The Israel-Palestine conflict has revealed that when it arrives in Pakistan and Turkey, their assistance for Muslim matters is particular, opportunistic, and in the end, based on cynical geopolitical estimates. Both nations are attempting to champion Palestinian rights an effort which was obvious in plain vision during the latest round of the fight between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas, which is limited to Gaza.
But provided their embrace of China, the influence of the two nations continues to firm, unable to offend Beijing, notwithstanding the violation of human rights on an industrial order of the Uyghur Muslim community in Xinjiang. Some nations have marked the mass confinement of the Uyghurs by China as genocide. Pakistan’s double measures on nursing Islamic problems were on public appearance when Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi traveled to Turkey on a two-day visit and then to New York to examine the Palestine matter and the rights of the Muslims in Israel. On his Europe to US flight, he was co-occurred by the foreign ministers of Turkey, Palestine, and Sudan to give a collective call to the suppression of the Muslims.
In New York, when asked by CNN as to why Pakistan was not proposing the subject of ‘genocide’ of Uyghurs in China, the Pakistan foreign minister botched to reply to the question. All that Qureshi could manage was: “… You know China is a very good friend of Pakistan. They have stood by us through thick and thin. And we have means of communication. We use our diplomatic channels. We do not discuss everything in public”.
To Qureshi’s disappointment, the CNN journalist endured resolutely and asked again: “… But you can’t just turn a blind eye to human rights abuses in one country. Are there discussions behind the scenes by your Prime Minister Khan?” A re-faced Qureshi could only say: “Ma’am, there’s always a way of doing things. And we are not oblivious of our responsibilities.” The Pakistan foreign minister made it obvious that he could not talk against a strong autocratic nation like China even if it was in the thick of taking out a ‘genocide’ of Muslim confreres.
This bigotry is not confined to Pakistan alone. Turkey—the other competitor to global Muslim leadership—journeys in the same boat. What is more serious is that both the nations have rather helped China in a crackdown upon the fugitive Uyghurs. Over the last many years, the two Muslim nations have baited and exiled Uyghurs back to China. It is not difficult to imagine what destiny expects the deported Uyghur men and women in China.
Recently, Human Rights Watch in a 53-page report stated that China has arrested up to a million Muslim people in its western area as it takes on a drive of oppression against the minority. The report says: ” As many as a million people have been arbitrarily detained in 300 to 400 facilities, which include “political education” camps, pretrial detention centers, and prisons. Courts have handed down harsh prison sentences without due process, sentencing Turkic Muslims to years in prison merely for sending an Islamic religious recording to a family member or downloading e-books in Uyghur.”
Impelled by the pretentious nature of the Islamic countries, China is investigating an extradition deal with Turkey. Expectedly, this has thrown a shiver among the Uyghur community that has left for Turkey. Media reports recommend that Turkey has agreed to exile Uyghur Muslims in return for covid-19 vaccines. Dilxat Raxit, a representative for the World Uyghur Congress, told AFP earlier this year: “This extradition treaty will cause worry among Uighurs who have fled China and do not yet have Turkish citizenship.” While Turkey has dismissed these charges, it is under continuous stress from Beijing about exiling Uyghurs who endured to escape. Over the years it has been sending back the activists that China requires.
In another example, Uyghur women activists made accusations of abuse, torture, and enforced sterilization against China on this International Women’s Day. They also claimed that Uyghur and Turkic women are forced to wed ethnic Han men. Such severe charges against the abuse of the ethnic minority did not elicit censure from the Islamic world. This unusual attitude of watching the other way over Uyghur rights is now being reviewed by the international media. After a new report came out on the human rights infringement of the Uyghur community, The Washington Post asked, ‘Why do some Muslim-majority countries support China’s crackdown on Muslims?’
Uyghurs—this is one Muslim problem on which both Pakistan and Turkey decrease their high-volume global views even as they bring on a campaign for the rights of Muslims in other nations. It is necessary to take up these two nations because Pakistan administers a land connection with Xinjiang—the motherland of the exiled community in China while Turkey receives the largest Uyghur community with which it shares a common ethnicity. Like Turkey, Pakistan has been helping China in its human rights violations of the Uyghurs. It too transfers the escaped Uyghurs back to the Communist administration. With a massive 62 billion dollar project under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Pakistan is one of the several all-weather friends of China. Even when asked on international platforms about the dilemma of the Uyghurs, the Pakistani government has finished up praising their approach at the hands of China.
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While Pakistan has been loud over putting problems like the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet in the French media and other heeded insults or violations of rights of the Muslim community in other nations, it has not revealed the same determination against China on behalf of the Muslim Uyghurs. It is not just hypocrisy at play. The answer lies in both—the power of anxiety and the bait of money that holds self-appointed leaders of the Muslim nation like Pakistan and Turkey snug up to China. Both have created the protection of Islam as a convenient weapon, which they unleash or keep wrapped as they wish to. The liberal and democratic countries are however a convenient and soft target.
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