US lawmaker slams silence of Pak, Turkey, Gulf countries on Chinese repression of Uighur Muslims

Washington, Sept 29: It is outrageous that countries such as Pakistan, Turkey and Gulf states, who have led global efforts in support of the Rohingya refugees, have turned their back on the repression of Uighur Muslims in China, American lawmakers have said.

"We ought to especially call out the Muslim countries that are saying nothing," Congressman Brad Sherman said during a Congressional hearing Wednesday.

"Whether that be Turkey, Pakistan, the Gulf states, it is simply outrageous that they do so little to help the Rohingya and turn their back completely on Uighurs," Sherman said.

Uighurs - a Muslim minority group inside China - have been reportedly subject to increasing repression by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang autonomous region in the country's northwest. Human Rights Watch says China is holding at least a million Uighurs in "re-education camps" with the crackdown against the minority group growing since 2016.

Sherman alleged that China is repressing its Uighur population on a massive scale. "The Chinese government has, as noted in a recent UN meeting, turned Xinjiang into something resembling a massive internment camp shrouded in secrecy, a sort of no rights zone."

Testifying before a Congressional committee, Nury Turkel, chairman of the board of Uighur Human Rights Project, said Pakistan has had a horrible history collaborating with China.

Turkel said Malaysian leader Anwar Ibrahim is the only Muslim leader to have recently expressed concern on the human rights violations of Uighurs.

"Pakistan has been very supportive of Chinese effort to silence the Pakistani-Uighur citizens even," Turkel alleged.

"In Gulf states, particularly the UAE, Egypt has a horrible track record of deporting Uighur students, which has been also reported by various media outlets. Malaysia, in a previous administration, has also deported some Uighurs," he said.

Congressman Ted Yoho alleged that the Chinese army brought Xinjiang into modern-day China in 1949 by invasion.

"Today, the (Communist) Party is seeking to eliminate Xinjiang's uniqueness using methods ripped straight from fiction. Authorities have turned the region into a high-tech-militarised police state using cutting-edge technology to subject normal people to pervasive surveillance, including AI facial and voice recognition and forced genetic sampling," he alleged.

Sherman said there are accounts of Uighurs being sent back by Middle East countries in violation of international obligations.

Coming out in support of Uighurs, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher alleged that the Chinese government was also behind the "slaughter of the Muslims" down in Myanmar.

"We care about Muslim people in China. We care about them in Burma," he said.

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Israel broadens airstrikes in Lebanon, killing displaced families without warning

News Network

November 13,2024

Beirut: The Israeli army on Tuesday continued to launch attacks against civilians in Lebanon, targeting them in several areas without prior evacuation warnings.

However, 13 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the space of only three hours were preceded by evacuation warnings.

The attacks caused no injuries but resulted in widespread destruction of residential buildings and commercial, medical and educational centers.

The airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Bekaa region, reaching Akkar in Lebanon’s far north, erased any hope of a near-term ceasefire settlement.

The strikes were accompanied by an announcement on Israel’s Channel 14 that “the Israeli army has expanded its operations in southern Lebanon to areas it had not reached since the beginning of the ground operation.”

About 50 days have passed since Israel intensified its hostile operations in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The death toll from these confrontations and attacks has passed 3,200, with more than 14,000 wounded.

For the first time, an airstrike targeted a mountainous area between Baalchmay and Aabadiyeh on the road leading to Aley, destroying a building housing displaced people.

The mayor of Baalchmay, Adham Al-Danaf, confirmed that “the airstrike targeted a residential building in the Dhour Aabadiyeh area.”

The initial toll from the Ministry of Health showed “five people killed and two injured.”

The raids that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in the morning, unlike nightly raids before, caused huge destruction. Those who evacuated their homes after Israeli warnings, used their phones to record the collapse of empty buildings in Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abed, Mrayjeh, Laylaki and Hadath.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Tyre, where a strike on a building killed three people and injured many others, while a raid on Tefahta killed a man identified as Kifah Khalil and his family.

Attacks were widespread, with Yater and Zebqine subject to artillery shelling, a civilian being killed in Hermel, and further attacks on Bouday and an area between the towns of Srifa and Arsoun.

A raid on the town of Siddiqin killed two people and injured several others, while an attack on the Mechref farm led to one fatality and multiple injuries.

The search for those missing after an Israeli raid on the town of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, in the northernmost part of Lebanon, continued until dawn.

During the operation, 14 bodies were retrieved, identified as those of residents displaced from the town of Arabsalim in the Iqlim Al-Tuffah area of the south, along with members of a Syrian family, a mother and three of her children. Additionally, there were 10 people in critical condition.

The targeted residence belongs to a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Hashim, who is reported to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

An airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon region on Monday night resulted in yet another tragedy.

It appeared that the intended target was the Shoumer family, who just days before lost Hussein Amin Shoumer and his two sisters in a drone strike near Al-Awali River.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued additional evacuation warnings for towns in the southern region along the Litani River, which, according to estimates from the mayors, are currently 90 percent uninhabited.

In the meantime, Hezbollah announced its continued efforts to “combat the intrusions of Israeli forces and to strike military installations and towns in the north.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that it confronted “an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced it to leave Lebanese airspace.”

The party also announced that it targeted “Kfar Blum settlement with a rocket salvo.”

On the Israeli side, air raid sirens sounded in areas of Upper and Western Galilee and in the town of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings.

The Israeli army confirmed that “a drone exploded in Nesher, east of Haifa, without activating the air raid sirens,” and that “a drone launched from Lebanon crashed into a school in Gesher HaZiv, north of Nahariya.”

Israel’s Channel 13 reported the Israeli military’s assessment regarding Hezbollah’s military strength, claiming that the group currently possesses approximately 100 precision missiles, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of rockets. Additionally, it was highlighted that “there are around 200 Lebanese towns that remain unvisited.”

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