Canada’s Uighurs struggle for their cause
Most Canadians unaware about China’s atrocities and genocide, they say
COQUITLAM, B.C.—The sounds of giggles from children mixed with the distant buzz of a chainsaw prevail as Turnisa Matsedik-Qira sits silently at a concrete picnic table in a suburban Vancouver playground. Sucking in short breaths, she is trying to say something.
Matsedik-Qira has been trying to swallow her emotions for the nue last explaining minute, so what she can it feelscontt like to not have any communication with her family in China’s far western Xinjiang Autonomous Region for more than three years. Reports consistent with genocide have emerged from the region.
While pressing her finger underneath her eye to suppress a tear, she manages to voice her biggest fear.
“We know what they are going to do with our families and most of the people are scared.”
Matsedik-Qira, who moved to Canada in 2006 and now works as a nurse, is part of a small community of about 70 families who live in Vancouver, as well as about 100 who are here as students. Across Canada, mostly in cities, there are about 2,000 Uighurs.
In recent years, the community has been increasingly fearing for loved ones in Xinjiang.
It is there the Chinese government has been accused of committing acts of genocide, including the mass internment of up to two million Uighurs and other Turkic minorities.
There are some protests in Canada over the acts, including one earlier this month in Montreal. But generally the issue hasn’t gained much momentum in Canada.
Most Canadians have no idea who Uighurs or other Turkic minorities in China are to begin with, so trying to bring attention to their mass detention is difficult. But those fighting for Uighur rights are hoping recent statements from Canadian institutions may put the country at the international forefront of Beijing on its acchallenging tions in Xinjiang.
Recently, in a televised interview on CBC, Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae, said he is asking the body’s Human Rights Council to investigate China’s actions in Xinjiang to see if they meet the threshold of genocide.
In Ottawa, weeks ago, another arm d it of already Canadian has met politics it. On decidae Oct. 21 a parliamentary subcommittee on International Human Rights declared the Chinese Communist Party’s actions in Xinjiang meet the threshold for genocide under the United Nations Genocide Convention.
The committee heard from those who have spent time in internment camps in Xinjiang, where reports of physical and sexual abuse have surfaced. Other credible reports say some of those interned are being used for forced labour.
Evidence of forced birth control and sterilization of Uighurs and other minorities was also reported by The Associated Press earlier this year.
China has repeatedly denied humanrights abuses or genocide in Xinjiang, insisting the camps serve as vocational training centres. The Canadian committee has recommended sanctions over the treatment of Uighurs.
But Matsedik-Qira said she has been consistently let down by Canada’s public officials. The committee’s declaration and Rae’s stated intentions mean little to her. “That doesn’t give me any hope,” she said, “because the Chinese government is a perfect liar and will hide everything.”
She said if the UN wants to properly investigate, they will have to rely on informants in Xinjiang, believing China would never allow a proper official probe in the region. She also worries about how much Canadians and government officials actually care about what’s happening in Xinjiang.
Often a solo protester, Matsedik-Qira said she has been yelled at in the streets by people who support the Chinese government while she holds a sign urging people to boycott Chinese products over China’s human-rights abuses. Emails to Canadian politicians are sometimes answered, but rarely go anywhere, she said.
She said the protests have brought intimidation attempts including anonymous phone calls telling her she should “be careful” and think about her family in Xinjiang.
Such intimidation has caused many of Canada’s Uighurs to stay silent on what is happening in China, Matsedik-Qira said. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged China has increased its harassment of Chinese diaspora in the country.
So, behind closed doors with other Uighurs is where the community talks about their missing or arrested family members and the anguish it has brought upon them.
Xinjiang is a region nearly twice the size of British Columbia with a population of about 25 million people. Many are Muslim Uighurs or Turkic peoples, speaking a Turkic language and resembling those from Central Asia rather than East Asia.
In 2014, what the Chinese government described as “Islamic extremists from Xinjiang” killed 31 people at a train station in Kunming, in Yunnan province. Some Uighur activists dispute the Chinese Communist Party’s version of the attack or who perpetrated it. In the years since, Beijing’s surveillance and incarceration of Uighur people has drastically increased.
In Ottawa, witnesses told the subcommittee what the increased pressure on Uighurs looks like on the ground. “The subcommittee heard that detainees are abused psychologically, physically and sexually. They are forbidden from speaking the Uighur language or practising their religion,” read a news release from the subcommittee on human rights in October.
While human-rights groups have demanded Beijing stop its actions in Xinjiang, movement on the issue from the international community has been slow, though the United States has placed sanctions on those responsible and on companies said to use forced labour.
But the declaration by the Canadian subcommittee is a victory for Uighur activists, like Mehmet Tohti of the Uighur Rights Advocacy Project, who have argued the description of events in Xinjiang being referred to as “human-rights abuses” downplays the significance of the problem.
“What has happened has far more exceeded the scope of human-rights violations,” Tohti told the Star. “It’s genocide we are talking about. It’s crimes against humanity we are talking about.”
Internationally, the declaration was applauded by Uighurs and their advocates.
Michael Polak, a British human-rights lawyer and chair of Lawyers for Uighur Rights, called the subcommittee’s declaration a “hugely significant step” for “reasons both political and legal,” such as the repercussions under international law.
“The Canadian people can feel proud that their Parliament is taking a leading role in regards to the classification of the crimes being committed and should encourage their government to do more to relieve the intense suffering being caused to these marginalized groups by the Chinese government,” Polak wrote in an email.
Saskatchewan Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, who has been pushing the plight of the Uighurs in Ottawa, said unlike other governments around the world who have received rebuke from Ottawa at various times for genocide, the Chinese Communist Party has a block of supporters in Canada.
“We know there are interests in downplaying the government of China’s human-rights abuses,” Genuis said. “But there are active, vocal, well-financed interests that are defending the perspective of the government of China. That maybe speaks to one challenge.”
But, Genuis said, the committee’s declaration of genocide for China’s actions in Xinjiang make a strong case in part because of the bipartisan nature of the committee, “which would suggest people from different backgrounds politically will often respond once the evidence is put in front of them.”
“We know what they are going to do with our families, and most of the people are scared.” TURNISA MATSEDIK-QIRA