East Turkestan: Pakistan Calls on China to Soften Restrictions against Uyghur Muslims
Pakistan has recommended China relax its severe regulations against Uyghur Muslims, arguing that strict laws only fuel religious extremism. Currently, approximately one million Uyghurs are in “re-education” camps as part of China’s anti-terrorism policies, which are facing increasing criticism internationally. An arrangement between the two countries is underway to send religious scholars to help promote moderate beliefs among the population of the so-called Xinjiang region.
The below article was published by The Nation:
Pakistan has demanded China to soften restrictions on Chinese Muslims living in Xinjiang province. Federal Minister Pir Noorul Haq Qadri while meeting Chinese Ambassador Yao Jing said that strict regulations and laws fuel extremism and in order to curb intolerance and promote religious harmony China should deal with patience.
The minister proposed that Pakistani religious scholars can visit the troubled region and can play their role in ending extremist ideology and promote moderate thinking.
The Chinese ambassador promised that his government will soon facilitate Pakistani delegation of religious scholars to visit Xinjiang province.
According to international media reports, Muslim ethnic minorities are being subjected to arbitrary detention, torture, egregious restrictions on religious practice and culture, and a digitized surveillance system so pervasive that every aspect of daily life is monitored.
The large Muslim Chinese community has resisted coercive "re-education" efforts by the authorities, which have progressively restricted religious minorities from observing the basic articles of their faith.
A United Nations panel estimated recently that China has detained as many as one million Uighurs in internment camps and re-education programmes.
This includes programmes that focus on psychological indoctrination. There have been reports of water boarding and other forms of torture as well. The detained also include over 50 wives of Pakistanis.
Early this year, the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly through a unanimous resolution urged the federal government to take urgent steps for the release of over 50 Chinese wives of G-B men detained in Xinjiang province of China. The Pakistanis most of them doing import and export businesses between Pakistan and China are married to Muslim women. The Chinese police arrested these women last year and earlier.
The Chinese government’s alleged repression of ethnic Uighurs mostly Sunni Muslim under an anti-extremism initiative has attracted strong criticism from West and US lawmakers are pushing the Trump administration to sanction Chinese officials for human rights abuses against the Uighur community. China however rejected the allegations of keeping one million Uighurs in internment camps and said that some people underwent re-education after being deceived by extremists.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
