Features of Human Rights: The Uighurs

 John Mazziotti

Mr. Zhou - Mr. Roddy

GPHC

September 29th, 2020

Features of Human Rights: The Uighurs


The Uighurs are a Turkic-Muslim ethnic minority group who live in the XinJiang province in north-western China. Their population is about eleven million people. In the last few years, the Chinese government has oppressed them severely into labor camps and re-education camps(BBC). The estimated number of people that are now being held in these camps is approximately one million people. Even though China did sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR), they have violated a significant amount of them with the Uighurs. They are being unlawfully detained, put into camps, and even have had their religious activities and gatherings halted. 

In this situation, we can see that the term ‘Universal’ Human Rights are not being upheld in the slightest. Since China is currently undermining their rights completely, and since there are no rights that are dependent on other rights, the term ‘Interdependent’ human rights is not applicable to their circumstances. Since China has seemingly taken away the Uighurs' human rights, ‘Indivisible’ human rights is also not applicable. We can see that ‘Inalienable’ human rights is a prominent factor when talking about the Uighurs. They are, essentially, alienating the Uighurs and stripping them of their human rights completely. It is very disturbing to see how only two out of four key principles of human rights can effectively be applied to the Uighurs and their situation with China. 

There is one straightforward article of the UDHR that we can see in this example that is violated, article two. Article two states that, “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.(UDHR)”, and additionally that, “Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.(UDHR)”. This article mentions that the Uighers can not have their right to freedom of religion violated, as well having their race discriminated against. It also states that their Autonomous and native territory cannot be undermined by the Chinese government. 


“The Uighurs and the Chinese State: A Long History of Discord.” BBC News, BBC, 20 July 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037


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