I don’t know how much this statement you signed has impact on China. However, this statement is one of the most important movements in our history to save the lives of more than 3 million innocents detainees in China’s concentration camps languishing in a horrific and horrifying situation. Their relatives outside of the camps and the Uyghurs in exile are deeply concerned about their well-being This letter has shown us some hope for our future and restored, to a great extent, our trust to humanity which has not completely vanished or been commercialized. More importantly, it gave us a new vision to look at the world from a different point of view.
However, there are still some other nations, in particular Muslim nations, which are keeping their silence over the Uyghur plight for fear of losing financial contracts with China. Now I personally trusted that the so-called conflicts of Islam and Christianity are not the case. If there are these conflicts, then these 22 countries, which all have a long and profound Christian tradition, would not stand up for Uyghur Muslims. I still believe that the real conflicts are still ongoing between freedom and oppression, between justice and dictatorship and, above all, between good and evil.
I am deeply disappointed at the Islamic and Turkic countries for their silence over the Uyghur crisis. If they are really the protectors of this religion and this civilization as they proclaimed, they will not certainly either maintain such long silence on this genocide or support China over the Uyghur persecution. If these governments represent their people, they should not help the CCP persecute the Uyghurs for their faith and ethnicity—the CCP that has demonized Islam to their people as a deep-seated disease and neuropathic syndrome. Alas, they are supportive of this regime which is revealingly the most anti-Islamic and anti-human.
The construction of the reeducation camps in East Turkistan aiming to eliminate the Uyghurs as a unique people is not a secret today. Even there is no need to prove their existence. For the structure and size of education camps are being observed by satellites. The testimonies given by the victims of the camps and by the relatives of the Uyghurs in exile whose number exceeds more than a thousand are sufficient to suggest that the Uyghurs are going to one of the worst cultural genocides in history. Islamic countries today are neglecting this unprecedent humanitarian crisis of the Uyghurs in East Turkistan, not because they have no idea about the situation, but because they are afraid to lose lucrative business relationships with the perpetuator of this crisis—China.
The representatives of the Islamic countries in the United Nations may defend themselves by saying that they are putting their interest over the interests of the Uyghurs. However, by saying that they are putting the interests of the persecutor over the innocent persecuted which is against the principles of Islam. Furthermore, by doing so they are losing their difference with China. With this attitude towards the Uyghur crisis, the Muslim countries have clearly manifested how far they are detached from human values, let alone Islamic values.
The honorable 22 countries, you have manifested again how Western countries are a good model for humanity in terms of defending human dignity and life which are under threat. I believe that the future generations of the Uyghurs will remember you with huge respect and gratitude forever.
Rebiya Kadeer