Pakistan Gives China Place Of Honour At Islamic High Table
The terror ecosystem of Kashmir has consistently projected Pakistan as the saviour of Islam in the Valley. Through Jamaat e Islami, other religious groups, and through militant organizations like Hizbul Mujahideen and others, Pakistan has been painted as the guardian angel of Kashmiris and the guardian of Islam. The news from Pakistan made me pause in wonderment. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was at Islamabad in Pakistan for a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
What about report after report that we have read on the oppression of the Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province of China? In media reports worldwide, China has been accused of committing genocide against the Uyghur population and other mostly-Muslim ethnic groups in the north-western region of Xinjiang. China has been accused of detaining more than one million Uyghurs against their will over the past few years in a large network of what the state calls “re-education camps”, and sentenced hundreds of thousands to prison terms. A BBC report in June 2021 said there is also evidence that Uyghurs are being used as forced labour and that women being forcibly sterilised. Some former camp detainees have also alleged they were tortured and sexually abused. China has consistently denied all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. China has claimed that its system of “re-education” camps have been established in Xinjiang to combat separatism and Islamist militancy in the region.
Reports Say Muslim religious practices banned in Xinjiang
The Uyghurs speak their own language, which is similar to Turkish, and see themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations. Over the last few decades, the Chinese state has allegedly orchestrated mass migration of Han Chinese – China’s ethnic majority – into Xinjiang. This has been done to allegedly dilute the minority population there. China has also been accused of targeting Muslim religious figures and banning religious practices in the region, as well as destroying mosques and tombs. Uyghur activists say that their culture is under threat of being erased by the Chinese onslaught.
PAKISTAN HAS BEEN BLIND TO VICTIMIZATION OF UYGHUR MUSLIMS
Pakistan and China are self-proclaimed “iron brothers”. China is constructing China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through Pakistan. Many international analysts have called CPEC China’s flagship project for the colonization of Pakistan. Pakistan, the self-projected saviour of Islam, has not offered even a word of condemnation over the treatment of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. The silence of the Islamic states towards the suffering of the Uyghur Muslims has also been noted internationally.
CHINA’S XINJIANG POLICY AND THE SILENCE OF ISLAMIC STATES
In August 2021, Ayjaz Wani, a Research Fellow at Observer Research Foundation (ORF) Mumbai wrote in a research paper that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has detained an estimated one million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps in the Xinjiang province for forced re-education and political indoctrination. Wani noted, “While the West has deplored China’s actions, the major Muslim countries have defended and even welcomed the policy. China has exploited its economic and diplomatic clout and the growing indebtedness of the Muslim world to subdue any criticism of its actions in Xinjiang.” So this is the bare truth. Neither Pakistan nor the Organization of Islamic Nations are interested in holding China accountable for the plight of Uyghur Muslims. Pakistan, which projects itself as the messiah for Kashmir, does not feel any pain for the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in China. It is we Kashmiris who fail to recognize that Pakistan is using Kashmir as a tool to further its own geopolitical interests globally. Those Kashmiris who regard Pakistan as the saviour and protector of Islam must wake up to the harsh reality. Pakistan is killing us Kashmiris daily. Pakistan is making death and doom dance in our streets. Let us save our Kashmir from this scourge.
