The German foreign minister called upon the United Nations to release the report on the situation of the Uyghur Muslim minorities in China.
On Thursday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged the United Nations human rights office to release the report it developed over the situation of Uyghur Muslims in China. In a video speech to the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Baerbock argued that the global agency needs "more transparency."
"We encourage the High Commissioner (for Human Rights) to publish your report on the detention of members of the Muslim Uyghur community - and we call on Beijing to allow unfettered access," Baerbock said during the speech, as reported by Newsmax.
For months now, diplomats in Geneva said that the Uyghur report that details their plight under the Chinese communist regime in China's western Xinjiang province has been close to completion. But U.N. right chief Michelle Bachelet's office has confirmed that there were delays in developing the report.
Meanwhile, China continues to crackdown on Uyghur Muslims and those who campaign for them. According to The Print, the Chinese order has ordered the closure of up to 160 organizations dedicated to researching traditional Uyghur culture and teaching foreign languages in line with the communist regime's campaign to erase the Uyghur culture.
"This policy of elimination the Chinese government is carrying out - or, in its own words, this 'war on terror - is a war against the Uyghurs," Kasimjan Abdurehim, who founded the Atlan Vocational Training School of Uyghurs, told Radio Free Asia.
Abdurehim argued, "This is proof. We can see the cancellation, the elimination, of these Uyghur-run schools and organizations on the list as one small piece of evidence that the policies of the Chinese government continue to operate at ever-new highs."
Abdurehim now lives in the U.S. and is highlighting how many in the list of "canceled" social organizations, research centers, and schools were founded by Uyghurs. He added that the communist state's crackdown on Uyghur cultural institutions began about four years ago.
On February 22, the Civil Affairs Bureau of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) issued a "notice of revocation of registration certificates and seals of the legal representatives of social organizations," Chinese media reports on the websites of teh Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and the Urumqi municipal government said.
Abdurehim explained that the order on the closure of Uyghur organizations proves that the new Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Ma Xingrui will mimic previous Chinese leaders in the region who have pushed to repress the Uyghurs. Chinese authorities have already shut down a vocational school registered in 2013, as well as the Atlan Language School, registered in 2006, Kasimjan said.
The Atlantan School taught foreign languages and computer programming to Uyghur students and had branches in several prefectures in Xinjiang. It catered to up to 100,000 students between 2006 to 2017.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government is also targeting the Uyghurs' cultural relics, including the Uyghur muqam, described as "a musical mode and set of melodic formulas that guide improvisation and composition in Uyghur music." The communist state also wants to crack down on other repertoires in countries across Europe.
The European Uyghur Ensemble, which has performed Uyghur muqam, decried the shut down of the Muqam Research Society and described it as "one piece of clear evidence of the ongoing elimination of Uyghur culture."
