Rebiya Kadeer : What is the UN Secretary-General Waiting for When It Comes to the Uyghur Genocide?

The Chinese government’s genocide in East Turkestan (so-called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) has been reviled for more than two years. I think the first person who should’ve responded without any hesitation is the UN secretary-general, António Guterres. The Western countries have voiced their opinions, the US government started to take action, well known international human rights organizations have stated the unprecedented and severe nature of the crisis. However, secretary-general Guterres has not spoken a single word about this. What is general-secretary Guterres waiting for? Is the amount of evidence insufficient? No, the reality is that the UN experts have determined that there are 2-3 million Uyghur people in concentration camps and prisons. Many international investigative journalists have uncovered secret documents of the Chinese government and proven that they are attempting to erase the Uyghur identity under the disguise of combating radicalism. The secret documents even showed that their Islamophobic ideology of seeing Islam as a “virus.”

Buzzfeed News has uncovered more than 330 hundred concentration camps in East Turkestan. They also discovered that the Baidu Maps were disguising the camps in an attempt to deceive the world. Adrien Zens has studied the Chinese government’s documents and uncovered that Uyghur women are sterilized, and Uyghur infants are killed after birth. Every single time when reading this kind of devastating news, I expected something from the secretary-general, Guterres. Unfortunately, the only thing that came from him is his deafening silence. Is he waiting for thousands or tens of thousands of bodies to come out of the concentration camps?

 It is clear to all that the Western countries with free journalists are able to form their opinion independently and speaking out against this atrocity. The countries that are supporting the Chinese government are the countries with significant financial ties or the countries ruled by dictators who disregard human rights. One can understand why those countries are supportive of the Chinese government or silent on this issue. But is the UN also influenced by the Chinese government? Like the president of Pakistan, maybe general-secretary Guterres should come clean about his dependence on China or does he have similar values with the leaders of Cuba, Russia, North Korea when it comes to human rights issues. I do not wish to tie the silence of the general-secretary Guterres’ socialist background and his friendship with China. Because I believe someone who grew up in a democratic society and exercises policies in a democratic system would have a sense of justice and would not aid the oppression of the weak to aid his self-interest. Therefore, I demand the general-secretary Guterres provide an explanation of why he has been silent and complicit in this genocide so far, ignoring his responsibility as the peacekeeper of the world that should protect everyone equally.


Uyghur National Movement Leader
Rebiya Kadeer