Brussels, 30/04/2010 (Agence Europe) - Italian MEP Niccolò Rinaldi (ALDE) organised a conference at the European Parliament on Thursday 29 and Friday 30 April 2010 on protection of the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority community living in eastern Turkestan in Western China. The conference aimed to support the Uyghurs and raise awareness of their plight. Rinaldi said his role was to keep the issue alive for public opinion with resolutions and appropriate measures to ensure people take notice. The 8.5 million Uyghurs have been oppressed by the Chinese government for more than 60 years. The government is trying to suppress their identity, forcing young Uyghur women to leave the region and work in factories elsewhere in the country, and destroying Uyghur cultural heritage by enforcing a strict Chinese language policy, discrimination and restricting the freedom of religion. The repression of a Uyghur demonstration on 5 June 2009 led to the deaths of some 140 people, some 800 people being injured and hundreds of arrests.
Rebiya Kadeer, President of the World Uyghur Congress, twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, is calling for genuine dialogue with the Chinese government and respect of the Chinese constitution to protect the rights of the Uyghur people. Kadeer said the Uyghurs had always peacefully opposed the Chinese government, which had rejected their calls for negotiations. She said the Chinese government had to listen so that genuine stability could be introduced, along with unity of the territory. She called for honest and transparent debate between the Chinese authorities and the Uyghurs, based on truth and equality. This, she said, should be accompanied by similar debate with the leaders of other Chinese minorities, like the Dalai Lama. Marino Busdachin of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation said the conference provided an opportunity to call on the Chinese government, authorities and representatives to pledge to dialogue, even though it is clear that it will take a long time to reach an agreement.
MEPs and various associations are calling for human rights to be respected in China and for greater support for the Uyghurs from the international community and individual countries. Louise Coan Grave of the US association National Endowment for Democracy said that rather than a complaint, what was at stake was the Uyghurs' survival. (C-C.G /transl.fl)