Standing against tyranny
Speakers decry Chinese treatment of Uighurs
Mihrigul Tursun paused early in her online presentation.
“Sorry, I get a little nervous because it’s not easy to tell everybody what happened,” she said. Even though she has shared her story widely, each time she does, she said, she has to “remember this time” of imprisonment and torture yet again.
But she was determined to continue.
The ethnic Uighur woman gave a gripping account of being caught up amid a vast campaign of China’s repression of its Uighur Muslim population. She spoke at an online presentation Sept. 1 sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets, Congregation Beth Shalom and the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh.
Ms. Tursun spoke of growing up in China’s western Xinjiang region and later studying and marrying in Egypt, where she had triplets. After she returned to Xinjiang in 2015, she said, she found herself repeatedly imprisoned, interrogated, beaten, given electric shocks and force- fed medication. One of her children died while she was detained.
“I ask of the police, ‘ Why I am in the prison, what happened, what I do wrong?’ ” she said. “They didn’t give me answer.”
Only after a long ordeal was she allowed to leave China for Egypt with her two surviving children. She now lives in the United States.
According to the U. S. State Department, 800,000 to 2 million Uighurs and other members of predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in China have been held against their will in settings such as massive camps in Xinjiang.
China has denied such claims and said the actions it has taken have been to counteract extremism, terrorism and separatism.
Other speakers at the event said people in power need to listen to Ms. Tursun’s account.
“You are the face of what is happening to the Uighur people,” said Nury Turkel, co- founder and chair of the Washington- based Uyghur Human Rights Project and a member of the U. S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “Those people who can make a difference should listen to Mihrigul’s story.”
The event was jointly sponsored by local religious congregations in an effort to raise the public consciousness about this largescale human rights issue.
“Mihrigul, thank you for your story, your bravery and your faith,” said Rabbi Jeremy Markiz of Congregation Beth Shalom. “I’m heartbroken and horrified for you.”
He asked what ordinary citizens could do to help others facing what she did.
Speakers called for continued pressure on China by the U. S. government, corporations and scholars to protest what they described as a range of human rights abuses.
“If ‘ never again’ means more than just a slogan, [ the] international community must do something to stop these atrocities,” Mr. Turkel said. He contended that China’s actions meet some of the criteria for genocide, including forced sterilizations and the removal of children from their parents and placing them in the care of non- Uighurs.
Imam Chris Caras of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh said one positive example was the action of Gambia’s justice minister in bringing a charge of genocide against Myanmar for its mass expulsions and other repression of its own Muslim minority. The court directed Myanmar to “take all measures within its power” to prevent genocidal acts against the Rohingya minority.
That action was important, said one of the speakers, Sean Roberts of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. “I think, to a certain extent, China was looking at Myanmar and saying, ‘ Nobody’s really stopping this country, and we’re much more powerful.’ ”
He said U. S. pressure on China has been effective but also has prompted China to claim that reports of atrocities against the Uighurs are part of an American conspiracy driven by a rivalry between the countries.
“This is really a global humanitarian issue,” he said. “It shouldn’t turn into a geopolitical issue. So I think it’s really important to see more grassroots activism.”