Statement by: Mr. Enver Can, Vice President of the World Uyghur Congress delivered at the Briefing on 11th of April 2005, in Geneva, United Nations

“ As AI observed several years ago, the findings in East Turkestan about violations of human rights is the pick of an iceberg. The international Community can not stay idle and do nothing, because, in 21st Century my people are being killed and executed in hundreds, if not thousands, for their political views and, because they want to leave in dignity as human beings”

East Turkestan, known as “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” in present-day China, continues to be a region where the Uyghurs are waging a life and death struggle for survival. Their fundamental freedoms and human rights, including civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights are being violated by the Chinese authorities on a massive scale. Any Uyghur who found passing information to the outside world about human rights abuses is at risk of arbitrary detention, torture and other serious human rights violations. High levels of repression have severely curtailed the flow of information from the region on human rights violations over decades. At the same time, the influx of Chinese settlers, together with coercive birth control among Uyghur women and the systematic sinozation of the Uyghur language pose the biggest threat to the survival of the Uyghurs as a distict nation. The people of East Turkestan continue to be arrested in thousands, many of them tortured and executed on political grounds.

The ongoing crackdown on the so-called "three evil forces" of "separatists, terrorists and religious extremists" is continuing to result in serious and widespread human rights violations directed against the Uyghur community in East Turkestan. The human rights situation in the region has deteriorated further following Nine-Eleven as China uses the international "war on terror" as a pretext to justify its policies of repression in the region.

However, after Nine-Eleven, the Chinese authorities staged a worldwide campaign to portray Uyghurs as “terrorists”. Despite warnings and concerns expressed by the international community, the Chinese authorities use the war against international terrorism as an excuse to launch a massive crackdown upon the Uyghurs. According to Amnesty International, since 11 September, 2001, the Chinese authorities have arrested more than 3.000 Uyghurs with detainees suffering inhuman torture.

More than 200 Uyghurs have been executed on political grounds while 50 people were sentenced to death for so-called separatist and terrorist activities. For instance, three Uyghurs – Shaheer Ali, Abdu Allah Sattar and Khenzum Whashim Ali - were forcibly returned to China by the Nepalese authorities in 2002. All three men were recognised as “persons of concern” by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees after their arrival in Nepal and were awaiting third country resettlement at the time of their deportation. Officials confirmed in October that Shaheer Ali had been executed after being found guilty of "terrorist" offences in a closed trial. Shaheer Ali had secretly left behind a detailed testimony in which he described being beaten, given electric shocks and kicked unconscious during a previous period of detention in 1994.

The World Uyghur Congress is verry much concerned that the high levels of repression in East Turkestan are narrowing the space for any independent expression of Uyghur ethnic, cultural or religious identity. Such expression, particularly when it takes the form of peaceful criticism, dissent or dissatisfaction, is often deemed by the authorities to constitute "separatist", "terrorist" or "illegal religious" activities, leading to arbitrary detention, torture and other serious human rights violations.

Before 1949 there were only 300,000 Chinese settlers in East Turkestan. But the figure is now more than 7 million according to official Chinese census. Observers, however, believe that this figure is much higher. It is estimated that every year 250, 000 Chinese settlers are moving into East Turkestan. According to reliable sources in East Turkestan, in the long run, the Chinese authorities are planning to settle at least 40 to 50 million Chinese into the region. Population transfer, including the implantation of settlers and settlements, was recognised by the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, in its resolution 1991, 92 and 93, to affect the basic human rights and freedoms of not only the peoples being moved or removed by the governments, but also of the original inhabitants of the territory into which settlers are being implanted. In its resolution, the Sub-Commission also noted that this practice could even constitute genocide. As stated above, population transfer can violate the rights not only of the people being moved, but also those into whose territory settlers are being moved. Thus, with the steady flow of Chinese settlers into East Turkestan its original inhabitants are faced with the danger of becoming a small minority in their own homeland and thereby losing their cultural identity. This policy of demographic aggression not only violates the right to self-determination of the peoples concerned.

Here also, economic, social and cultural rights are linked to other fundamental human rights. Invariably, the economic, social and cultural situation of the victim people is also damaged.

The ever growing Chinese settlers’ population has brought about widespread unemployment, hunger and disaster to the Uyghur people. The Chinese have monopolised not only political and economic authority and influence, but control in almost all walks of life in East Turkestan. As a result, there is no unemployment among the Chinese but among the Uyghurs unemployment rate growing at an alarming rate. Despite the region’s natural wealth, the Uyghurs live at bare subsistence level with almost 80 percent of them living below the threshold of poverty. According to a report released by the Xinjiang Provincial Government on November 2001, the average income of the Chinese settlers in East Turkestan is 3.6 times higher than that of an Uyghur. About 85 per cent of the Uyghur people are farmers. According to the same official Chinese report, the average annual income of an Uyghur farmer is 820 yuan or 100 US dollars whereas a Chinese farmer in East Turkestan earns an annual income of 3,000 yuan. Most of the fertile land in the region is occupied by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps or briefly XPCC or Bintuan. Thus, especially in the Southern parts of East Turkestan many Uyghur farmers are living below subsistence.

In order to restrain the growth of the Uyghur population coercive birth control is being carried out among the Uyghur women, directly contradicting China’s stated policy of implementing special, preferential population policies for the minority nationalities. Recently, in the town of Chapchal, with a population of 180,000, only 100 women were allowed to give birth. In the same town, 40 Uyghurs working in the Chinese administration were fired from their jobs because their wives were pregnant. According to the source of the information, coercive birth control has lead to the deaths of thousands women and children throughout East Turkestan. Contrary to “one child” policy in mainland China, the Chinese settlers in East Turkestan are allowed to have more children.

Today, the Chinese authorities are pursuing a policy of systematic sinocization of the Uyghur language and literature. Until 1949, literary language of the Uyghurs contained almost no Chinese words. But now, large quantity of Chinese words have been introduced into Uyghur vocabulary, and in this regard, several thousand already existing Uyghur words in Uyghur vocabulary have been removed for reason such as “not favourable to the socialist construction”, “national unity” or whatsoever and replaced by Chinese terms. According to Uyghur scholars, the situation has reached to an alarming proportion.

In today’s Uyghur vocabulary you can find almost in every corner one or more Chinese words. If preventive steps are not taken, the Uyghur language, a most representative language of the Altay Language Family, which played a major role in the enrichment of Central Asian civilization for almost two thousand years, will soon disappear from the linguistic scene.

Furthermore, the Chinese authorities have also banned Uyghur language schools in East Turkestan by merging them with Chinese language schools, imposing Chinese as the language of instruction. Restrictions on cultural rights have also been tightened in recent years, including the reported banning and burning of tens of thousands of Uighur books and the imposition of an official policy banning Uyghur as a language of instruction for most courses at Xinjiang University from September 2002.
Several additional factors have combined to lend a degree of severity to human rights violations in East Turkestan over recent years and increased the level of discontent among the Uyghur population in the region. The failure of the authorities to address grievances held by many Uyghurs about serious and widespread violations of their economic, social and cultural rights remains a source of tension in the region. Unemployment remains high among Uyghurs and the continued influx of Han Chinese workers into the region has reportedly squeezed Uyghurs further out of the labour market. The vast majority of Uighurs are farmers; they are not proficient in Chinese and have limited educational and employment opportunities. Yet, in recent years, reports indicate that Uyghur families have increasingly been forced from their land by Han Chinese property developers without adequate consultation or compensation.

As a result of the current policies of the Chinese authorities, the people of East Turkestan remain in a very desperate and frustrated situation. This frustration can lead to grave consequences for all concerned, particularly the Uyghurs. Therefore, there is now an urgent need to defuse the rising tensions in East Turkestan aiming at an end to the gross and systematic violations of human rights of the Uyghurs. Respect for human rights is an essential element in a situation which requires conflict prevention. China’s view on human rights is most paradoxical. China rejects the principles to protect labour rights in labour camps or the rights of Chinese dissidents and the aspirations of the peoples of East Turkestan, and Tibet.

In conclusion, we appeal the UN Commission on Human Rights to adopt a resolution which will call upon the Chinese authorities to:

To extend an open invitation to all thematic mandates of the Commission and to receive them on official missions in East Turkestan;
To end so-called “Strike Hard” campaigns aimed at terrorizing the entire Uyghur population;
To put an end to the practice of the death penalty on political and religious dissidents;
To release all political and religious prisoners.
To guarantee the preservation of the cultural, religious and national identity of Uyghurs;
To ensure the human rights of the Uyghur people and honour their will to live with dignity;
To put an end to the extensive violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights which are resulting from the current political crackdown against the Uyghur people, including arbitrary detention and imprisonment, incommunicado detention, unfair trials, executions after summary trials, and sweeping restrictions on religious, cultural and social rights;
To take effective measures to address long-standing grievances within the Uyghur community about serious and widespread violations of their economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights;
To stop putting pressure on other states to forcibly return asylum seekers and refugees in violation of these states' obligations under international refugee and human rights standards;
To stop putting pressure on other states to prevent Uyghur diaspora organizations and individuals from engaging in peaceful and legitimate activities in line with their fundamental human rights.