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Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

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Home / China / Op-eds China

Innocents Abroad: The World Muslim Communities Council Hails Xinjiang as a Religious Liberty Paradise

01/13/2023Kok Bayraq |

TWMCC is just another fake NGO, made up of bureaucrats from Arab governments who need to humor China for their own purposes.

by Kok Bayraq

The happy visitors and their Chinese “handlers.” From Weibo.
The happy visitors and their Chinese “handlers.” From Weibo.

China’s international propaganda newspaper “Global Times” reported that The World Muslim Communities Council (TWMCC) visited the Uyghur region on January 9, 2023, with more than 30 Islamic scholars from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) participating in the visit. Where did this organization, which was not well-known nor came forward on international issues before, come from? Are we to believe that Emirates scholar Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi, who had never spoken a word about Uyghurs before, suddenly became concerned about us?

Let’s look at the characteristics of the visit and Al Nuaimi’s statement: “The level of attention that we found in Xinjiang embodies [the] determination of Chinese leadership to serve all the components of the people in the region.”

Al Nuaimi and his unbelievable “Statement.” From Twitter.
Al Nuaimi and his unbelievable “Statement.” From Twitter.

Al Nuaimi’s statement implies that, during his visit, he believed in the smiles on the faces of the Uyghurs who were introduced to him, the praise they offered, and the excitement in their dances. Setting aside the fact that East Turkistan is under colonial control, it is no secret that China is a one-party state and its citizens cannot speak freely under such a regime. Not to realize that China was offering to the visitors a political sideshow, one would have to be either weak-minded or a willing player in the show.

Al Nuaimi went on to state, “We congratulate China on completion of anti-terrorism plan in Xinjiang.”

TWMCC, which quickly concluded that China’s genocide against the Uyghurs is a war against terrorism, did not visit any of the more than 100 exiled Uyghur organizations or speak with 50 available camp survivors, or hundreds of experts of the Uyghur crisis before or during the visit. Faced with an urgent international issue such as the Uyghur genocide, refusing to listen to the opinions of both sides involved in the problem and adopting a one-sided approach is unacceptable from the perspectives of science, Islam, and humanity.

Al Nuaimi was impressed by what he saw in China’s “Museum of Fighting Extremism & Terrorism in China’s Xinjiang Region.” He lectured that “it’s the responsibility of wise people everywhere to understand that the threat of terrorism and extremism is not a threat to one single nation or a single region. It’s a threat to the world.”

The visit to the Museum of Fighting Extremism & Terrorism immediately became an international propaganda item. From Twitter.
The visit to the Museum of Fighting Extremism & Terrorism immediately became an international propaganda item. From Twitter.

I wonder why the delegation could ignore the report of the UN Human Rights Council, where their countries also sit, which shows that China has included even simple religious worship within the category of terrorism. Why weren’t they impressed by the innocence and desperation of the detainees’ faces in the leaked Xinjiang Police Files? Of course, they didn’t come from stage-managed visits.

Al Nuaimi also said, “Uyghur youth need a persuasive discourse that will win their minds so that they do not fall prey to terrorist groups.”

If he had any scholarly aptitude, he would have added a sentence or two about how the Chinese state terrorism, which has imprisoned more than three million Uyghurs, is exterminating Uyghur youth. If he had a scintilla of knowledge about what was occurring in the greater Muslim world, he would have visited the residential building where 44 Uyghurs—mothers and children—were burned in a fire in front of the entire world one month ago because the doors were locked as part of China’s Zero COVID policy.

Al Nuaimi also said, “Caring for Muslims in China is [a] great necessity.” We have been hearing similar sugar-coated words every day for 70 years from China’s propaganda agencies.

In Islam, acting for one’s own interests while pretending to care about Muslims is considered hypocrisy and treason. These sins are even more serious when scholars are guilty of them.

From the online reactions to this visit, it is clear that the Uyghurs did not even want the Uyghur name to be pronounced by the TWMCC delegates—because no goodness can be expected from a hypocrite.

Al Nuaimi also stated, “China’s security and stability are not only [a] national interest of China, but [a] global interest.” Really? According to this logic, eliminating the Uyghurs from the planet is in the world’s best interest! If he had at least said, “from the perspective of the strategic interests of the United Arab Emirates,” it would have been a more sincere and understandable opinion, although unethical.

The World Muslim Communities Council delegation meets with those responsible for the genocide, i.e. the leaders of the CCP in Xinjiang. From Twitter.
TWMCC delegation meets with those responsible for the genocide, i.e. the leaders of the CCP in Xinjiang. From Twitter.

A person with a healthy sense of humanity cannot be a willing accomplice in a murder. Complicity in the genocide is the product of dire need. This may be due to two factors: one is hunger; the second is power greed. I think the representatives of Pakistan and Egypt belong to the first category, and the representatives of the UAE and Saudi Arabia to the latter.

Thus, this visit was not an independent investigation but was rather aimed at covering up China’s crimes against humanity, especially the Uyghur genocide.

TWMCC is not a true NGO, as evidenced not only by the characteristics of its visit but also by its origins and structure.

The council was established in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE is a hereditary monarchy with dubious democratic credentials, frequently accused of maintaining its power structure by imprisoning and eliminating all dissidents. It is a country with a poor human rights record as documented every year in Freedom House’s annual reports. Obviously, within such a contexts, NGOs are not really independent and become mere puppets of the government.

As famous journalist Bilal Abdulkerim once said, “This council [TWMCC] is an extension of the government of the UAE, not a civil society organization.” Moreover, the founder of the organization, Al Nuaimi, is an official in the government of the UAE, so he is no different from the President of Xinjiang Islamic Association, Abudurehap Tumuniyaz whom he met in Urumqi. The only difference is that Tumuniyaz has only a high school diploma while Al Nuaimi has a Ph.D.

TWMCC does not represent Islamic scholars, but rather is representative of the United Arab Emirates and/or Arab dictators. In fact, the presence of the former Minister of Culture of Saudi Arabia and the adviser to the president of Egypt among the group is additional proof of what it is all about.

Ali Al Nuaimi and Abudurehap Tumuniyaz. From Twitter.
Ali Al Nuaimi and Abudurehap Tumuniyaz. From Twitter.

Al Nuaimi’s statement that “Reasonable people all over the world need a safe, stable, and prosperous China” is nothing more than a political statement. Its real meaning is that for dictatorial systems to survive in the world, China, which is the leader, role model, and protector of all dictators, must stand firm and not fall.

Another fake NGO is on stage. Michelle Bachelet, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, complained that she faced pressure from more than 300 NGOs around the world not to publish the Uyghur report. Our investigation revealed that this pressure came from fake civil society organizations created by the CCP inside and outside of China.

China’s white paper also said that officials invited more than 1,000 people from more than 50 countries and organized a visit to a “vocational training center” in 2018. It was revealed that among these highly partisan “investigators” were wives of African ambassadors.

It is now impossible for the “diplomats,” “journalists,” “researchers,” and their “spouses” who visit East Turkistan to deny the Uighur genocide. The bold statements of Albanian scholar Olsi Jazexhi and Japanese UN Special Rapporteur Tomoya Obokata destroyed all propaganda along with China’s own leaked documents.

The TWMCC’s visit was also incapable of covering up the Uyghur genocide. On the contrary, it exposed the corruption of Arab dictatorial regimes and the brutality and cunning of the Chinese autocracy.

Tagged With: Muslim Uyghurs, Religious Liberty

Kok Bayraq
Kok Bayraq

Kok Bayraq is a political émigré from East Turkestan (Ch. Xinjiang) and an opponent of the Sinicization of his homeland. He left China in 1994 when his journalism got him “into trouble with the authorities,”and is now living in Washington, D.C.. His unique thoughts and feelings published in Taipei Times and Global Voice comment on the ongoing Uyghur genocide.

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