Staff: Tokyo: Jerusalem has indicated it intends to adopt a new approach to China’s continued oppression and genocide of its Uyghur minority.
By signing a condemnation of Chinese policy at the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this week, the Israeli government joined over 40 other nations in signing the multilateral statement.
Notably, however, the statement was devoid of the term ‘genocide‘ in reference to Chinese concentration camps and reports of systemic oppression including forced sterilization of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in north west China.
China had previously backed condemnation of Israel’s recent actions in the Gaza Strip, and state backed media in Beijing has made a claim that rich Jews have undue influence in American media and financial circles.
The statement read in part “(W)e are gravely concerned about the human rights situation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Credible reports indicate that over a million people have been arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang, and that there is widespread surveillance disproportionately targeting Uyghurs and members of other minorities, and restrictions on fundamental freedoms and Uyghur culture. There are also reports of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, forced sterilization, sexual and gender-based violence, and forced separation of children from their parents by authorities” when read out by Canadian Ambassador in Geneva Leslie Norton.
Ambassador Norton went to refer to those nations signing as “shar(ing) the concerns expressed by UN special procedures in their March 29 statement on alleged detention, forced labor and transfers of Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities and in a letter published by UN experts describing collective repression of religious and ethnic minorities” also referring to the “deterioration of fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong under the National Security Law and about the human rights situation in Tibet” adding “(W)e call on Chinese authorities to abide by their human rights obligations.”
The full list of signatories includes: Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Nauru, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Ukraine.
East Asia Gazette 