Chinese driver in Urumchi recent told a visiting journalist, “(…)The rural Uyghurs are so poor that every year during the fasting month of Ramadan , a child dies of hunger in every family (…)”.

The destruction on the Uighur culture is not a simple phenomenon, but a programmed and systematic process imposed by the Chinese Communist Government. The Chinese style economic structure is pushing the Uyghur educational system aside, and the survival of the Uighur language itself has become a serious question and this situation will go worse in the years to come. Professors in higher educational institutions are required to deliver lectures in Chinese and those who are not able to do so, are being sent to retirement or moved to otrher non-teaching posts. According to a information obtained by East Turkestan Information Center, the Chinese government instructed that science will be thought in Chinese in all Uyghur elementary schools by the end of 2010. Thus, in the “Xinjiang University” all science classes will be thought in Chinese beginning September 2002.

The development of Uyghur literature is also facing serious problems in recent years, and little by little, it gives way to the Chinese literature along with the accelerated sinicization. On the one hand, the Chinese restrictions on the Uyghur literature are very severe, no text containing Uyghur patriotic thinking is allowed for publication. On the other hand, the Uyghur authors have, if they want their books to be published, to appreciate the history of the Chinese presence to the detriment of the authentic Uighur history. “The Kashghar Daily”, an official newspaper reported recently that the Chinese authorities burned 730 types of Uyghur books at one time on 14th of May 2002, including books such as “ the History of Huns”, “Uyghur Craftsman Arts” and as well Uyghur classic literature books.

Mr.Chairman,

On behalf of the Transnational Radical Party, we call this Sub-Commission to:

send an inquiry mission to verify the access to the labour market and to the educational system;

to urge China to stop the notorious birth control policy, imposed on Uyghur women against their will and believes;

to stop illegal population transfer to East Turkestan against the will of local people, and to repel its recent decision to abolish teaching in Uyghur language at the University level.

I thank you Mr. Chairman