A noted British journalist, Nick Cohen has questioned the silence of Muslim nations over China’s continuous atrocities carried out against Uyghur Muslims, saying that these nations only use the idea of Muslim solidarity when it suits them.
“The main reason why Muslims suffer in silence is that the Muslim-majority countries that raged against Rushdie, Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo have decided to stay silent. They use the idea of Muslim solidarity only when it suits them,” Cohen said.
“In July 2019, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and other Muslim-majority states that pose as defenders of the faith helped to block a western motion at the United Nations calling for China to allow ‘independent international observers’ into the Xinjiang region”, he said.
“Iran issues occasional criticisms but wants Chinese support in its struggle against the Trump administration and so keeps its complaints coded. Their hypocrisy is almost funny, if you take your humour black. Iran, Egypt, Syria and dozens of other countries that could not tolerate a magical realist novel can live with the mass sterilization of Muslim women. They will give concentration camps a conniving wink of approval, but draw the line at cartoons in a Danish newspaper,” he added.
The 2019 family planning budget of Hotan, the capital city of a prefecture with a population of 2.53 million in in southern Xinjiang, China had two defined targets: (i) target population for intrauterine contraception device placement 524 people, (ii) target population for sterilizations 14,872 people.
The neighboring county of Guma, set a similarly precise “performance target” figure of 5,970 intrauterine contraception device (IUD) placements and 8,064 female sterilizations for that year. These two counties, predominantly home to members of the Uighur ethnic minority, planned to sterilize approximately 14 and 34 percent of women between 18 and 49—in a single year. Per capita, that represents more sterilizations than China performed in the 20 years between 1998 and 2018 combined.
Cohen said that China is now a more active and influential voice at the United Nations because so many countries are benefiting from billions of dollars in Chinese investments through its “Belt and Road” infrastructure programme.
“As Norway found in 2010, and Australia found this year when it asked for an international inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, those who blaspheme against China face cyber-attacks and sanctions. Better to take the rewards and avoid the punishments,” he said.
Criticizing China, he said: “The Chinese world order appeals to the freemasonry of publicity-shy sadists. You say nothing about what we do to our subject people and we will say nothing about what you do to yours.”
“China is now turning criticism of its disastrous record on incubating the Covid-19 virus and its atrocities against its Muslim minorities into crimes, and the people who should be shouting the loudest are bowing their heads in reverential silence,” he added.
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