Mar 14, 2011

East Turkestan: MEPs Urge China to Stop the Destruction of Cultural Heritage


Last week the European Parliament adopted a resolution urging China to stop the planned demolition of the ancient city of Kashgar and the forced resettlement of Uyghurs in the area.

Below is an article published by International Business Times:

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on Thursday [March 10, 2011] called on the Chinese government to stop the destruction of cultural heritage in the ancient city and to protect the cultural identity of the Uyghurs.

Kashgar is part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region.

MEPs said Beijing has begun a destructive process of modernization of housing and has been destroying the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar.

By the end of the urban reconstruction program, 85 percent of the Old City will have been demolished.

The MEPs called on the Chinese authorities to stop all forced resettlement of Kashgar's Uyghur population in the region.

MEPs urged the Chinese government to ''assess the possibility of including the city of Kashgar in the joined application with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for the Silk Road's UNESCO Heritage designation'' and to terminate all discriminatory policies towards the Uyghur and Hui population.

Furthermore, the murder of Pakistan's Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, the plight of political prisoners in Belarus including Ales Mikhalevich and Natalia Radina, the destruction of cultural heritage in the Silk Road city of Kashgar (China) and China's policy towards the Uyghur minority were all the subject of urgent debates and resolutions at the European Parliament.

To read the resolution in full, please click here.

Note: The Resolution follows a UNPO conference on The City of Kashgar in the European Parliament in January 2011. For more information, please click here