uyghur
Cornell students from China jeer, walk out on Uyghur student who asked lawmaker about Uyghur genocide
- A group of international Chinese students from Cornell University allegedly booed Rizwangul NurMuhammad, an Uyghur student and Fulbright scholar, during a public service career talk last week.
- NurMuhammad asked guest speaker Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) about why the U.S. and the international community have spoken up against Russia for invading Ukraine yet remain quiet on the issue of the alleged genocide of the Uyghurs in China.
- As Slotkin tried responding to NurMuhammad’s question, the Chinese students reportedly walked out.
- Around 88 students signed an email that was sent to Cornell Institute of Public Affairs faculty members the following day, explaining that the walkout was due to the “extremely hostile” environment the talk’s Chinese attendees were put in. “At that moment, we were not sitting in a classroom; we were crucified in a courtroom for crimes that we did not commit,” they wrote.
- In a faculty-wide email, Cornell Institute for Public Affairs Director Professor Matt Hall said the discussion of the atrocities against the “Uyghur people are valuable points of discussion and critical to promoting open dialogue. At the same time, we must also respect that walkouts are a legitimate form of protest and an appropriate expression of disapproval.”
A group of international Chinese students from Cornell University staged a walkout and allegedly booed an Uyghur student during a public service career talk last week.
The walkout occurred after Fulbright scholar Rizwangul NurMuhammad spoke during the question-and-answer portion of a talk that was part of a weekly speaker series for the students of Cornell University’s Master in Public Administration program on Thursday.
Why Nike and Adidas no longer dominate in China
- Nike and Adidas used to top China’s sneaker market but quickly ceased to dominate following the Xinjiang cotton controversy in early 2021.
- Both brands have released statements denouncing forced labor and maintaining that they have no connections to the region facing such allegations.
- Local Chinese brands Li Ning and Anta, which have offered support to Xinjiang cotton production, now dominate the country’s sneaker market.
Chinese consumers are no longer patronizing Nike and Adidas like they used to, a trend that is purportedly driven by nationalistic rejection of forced labor accusations against the country.
The insight comes from a new analysis by Bloomberg, which pointed to the Xinjiang cotton crisis in early 2021 as a “watershed moment.”
China denies using Uyghur torchbearer to deflect alleged abuses, says accusations part of ‘smear campaign’
- Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a 20-year-old cross-country skier from Xinjiang, was chosen to light the Olympic cauldron on Friday night.
- After finishing 43rd in her event, the Olympic debutant was barely referred to by Chinese media.
- U.S. envoy to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Yilamujiang’s selection as a torchbearer served as a distraction from abuses against her Uyghur community.
- Chinese ambassador Zhang Jun fired back at the accusation, saying Yilamujiang was chosen, simply because she was a pride of the country.
China is sternly refuting a U.S. allegation that it chose an Uyghur torchbearer for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics to “distract” the public from human rights abuses against the ethnic minority.
Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a 20-year-old cross-country skier from Xinjiang, was chosen as one of the last two torchbearers to light the Olympic cauldron on Friday night. Beside her was Heilongjiang-born Zhao Jiawen, who competes in Nordic combined.
France officially recognizes China’s treatment of Uyghurs as ‘genocide’ in parliamentary resolution
- On Tuesday, France adopted an opposition-led resolution condemning China’s treatment of Uyghurs as “genocide.”
- “We refuse to submit to propaganda from a regime that is banking on our cowardice and our avarice to perpetrate a genocide in plain sight," said Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure.
- The Chinese embassy in France released a statement saying the “genocide” allegations are “pure lies based on prejudices and hostility towards China.”
French lawmakers have condemned the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur people with an official resolution calling it a “genocide.”
On Tuesday, France’s National Assembly adopted the non-binding resolution that “officially recognizes the violence perpetrated by the People’s Republic of China against the Uyghurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide,” reported Agence France-Presse.
Chinese government ‘committed genocide’ against Uyghurs, independent tribunal rules
China has committed genocide — among other crimes against humanity — against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, an independent tribunal in London ruled on Thursday.
About the tribunal: Sir Geoffrey Nice, a British barrister and international human rights lawyer, founded the Uyghur Tribunal in 2020 at the request of Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress, to hold China accountable for its alleged crimes. The group, established with the help of the Coalition for Genocide Response, currently consists of lawyers, academics and businesspeople, according to The Guardian.
US House pass bill banning goods from China’s Xinjiang region over Uyghur oppression with 428-1 vote
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that aims to penalize the Chinese government over its alleged oppression of the Uyghur people.
Unanimous support: Having recently received an overwhelmingly bipartisan 428-1 vote in Congress, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is the latest step the U.S. has taken against China following the White House’s recently announced boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Indian American Journalist Wins Pulitzer for Exposing China’s Uyghur Detention Camps
Indian American journalist Megha Rajagopalan won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize on Friday for her coverage of China’s detention camps in Xinjiang.
The recognition: Rajagopalan won the award for International Reporting with Alison Killing and Christo Buschek for BuzzFeed News, the first for the website since its founding in 2012.
Pro-Uyghur Protesters Called Racists at Stop Asian Hate Rally in Washington D.C.
Protesters denouncing the plight of China’s Uyghur population clashed with marchers condemning the rise of anti-Asian violence in McPherson Square, Washington, D.C., on Sunday afternoon.
The moment was caught in a series of videos that have now gone viral on Twitter, drawing mixed reactions from social media users.
TikTok Admits it Censored Content That Criticized China in the Past
TikTok admitted that it had censored content critical of China in its “early days.”
The admission came from Elizabeth Kanter, TikTok’s U.K. director of government relations and public policy, who assured the British parliament in a hearing last Thursday that they had ceased the practice “for at least over a year.”
‘Mulan’ Sparks More Outrage for Thanking Chinese Groups Linked to Uyghur Detention Camps in Credits
Calls to boycott “Mulan” have grown louder this week as people discovered that Disney had filmed the live-action remake in China’s Xinjiang autonomous region, where over a million Uyghurs are believed to have been detained.
The discovery emerged in the film’s final credits, which thanked government entities such as the publicity department of CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Committee and the public security bureau in Turpan (a prefecture-level city southeast of Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital).
Uyghur Model Allegedly Goes From Making $1,440 a Day to Being Chained to a Bed in Chinese ‘Reeducation Camp’
An Uyghur man managed to share a glimpse of his condition in one of China’s “reeducation camps” to the outside world, supporting countless alleged stories that point to the oppression, persecution and incarceration of his people.
Merdan Ghappar, 31, a native of Xinjiang, used to work as a model in the southern Chinese city of Foshan — a job that reportedly earned him up to 10,000 yuan (about $1,440) a day.
Activists Call Out ‘Virtually the Entire Apparel Industry’ for Ties to Uyghur Forced Labor Camps in China
A coalition of over 180 rights groups has tagged numerous international brands for their participation in the exploitation of the Uyghur Muslim minority serving in labor camp factories in China.
Forced labor: In a letter published on Thursday, the coalition End Uyghur Forced Labour condemned major labels for allegedly sourcing their products from Xinjiang, where many ethnic minority groups, including the Turkic Uyghur people, are detained in labor camps, reports The Guardian.
