Pakistan’s Criminal Silence On Persecution Of Uyghurs – OpEd

Following his meeting with China’s ambassador to Yao Jing in September 2018, there were reports in the media that Pakistan’s minister for religious affairs Noorul Haq Qadri had requested Beijing to ease restrictions on the Uyghur Muslims living in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region [XAR]. In its news report, Pakistani daily The Nation had mentioned that during this meeting, Qadri had told the Chinese envoy that imposing strict regulations and laws on Uyghur Muslims would fuel, rather than counter extremism and hence, China should exercise patience to promote religious harmony.

Coming in wake of the UN’s Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination which revealed that “members of the Xinjiang Uyghur minority, along with others who were identified as Muslim, were being treated as enemies of the State based on nothing more than their ethno-religious identity,” the concerns expressed by Pakistan’s minister for religious affairs were but natural. However, while speaking to Arab News, Qadri claimed that “this [Uyghur] issue was never discussed” and stated that his meeting with the Chinese envoy was in connection with an exchange programme for Muslim scholars from both countries.

This outright denial coupled with a puerile excuse comes as no big surprise as Islamabad has all along been complicit in furthering Beijing’s pogrom against Uyghur Muslims, and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s admission in 2021 that “Because of our extreme proximity and relationship with China, we actually accept the Chinese version [ on the Uyghur issue],” leaves nothing to imagination.

A joint report titled 'Nets Cast from the Earth to the Sky' published in 2022 by the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs confirms the same. It mentions that “According to data we collected, Pakistan has been actively collaborating with Chinese security services to arrest, detain, and extradite Uyghur citizens and asylum applicants to placate its powerful neighbor since 1997.” 

Similarly, noting that “Pakistan endorsed all the acts of human rights violation by China even as 243 global groups called for action against China over human rights violations on the eve of the [2022] Winter Olympics, Valerio Fabbri in his piece titled ‘China arm-twists Pakistan into endorsing human rights violation of Uyghur Muslims,’ aptly opines that “China’s all-weather ally Pakistan has, however, given a decent burial to its own Muslim identity to support Beijing in the Uyghur issue.” 

In his March 2019 interview with Financial Times, when asked to comment on religious persecution of Uyghur Muslims in XAR, while Pakistan’s then Prime Minister Imran Khan feigned ignorance by saying, "Frankly, I don't know much about that.” However, his rejoinder that “it is not so much in the newspapers" was a big lie as the vernacular media was flooded with reports on the ill-treatment of Uyghurs by Beijing at that time.

During 2018-19, the issue of Muslim Uyghur wives of Pakistani nationals being incarcerated in China grabbed headlines in Pakistan. This was followed by numerous disturbing reports detailing systematic persecution of Uyghur Muslims that appeared in local news publications like Al Burhan, Ishraq, Ahl-e-Hadith, Mohaddis, Tarjuman ul Quran, Al Aitisam and Uswah Hasana. So, how could Khan [or for that matter any Pakistani lawmaker] be ignorant about the Uyghur issue?

In her article captioned‘Muslim Uighur wives of Pakistani men locked away, forgotten’ Kathy Gannon notes that “Pakistanis often rally loudly in defence of Islam and Muslims whenever they are perceived [to be] offended around the world…But political and economic factors, including concerns about losing out on vast Chinese investments, have kept Pakistan and other Muslim countries silent about the plight in China of fellow Muslims, the Uyghurs.”

The irony is that when Pakistan introduced the resolution for observing “international day to combat Islamophobia” on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation [OIC], China was one of the co-sponsors.  So, while Pakistan’s de facto ruler Field Marshal Asim Munir may keep asserting that Pakistan has been specifically chosen by God to safeguard Islam’s Holy Mosques, how can Islamabad discharge this onerous task when it can’t even fulfill its obligatory duty towards the umma [the whole community of Muslims bound together by ties of religion] by standing up for the persecuted Uyghurs?

Stating that "like many other countries, Pakistan too has a spotty human rights record,” Dawn in its November 2020 editorial raised a very pertinent issue by asking “when it [Islamabad] can speak out against the human rights violations of the Kashmiris and the Rohingya, can it stay silent about the Uyghurs?" As the one who’s practically running the country, can Field Marshal Munir draw upon his comprehensive knowledge of Islam to explain why Pakistan has abandoned the hapless Uyghur Muslims to their fate?