Louise Pyne-Jones on Uyghur Muslims

Louise Pyne-Jones on Uyghur Muslims

IOHR Focuses on What to do

to change the perspectives

Dr. Mozammel Haque

The Cordoba Foundation organised a conference entitled “China’s Brute Crackdown and Mass Incarceration of Uyghur Muslims” was held at London Muslim Centre, London, on Wednesday, 13^th of February, 2019. The conference was inaugurated by Dr Anas Altikriti, the CEO and Founder of The Cordoba Foundation, President of the Muslim Association of Britain, and a leading figure in the Anti-War Movement.

The Cordoba Foundation’s CEO Dr. Anas Altikriti invited Louise Pyne-Jones, The Head of Research, of the International Observatory of Human Rights to deliver her speech.. Louise Pyne-Jones’s academic work focuses on religious and colonial ideologies. She is a contributor to The First World War and Its Aftermath, the Shaping of the Middle East.

Louise Pyne-Jones

Louise Pyne-Jones was asked to focus on what to do under the present situation. The Head of Research of The Observatory of Human Rights (IOHR) before starting about the Uyghur Situation in Xinjiang, Pyne-Jones introduced about IOHR. She said, “The work of IOHR is valuable in that we take issues such as the plight of the Uyghurs and bring it to an audience that may not have heard about it.”

She argued, “I think this is important because a number of human rights violations go untouched in the mainstream media, which many rely on as a source of knowledge. At IOHR we are working to create awareness of human rights violations through a multimedia platform that we have developed, that includes a web TV channel, and a mobile app, to create awareness about issues such as this.”

History comes to the present

Like myself who give much importance to history which enables us to take the right course, Pyne-Jones begins going back to the history of the present circumstances of Xinjiang. She said, “As someone who loves history, I am always looking at the connections of the past to the present, and sadly it often seems that mistakes of the past were made but have not been learnt from at all. The current persecution of the Uyghur people is a clear example of how humanity has not learnt from its past. It almost seems as though some governments or authorities want to replicate great tragedies of the past, even down to the techniques used to rid this community of its cultural identity.”

Cultural genocide?

“What is happening to the Uyghurs has been referred to as cultural genocide; I want to take a moment to look a little more clearly at what that means and how we define it. Cultural genocide is considered a component of genocide, and is a strategy used by authorities to destroy cultural heritage.

So, in an age where the Uyghurs, and many other communities across the globe, are facing cultural genocide face wiping out of identities in a time when certain identities seem to be taking over. This is usually done through forced assimilation, dispossession of land and destruction of buildings, artefacts or symbols meaningful to that group or that symbolise an essential part of their cultural heritage. In the case of the Uyghurs many examples have been given about forced assimilation, the destruction of mosques and artefacts.”

“China’s response so far has been to claim that these violations are in the name of ‘clamping down on terrorism’. Chinese media Global Times reports that, ‘the facilities are useful for anti-terrorism and counter-extremism efforts.’ They say that ‘Those held at the training centres had been brainwashed by extremism or committed misdemeanours,’ mentioned by Pyne-Jones and added, “Labelling any group or individual as terrorist gives authorities a premise for repressing freedoms.”

What can we do to change perspectives on this?

Pyne-Jones raised the question: what can we do to change perspectives on this and immediately added, “I do not purport to have the solution for this phenomenon, but I think it does start with dialogue, engagement and knowledge-sharing at the community level, such as at events like this, so we can then debate at a wider international and national level through the media and NGOs such as ours.”

Campaigning and advocating for change

Pyne-Jones mentioned what she was doing at the Observatory of Human Rights (IOHR). She mentioned, “At IOHR we are calling on the Chinese authorities to:

“* Close the internment “Re-Education” camps and immediately release all those held in arbitrary detention.

“* Reveal the names, whereabouts and current status of all those who have been subjected to enforced disappearance in China.

“* Cease policies of forced cultural assimilation and social re-engineering, known as “Cultural Genocide”, focused on the Uyghurs, Tibetans, Southern Mongolians and other groups.

“* Allow access for independent investigators to visit and monitor the region.”

Pyne-Jones, the Head of Research of IOHR also mentioned, “We are currently working with MPs to raise these issues in parliament and ensure they are subsequently addressed by the Chinese authorities. We would like to invite you to join us in our call to stop the indiscriminate human rights violations carried out by China on the Uyghur people.”