Assalamu'alaikum, China executes 11 Muslims on eve of UNHRC meeting ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ http://www.muslimedia.com/china-muslim.htm Accurately predicting that the world would lose no sleep over the persecution of Chinese Muslims, Beijing executed 11 Muslims on the eve of the annual United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) meeting in Geneva on March 20. The eleven, who were among 29 Muslims from Chinese-occupied East Turkestan (officially Xinjiang province) charged with "separatist crimes", were convicted on March 10 and 11, and executed immediately, without opportunity to appeal their convictions or publicise their cases. These outrageous judicial murders were generally ignored by the outside world, overlooked by UNHRC and by foreign governments (including the Muslim ones). News of the public executions in East Turkestan first reached Beijing, China's capital, eight days later as a report in the Xinjiang daily newspaper on March 15. The province is so isolated, and its media so severely censored, that even official papers such as the Xinjiang take time to reach the capital, let alone to leave the country. In fact even sending newspaper-clippings out of East Turkestan, though not a crime, is strongly discouraged, as Rebiya Kadeer, a 53-year-old Muslim businesswoman, has found to her cost. She was arrested in August last year and charged with "betraying State secrets". Sister Rebiya was convicted after a two-hour secret trial and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment on March 10 (the day the eleven were executed), although the only 'evidence' brought against her in court were newspaper-clippings said to be similar to the ones she had allegedly sent to her husband, Sidik Rouzi, who is in the US, where he fled and got political asylum in 1996. Since then he has been criticising the Chinese government on the US-sponsored Radio Free Asia. Sister Rebiya's lawyers attended the trial but were not allowed to present her case, and her family were barred altogether. But news of her conviction, unlike that of the executions, quickly reached the outside world because Sidik Rouzi was telephoned the same day by their daughter, who is in Urumqi. There was therefore greater coverage in the western press of her case. But it was soon forgotten, and the US and British governments, which had taken up the issue with Beijing before her trial, failed to pursue it further. Both governments are publicly committed to a "policy of constructive engagement" with China, which they claim is more effective in improving China's human-rights record than public criticism of it. But China knows that London and Washington, like other 'developed countries', are more interested in trade than in protecting the human rights of Muslims, and so did not hesitate to rebuff their initiatives, such as they were, over Sister Rebiya's case. In fact a British government delegation was in Beijing to plead her case at the time of her trial. There could not have been a bigger rebuff than the unlawful and unacceptable sentence imposed so quickly and so blatantly. In fact, while the British delegation was going to through the motions of protesting in Beijing, Britain was training senior members of China's police-force, according to newspaper-reports in London. More than 20 Chinese police-officers have already received training on community policing and "how to manage people" at the National Police College at Bramshill (southern England), and at Scottish Police College near Stirling. British police-officers have in their turn gone to China to study Chinese police techniques. According to the Independent on Sunday, which made these revelations on March 19, London funds an exchange-programme between China's People's Security University, which trains China's 1.2 million police-officers, and British police institutions. The exchange "is seen as part of the policy of critical dialogue" that Britain has pursued with Beijing since the Labour government took office in 1997. But Britain and the US are not alone, among the industrialised countries, in pursuing such policies to secure a part of the lucrative Chinese market, which will be substantially opened up when China joins the World Trade Organisation next year. The European Union countries refused to support the US's motion before the UNHRC's meeting in Geneva, criticising China's violations of human rights. The motion itself is an annual circus and cannot embarrass Beijing because, as usual, it will not be passed, but the EU still did not dare to back even this empty gesture. The Portuguese foreign minister, Jaime Gama, addressing the meeting on behalf of the EU, told the 53 delegates present that the EU was committed to its "dialogue on human rights" with China. But, in a transparent attempt to disguise the EU's capitulation to Beijing, Gama referred to China's "use of the death-penalty, restrictions on fundamental freedoms, harsh sentences imposed on political dissidents, persecution of religious minorities, nonratification of the UN human rights international covenants, and insufficient cooperation with human rights mechanisms." The reference to these lengthy violations, far from absolving the EU from blame, in fact underlines its miserable failure to condemn Beijing's crimes. As far as Muslims are concerned, neither the US motion nor the EU citation of Beijing's violations covers the persecution of Muslims in East Turkestan. That was made clear by the response of Qiao Zonghuai, China's delegate to go the UN in Geneva, to the US's motion. Ignoring the EU's position, he censured the US motion only for objecting to the Falun Gong cult. He said that any country that presented a resolution on China on support of the 'evil cult' would be humiliated. China, which dismisses Muslim activists in East Turkestan as "separatist terrorists", knows that those who supported the genocide in Chechnya on similar grounds, and countries such as India, which have Muslim insurgencies against them, will back its case. Moreover, it has nothing to fear from Muslim governments, which persecute their own populations (particularly Islamic activists) to the extent of concluding 'security pacts' with the enemies of Islam, such as Israel. Clearly, Sister Rebiya Kadeer and the eleven Muslims shuhada executed on March 10 will not be remembered in UN debating halls or in the corridors of power of many capitals of the world. ================================================================================ ININ List Archives Found Here: http://www.inin.net/list/ ================================================================================ TO SUBSCRIBE: To subscribe to ININ please e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message type in: "subscribe inin-net" (without the quotation marks). TO UNUSBSCRIBE: To unsubscribe from ININ please e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message type in: "unsubscribe inin-net" (without the quotation marks). ================================================================================ CANADA'S ONLINE ISLAMIC BOOKSTORE: HTTP://WWW.ISLAMICBOOKSCANADA.COM ISLAMIC NEWS AND INFORMATION NETWORK: HTTP://WWW.ININ.NET
