What we would see if we looked at East Turkestan too

The genocidal barbarity that the Zionist occupier Israel is committing in Gaza before the eyes of the whole world has reached its 288th day. Because it is unfolding before the eyes of all humanity, it is natural that it pushes other genocides, and other Islamophobic massacres and acts of oppression taking place elsewhere in the world, to the margins, but they must not be allowed to be forgotten. If we wanted to make a list today of the communities in the world subjected to systematic massacres, genocides and apartheid practices, we would be faced with a picture in which the victims of almost all of them are Muslims.

Where Palestine is concerned, the point reached by the systematic occupation and genocide that have been carried out for 75 years, with the unlimited support of the United States and Europe and the unlimited indifference of the Arab countries, is plain for all to see. In Gaza, all the scandals of this 75-year-old Zionist order, indeed of 108 years (counting from the Balfour Declaration), are being exposed.

In Myanmar, an oppressed and powerless people, already reduced to a minority in their own country, have for years been subjected, with the incitement and oversight of Buddhist clerics as well, to the most savage and merciless massacres, to deportation, and to torture and degrading treatment in concentration camps.

Today in India, with the re-election of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a very aggressive policy of the "Hinduization of India" is being pursued under the joint political-paramilitary cooperation between the party and its main paramilitary movement, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), and the real target of this policy is the Muslims. The process under way in the country, where discrimination against Muslims follows a particular philosophy and plan, is described as the "Nazification of India," and the policies applied in this regard can be compared one to one with Nazi practices. We are not even touching on what is going on in Kashmir.

And then there is East Turkestan, another wound that bleeds, pains and saddens the Muslims of the whole world. The Chinese state's stance within the current world order, which is by no means beneficial to Muslims, makes no difference with regard to its treatment of Muslims. Here too, the systematic discrimination, assimilation, massacres, oppression and persecution directed against Muslims, which have continued for 75 years, have recently increased even further.

The genocide in Gaza is documented as it happens, with all the data relating to it recorded instantly; it is the most thoroughly documented genocide compared with many genocides in history and in our own day. Owing to Israel's recklessness and its excessive confidence in the world order it leans on, it often does not even feel the need to hide anything. It is the arrogance of a power that can, when its turn comes, set all the documents aside and deliver whatever verdict it wishes. In East Turkestan, by contrast, the persecution being carried out is in serious need of documentation, because China does not want what happens there to be reflected to the world as it is, or rather attaches great importance to its being reflected the way it wants. That is why its greatest pressure is on the press and publishing. Alija Izetbegović used to recommend that genocides not be allowed to be forgotten, because "a forgotten genocide is repeated." Yet in order not to forget, they must first be recorded, announced and placed before people's witness.

The systematic assimilation, oppression and persecution in East Turkestan are heard of from every corner of the world, however much the Chinese government says otherwise. The greatest argument to which China, or those who defend it, cling is that these reports are reflections of a propaganda industry centered on the United States and the West, which sees China's rise as a threat. It is of course true that such a mechanism is at work against China, but there are also living witnesses and victims of the repression and Islamophobic policies in East Turkestan who cannot be ignored.

The East Turkestan Human Rights Watch Association (www.ethrw.org) shared its 2024 report with the public last week. The report lays out with up-to-date data both the historical dimensions and, through its concrete present-day practices, all the dimensions of the persecution China carries out in East Turkestan. In this way, all the historical and current data on which the cause of East Turkestan rests are recorded up to date. In the report, which was presented at the TÜGVA headquarters and whose evaluation I took part in as one of the panelists, the details of the practice of "education camps" that have recently turned into concentration camps for Turks, and of the surveillance, control and discipline mechanisms that have penetrated into every detail of society by way of this practice, present a chilling picture.

For example, the numerous police files obtained in 2019 and shared by the news agency The Intercept lay bare the grave extent that surveillance has reached. Those who go abroad or apply for asylum are branded terrorists, and those who hold passports are monitored more strictly. The participation of people who were previously taken into camps, or whose relatives are in camps, in flag ceremonies, and their conduct during the ceremonies, are tracked. Some of the leaked documents show that flag ceremonies are used to decide who will be sent to "re-education" camps. Entry into mosques is strictly monitored in order to reduce mosque attendance rates. In one leaked document, it is noted as a great success that the number of people coming to a mosque fell by 96% in two years. According to the report, thanks to the controls, worship was conducted in accordance with the law, civil servants and those under 18 were prevented from entering mosques, and many "problematic" people were either detained or sent to "re-education."

East Turkestanis are sent to camps or detained for acts that the government defines as religious extremism, such as donating to a mosque, downloading a Qur'an application, having images with "Allah" written on them on their phones, listening to religious talks, or sharing messages with religious content. The CCP government claims that the surveillance system, which permeates every area of East Turkestanis' lives, serves "the fight against terrorism" and "religious extremism." In reality, through these surveillance tools, individuals' personal religious beliefs and daily worship are monitored and obstructed. This is only a cross-section of the many details of human rights violations in the report.

That China, which is seeking an alliance against the United States all over the world, insists on a policy that results in turning all Muslims against it in East Turkestan is one of the main matters to be dwelt upon. Why does China, which in fact needs Muslims, insist on a practice that alienates Muslims, even makes them into the "other"?

The subject, in fact, comes once again to the question of the unity of Muslims.

Is there in the world a political union that could express the common sensitivity of Muslims on this matter vis-à-vis China? What if the oppression of Muslims inside some Islamic countries has long since gone miles beyond the oppression of Muslims by China or by any other non-Muslim power? When the persecution of Muslims by Muslim-looking rulers in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt and Tunisia is plain for all to see today, how can they be expected to put a stop to the oppression of Muslims in India, Myanmar, East Turkestan or Gaza?

This too is the real problem we must cope with, and if a political initiative is to emerge, it will have to have confronted this problem in its background as well.