Beijing got the seat on the 16-member Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

5-8-19  (CNSNews.com) – U.N. member-states on Tuesday handed China a seat on a forum on indigenous peoples, despite objections by the United States, which drew delegates’ attention to the Communist government’s incarceration of millions of ethnic Uighur Muslims and other minorities in prison camps.

  Beijing got the seat on the 16-member Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII) for the three-year period beginning Jan. 1, 2020 “by acclamation”--that is, it was “elected” without a recorded vote--as it was the only candidate put forward by the Asia group….

  After China’s PFII delegate complained about the participation of a “terrorist,” Nemroff spoke in support of Isa.   “The fact that he is critical of China’s policy does not make him a terrorist,” she said.  “If  

Dolkun Isa were a terrorist, he would not have been given access to the United Nations nor would he be granted a U.S. visa or German citizenship.”  https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/china-which-incarcerates-millions-uighurs-gets-seat-un-forum

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  AI is rapidly becoming the new best friend of dictators everywhere….Now AI increasingly means we are all Uighurs.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/05/23/chinas-alarming-ai-surveillance-muslims-should-wake-us-up/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8e0e25ff3370

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12-19-18    Speaking to FRANCE 24, the head of the World Uighur Congress denounced the "physical and mental torture" and "brainwashing" endured by Uighurs in the camps, brushing aside the Chinese government’s claim that these are aimed at fighting terrorism and providing training to the local population.  Dolkun Isa claimed the camps were instead part of a policy of "ethnic cleansing" and that the terrorist accusations by the government against him and other Uighurs were trumped up in order to quell dissent.     https://www.france24.com/en/20181219-interview-dolkun-isa-world-uyghur-congress-china-reeducation-camps-uighurs-muslims

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10-11-18     Isa remembers hearing of Uyghur intellectuals being jailed by the thousands, and China preventing Uyghur cultural texts from being published.  Imams, as local figureheads whose religious beliefs stood against Mao’s secular project, were publicly humiliated.  A paramilitary student group who called themselves Red Guards burned Qurans and vandalized mosques throughout Xinjiang.  “During the 10 years [of the Cultural] Revolution time all the religious freedom and all the Uyghur language writings [were] forbidden,” Isa says.   

-Red Guards in China (AFP/FILE)

  After the Revolution subsided in 1976, Uyghurs were targeted less but still faced residual pressures to assimilate into a mainstream Chinese identity.  They reforged parts of their culture that were effectively outlawed:  namely being able to practice their faith and speak their language….Members of his student union would spend the summer and winter breaks in between their university courses to teach Uyghurs how to read and write.  This was stopped by China in 1988.  https://www.albawaba.com/news/chinas-war-islam-dolkun-isa-escaped-xinjiang-and-interpol-defend-uyghur-existence-1198398

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