China Rebukes Canada and Other Diplomats for Letter on Muslim Rights

Canada reportedly spearheaded a letter initiative

expressing concern about Uighur camps

The Associated Press 

John McCallum, Canada's ambassador to China, right, sits next to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a bilateral meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Singapore on Wednesday. (Adrian Wyld.The Canadian Press)

China said Thursday that 15 foreign ambassadors, including the envoy from Canada, exceeded their diplomatic roles by issuing a letter expressing concern about the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of members of the country's Muslim minorities in re-education camps.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters at a daily briefing that it would be "problematic" if the diplomats were attempting to put pressure on local authorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where the detentions have taken place.

Hua said the letter violated the terms of the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations, and that the ambassadors should not "interfere in the internal affairs of other countries."

"As ambassadors, they are supposed to play positive roles in promoting mutual understanding, mutual trust and co-operation ... rather than making unreasonable requests to the countries where they are based," Hua said.

She said the letter issued this week and reportedly spearheaded by Canada's ambassador, John McCallum, was based on hearsay, despite widely distributed reports from detainees, relatives and officials documenting the sweeping and seemingly arbitrary detentions.

Inmates and relatives say the camps impose military-style discipline and punishments and force detainees to renounce their religion and culture while swearing fealty to President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party.

Trudeau raised concerns with China's premier 

Asked about the letter, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had "highlighted the questions and concerns that we have" surrounding the issue in his bilateral meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on the sidelines of the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore.

"Canada will continue to look for ways to advance and promote human rights in partnership with our like-minded allies everywhere around the world," Trudeau said at a news conference Thursday.

Meanwhile, his efforts to promote a trade deal with China are not being served by his efforts to be the saviour of the world. One can certainly agree on efforts to advance human rights, but stepping on the little toe of a giant may not be the best way to get their attention. 

China's efforts to curb Islamism in its western provinces are somewhat like Myanmar's efforts to curb Islam in its most western state. Islam is a threat to Communism as it is a threat to Buddhism. Cruelty and barbaric responses are certainly not the best way to respond to that threat, but may be the only way China and Myanmar can think of.

In Europe, Islam is not yet recognized as a threat. It's just a matter of time before it is, but at the rate some countries are going, it will probably be too late to avoid violence when that threat is finally realized. European governments and media that hide the evils already being performed by Muslims in their midst, are just making sure that violence will be the only solution, unless Europeans want their granddaughters wearing burqas and being married at 9.

The letter to the Chinese government has not been made public, but Reuters said it was signed by 15 Western ambassadors, including the Canadian, British, French, Swiss, European Union, German, and Australian envoys.

Diplomats from the countries named in the report either did not reply to requests for confirmation or said they had no comment.

Hua's comments came as a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is bringing a measure to urge President Donald Trump to help Chinese Muslims respond to the crackdown.

A man takes part in a demonstration against China during its Universal Periodic Review by the Human Rights Council in front of the UN's office on Nov. 6. The protest drew some 1,000 Tibetan and Uighurs. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

The legislation would urge Trump to condemn "gross violations" of human rights in Xinjiang, where the UN estimates that as many as one million Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities are being held in arbitrary detention.

It would also support an existing push for sanctions against Xinjiang Communist Party chief Chen Quanguo and other officials under the Magnitsky Act, which prevents foreign officials from entering the U.S. and freezes any assets they have in U.S. banks.

Other sanctions raised for consideration by the act include a ban on sales of U.S.-made goods or services to Xinjiang state agents such as those that could be used for surveillance and suppression.

Xinjiang Province, China

'Behaviour correction'

Chinese authorities have denied that the internment camps exist, but say petty criminals are sent to "employment training centres." The Xinjiang government has revised regulations to officially permit the use of "education and training centres" to reform "people influenced by extremism."

The rules direct the centres to teach the Mandarin language, occupational and legal education, as well as "ideological education, psychological rehabilitation and behaviour correction."

Xinjiang's native Uighur and Kazakh ethnic groups are culturally, religiously and linguistically distinct from China's Han majority, and the region has been home to a low-intensity rebellion against rule from Beijing. Many of the region's natives say their culture is under threat from Chinese policies aiming to assimilate them and that they face disadvantages in education and employment from Han migrants from other parts of China.

Members of the Muslim Hui ethnic group — culturally and linguistically closer to the Han — have also been ensnared in the campaign that has drawn comparisons to Mao Zedong's radical 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

Also on Thursday, China's cabinet released a report titled "Protection and Development of Xinjiang Culture" that stressed the importance of adopting Mandarin Chinese among ethnic groups and referred to their Islamic faith as "religious culture."

"Xinjiang adheres to the historical tradition of the Sinosization of religion and actively adapts religion to socialist society," the report said.

China Punishes 97 Officers for Failing to Crack Down on Muslims

By Elizabeth Shim 

Officers in China’s police force are being told to step up scrutiny of the Uighur Muslim population

in the northwest territory of Xinjiang. File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo

UPI -- Police in China's northwest territory of Xinjiang are being penalized for not following orders to monitor the region's Muslim population.

A total of 97 officers in Xinjiang were recently punished for not doing their job, the South China Morning Post reported on Friday.

The cadres in an oasis town in southern Xinjiang, including seven village policemen, were disciplined for not properly spying on locals.

Officers who did not register the precise number of Muslims at congregational prayers or did not know the identities of those who were absent from patriotic gatherings, like weekly flag-raising ceremonies, were penalized, according to the report.

The announcement of disciplinary measures is rare, but is providing insight into how the state maintains what are at times harsh policies against the 2 million Uighur Muslims in the territory.

The group has come under stricter scrutiny since a knife attack in February killed eight people, and a bomb blast in December led to five deaths.

Village police are also implementing forceful measures or blackmailing villagers as crackdowns take place at a local level.

Authorities who are resorting to bullying methods are being punished, according to the state announcement.

Mosques in the region are being required to install surveillance cameras and lax enforcement of the latest rules was raised as an issue by the state, according to the Post.

China Bans ‘Abnormal’ Beards & Veils to Curb Extremism in Muslim Region

Uighur people are moderate Sunnis but are becoming more and more like Salafists

Allowed to run its course, it would most likely result, eventually, in Sharia

This is a natural progression in most Islamic states

Uighur women wearing face veils walk on a street in Urumqi © Stringer / Reuters

Chinese authorities have imposed a ban on “abnormal” facial hair and veils in public places in the country's predominantly Muslim Xinjiang province in an effort to curb extremism and radicalization in the volatile area bordering Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

The initiative has been prompted in part by the deaths of hundreds of people over the past years in Xinjiang where government security forces regularly clashed with Islamist militants and faced unrest among the Muslim Uighur people driven by separatist sentiments.

Critics claim the armed clashes and terrorist attacks was a response to the crackdown on the Muslim population carried out by Beijing. Chinese authorities however reject accusations of oppression, emphasizing that Uighur people and their rights are under protection.

The new rules are to be enforced from Saturday, local authorities said on their website, and would ban spreading “extremist ideas,” marrying in accordance to religious rites and “using the name of Halal to meddle in the secular life of others.”

“Parents should use good moral conduct to influence their children, educate them to revere science, pursue culture, uphold ethnic unity and refuse and oppose extremism,” the statement says, according to DW.

Certain baby names have also fallen from grace, with authorities banning the “naming of children to exaggerate religious fervor.” Parents will also be prohibited to homeschool their children.

It will also be an offense to “refuse or reject” watching state television or radio, although it’s not clear how authorities are planning to enforce this regulation.

The Uighur people – the dominant Muslim minority in Xinjiang –mostly practice a moderate form of Sunni Islam. However, in recent years many have begun taking up practices more commonly followed in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, such as making women wear a full face veil, seen by some as a sign of opposition towards the central government.

Some of the separatist Uighur militant group who are striving for an independent East Turkestan in the northwestern China are considered terrorist not only by Beijing. The so-called East Turkestan Islamic Movement, now known as the Turkistan Islamic Party, has been listed as a terrorist group by the UN.

Earlier in March, at the annual meeting of China's parliament, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Xinjiang needs a “great wall of iron” that would protect the region.