Day: June 15, 2022

Muhammad Usman Asad, a 22-year-old Pakistani student at the National University of Sciences & Technology in Islamabad, donned a doppa — a Central Asian skullcap — and clutched the sky blue flag of East Turkestan during a solitary sit-in to protest China’s repressive policies against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the country’s far-western Xinjiang region. Asad staged his peaceful protest on June 10 during a campus celebration of China’s Dragon Boat Festival. Nong Rong, China’s ambassador to Pakistan, and other Chinese officials involved in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor — a collection of multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects built in Pakistan since 2013 under China’s Belt and Road Initiative — attended the event, organized by the university’s China Study Centre and Centre for International Peace and Stability. Asad, who said he learned about China’s abusive policies targeting Muslims in Xinjiang while surfing online, was shocked to learn that Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim country, was not helping the Uyghurs, but instead siding with its ally China. Reporter Gulchehra Hoja of RFA Uyghur talked to Asad about why he staged the protest on the Chinese holiday and how others responded. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

RFA: How did you learn about Uyghur situation?

Asad: When I was a child, I only knew that there was a province in China which is predominantly Muslim. I didn’t have much knowledge about the history or the culture or know anything about the genocide that is currently going on. When I started growing up, I used to spend a lot of time on the internet and reading about a lot of issues. I didn’t have enough knowledge or enough sources when I was back home, but when I lived in other cities where we had free internet service, we started using Facebook and other social media platforms like YouTube. From there, I started researching the topic. I [watched] many documentaries, and there was so much clear evidence that I couldn’t stop myself from sympathizing with the Uyghur issue or denying the fact that the genocide is currently going on. I then critiqued it within my own mind, comparing the Kashmir issue with the Uyghur issue, and I came to the conclusion that the Uyghur issue was more fundamental and more devastating and that the situation is very harmful for the Muslim community there.

RFA: Have you been in touch with any Uyghur activist groups or activists in Pakistan?

Asad: About one year ago, I came across a VICE News documentary. From that point on, I came to know about the … Uyghur community living here in Pakistan. When this event was being organized inside our university, about three or four days before, I was thinking about the university saying that there was a big billboard [for it]. So, I thought that I should do something about it in relation to protesting the Uyghur issue. I didn’t have any access to anything, so I started researching on the internet and found the Omar Uyghur Trust in Pakistan (a Uyghur language and cultural organization) and [contacted] Omar Khan (the group’s cofounder). We had a meeting just two days before the protest at the university. We discussed everything [about the issue], and he gave me the cap as well as a flag. I was preparing for my exams as I was preparing to do the protest.

RFA: Did you reach out to your friends or other students to join your protest?

Asad: I tried reaching people, but they were busy with their exams. They promised to support it, but when they got to the campus, there were fewer people present there.

RFA: Did anybody try to stop you from protesting?

Asad: When I entered the event, two people were sitting right beside me, and they were scaring off all the people I asked to take my picture. They told them that the authorities would come for them and they would be kicked out of the university. One person who took one of my pictures went out for some water, and the security team went up to him and ordered him not to sit beside me. The person did not agree with it. All they wanted to do was get all the images that I had taken during the whole event. … I said that if I just went outside the building and held this flag, it wouldn’t bother them and wouldn’t mean anything to either of them. …. [With] all the high Chinese cultural representatives here and all the different Pakistanis present, I said to myself, “OK, this will work.”

RFA: Did anything happen to you after the protest?

Asad: I haven’t received any threats either from the university or from the disciplinary committee.

RFA: Have you been in contact with any Pakistani journalists at local news organizations?

Asad: I am a student, so I don’t have connections with a lot of media persons — radio persons who are very influential. They are mostly controlled by the Pakistani establishment, so even if you go and speak to them, they will still need a green light from [officials]. Even if any of the media in Pakistan wanted to cover the issue, all the Chinese would need to do is place one call to the authority that regulates electronic media, and all the content would be taken off.

RFA: Are you now concerned about your safety or are you being pressured by authorities?

Asad: I have been following different stories of human rights activists within Pakistan, and our conditions are not very great. At the same time, I thought that the university could do something with having a disciplinary committee. I was having a lot of tension, and I was thinking again and again about how I should do the protest in such a way that my own studies and my own career [would not be affected] and that I would not get sued by the government. I thought that they would take me away for one or two weeks. That wouldn’t be a problem for me because I wasn’t doing something associated with terrorism.

RFA: Why don’t the majority of Pakistani Muslims do or say something against China’s genocide of the Uyghurs?

Asad: The main issue is a lack of information. I think much of the content is available in English. [People] will understand it if it is in American English, but if someone doesn’t understand English, then those guys just want to believe all the Chinese lies, or they just have a sense that China is our friend [and] is helping us economically. … There is a lot of content available on social media. A lot of people are supporting a cause. If the Uyghur activists in Pakistan start targeting people who have a lot of following within Pakistan, then they start speaking up about the issue, in more or less time a lot of people will become aware of it. The Pakistani nation is old, and the very best people take matters of the Islamic world very seriously.

RFA: Is there something you’d like to say to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang?

Asad: I am a small person, and this is all I could do for you as of now. I am a powerless Pakistani citizen who can’t even speak for his rights in his own country because this would be directly linked to being like a separatist inside of Pakistan. But at least I raised my voice for you because I thought I could defend myself and that Pakistani authorities wouldn’t bother me much. … One day, inshallah, we will see East Turkestan become an independent country on the face of the earth, and we Pakistanis will be your humble neighbors who will do what’s in our best effort to support your moment and your country.

Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Chinese authorities in an earthquake-hit region of Sichuan are telling Tibetans offering support to survivors to return home, saying their help is no longer needed, RFA has learned.

More than 25,000 residents of Barkham (Maerkang, in Chinese), a county-level city in the Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, were displaced when an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale struck the area on June 10.

Government rescuers did not reach the affected area until Monday. Meanwhile, Tibetans living in areas nearby offered immediate help, with monks and townspeople providing food, clothing and temporary shelter in tents to those whose homes were destroyed, local sources said.

After Chinese rescue teams arrived on June 13, however, Tibetans offering aid were told to leave, a Tibetan resident of the area told RFA on Wednesday.

“After the official Chinese rescue teams came in, the Tibetans who had come from nearby regions to provide help were not allowed to stay and were told by Chinese authorities to leave the area for their own safety,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.

“However, the timely assistance they provided to survivors was a huge help,” the source said.

Updated figures of casualties were not immediately available. However, Chinese state media on June 10 reported one resident had been injured in the quake, with 25,790 survivors transferred and resettled.

Chinese authorities have meanwhile imposed a strict clampdown on information coming from Barkham, with residents barred from posting reports, pictures or any other information about the quake, which devastated houses, stupas and monks’ residences, a source told RFA in an earlier report, also declining to be named.

Earthquakes are common on the Tibetan plateau, with a 7.3-magnitude quake last year striking Matoe (Maduo) county in Qinghai, killing 20 and injuring 300. Authorities had similarly blocked social media reporting at that time, telling citizens to report injuries and deaths only to the government rather than sharing information online, RFA said in earlier reports.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.

A nationalistic program of Moral, Civic and National Education brought in to replace Liberal Studies in Hong Kong’s primary and secondary schools has removed references to the city’s status as a former British colony, local media reported.

Four textbooks recently released online from three publishing houses contain the sentence “Hong Kong was not a colony,” the Ming Pao and other newspapers reported.

The move comes after articles in media controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expressed the same idea.

“Before 1997, the United Kingdom regarded Hong Kong as a colony, and its use of the term “overseas dependent territory” was just another term for a colony,” a 2021 opinion piece in the CCP-backed Ta Kung Pao said in an op-ed piece dated April 10, 2020.

“But Hong Kong was never actually a colony; it’s just that the British practiced colonial rule here.”

The article dismissed British sovereignty over Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, ceded by the Qing Dynasty in perpetuity, or the New Territories, which were governed by Britain under a 99-year lease that expired in 1997.

The colonial status of Hong Kong was “wishful thinking” on the part of the British, the article, signed by Xiao Ping, said.

“The Chinese government after the Qing Dynasty did not recognize the unequal treaty that ‘ceded’ Hong Kong, and never gave up its territorial sovereignty over Hong Kong,” it said, adding that China had successfully had Hong Kong removed from a United Nations list of colonies in 1972.

It said the removal of Hong Kong from that list meant that the city wasn’t eligible for independence under post-war, post-colonial settlements like other former colonies.

CCP arguments taught as fact

Now, this CCP-endorsed argument has made it into Hong Kong schools, to be taught as fact, as part of the new nationalistic education program in the city.

Students are required to absorb, and find arguments to support, the political points made in the program, without considering arguments for and against, the Ming Pao reported.

The Liberal Studies critical thinking program, rolled out in Hong Kong schools in 2009, has been blamed by Chinese officials and media for several mass protests in recent years, from the 2011 campaign against patriotic education by secondary school students, to the 2014 youth-led Umbrella movement, to the 2019 protests that began as a campaign against extradition to mainland China and broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections.

Details of the new textbooks emerged after staff removed more than 200 titles from school libraries, including those written by pro-democracy advocates and former lawmakers.

Meanwhile, CCP leader Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the Ta Kung Pao on its 120th anniversary on Monday, commending the newspaper for its contribution to “maintaining social stability in Hong Kong” and “winning back hearts and minds”.

The letter was read out by Luo Huining, director of Beijing’s Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong, who also lauded the paper’s patriotism.

“In a diverse society like Hong Kong, it is especially necessary for the patriotic media to uphold the truth … and promote clarity,” Luo said. “We especially need journalists who will uphold their mission and act responsibly.”  

Public opinion still appears to be lagging behind CCP propaganda, however.

The Ta Kung Pao has been bottom of the class in recent polls by public opinion researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, according to Taiwan-based political commentator Sang Pu.

“They want to bring Hong Kong under complete subjugation to the CCP, and the Ta Kung Pao is a good tool for Xi Jinping to achieve this,” Sang told RFA. “The Ta Kung Pao, along with Xinhua news agency, the People’s Daily and CCTV, have played a key role in … placing the CCP’s press releases in Hong Kong [media].”

Party mouthpieces proliferate

He said the Ta Kung Pao had printed political denunciations of prominent, pro-democracy media organizations shortly before they were forced to close amid the threat of prosecution under the national security law, which ushered in an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and peaceful opposition in the wake of the 2019 protest movement.

“Xi Jinping is of the view that the media are the mouthpiece of the party, so the Ta Kung Pao counts as a media organizations, while all the rest are chaotic elements that don’t count as media at all,” Sang said. “In the view of the CCP, there is no such thing as freedom of the press.”

Sang said the removal of certain books from primary and secondary schools shows that the entire publishing industry must be walking a fine line to avoid prosecution under the national security law.

Among those removed were books about the democratic processes that developed in Hong Kong between the 1990s and 2019, when the last democratic elections to the District Council following months of mass popular protest over vanishing freedoms resulted in a landslide for the pro-democracy camp.

An autobiography by Wang Lingyun, mother of 1989 student protest leader Wang Dan, and by late ousted liberal premier Zhao Ziyang, were also among those removed from schools.

Wang said the removal of the books showed that freedom of expression was being stifled in the city.

“There used to be no taboo around June 4, 1989-related or other politically sensitive books in Hong Kong, but now they’re being removed by the education authorities,” Wang told RFA.

“Under the national security law, the Hong Kong authorities must support the government in Beijing, which has made up its mind to stifle freedom of speech in Hong Kong, and have no choice but to take them off the shelves to protect themselves,” he said.

He said the CCP’s aim is to erase memories of mass protests, and to prevent younger people in Hong Kong from being influenced by ideas like freedom and democracy.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.