Blessing China’s Crimes — Why Did an Emirati Religious Delegation Visit the Muslims of East Turkistan?

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In a move that sparked human rights and Islamic condemnation and anger, a delegation of Islamic scholars from the Arab repressive regimes known for their hostility to Islamic movements, between January 8-9, 2023, visited Xinjiang, the home of the Muslim Uyghur minority, which is under Chinese occupation.

Instead of their solidarity with the persecuted Muslims, who were in dire need of such a visit to reveal the atrocities they were subjected to, China exploited these Islamic scholars in its propaganda to hide its horrible crimes against Muslims; they even blessed Beijing’s role in “combating extremism and terrorism.”

Since 1949, Beijing has controlled the territory of East Turkistan, which is the home of the Turkish Muslim Uyghur minority, calling it “Xinjiang,” meaning “the new frontier.”

Official Chinese statistics indicate that there are 30 million Muslims in the country, 23 million of whom are Uyghurs, while unofficial reports confirm that the number of Muslims is approximately 100 million, or about 9.5% of the total population.

In August 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that China is detaining about a million Uighur Muslims in secret camps in East Turkestan.

In its annual human rights report for 2018, the US State Department confirmed that China’s detention of Muslims aims to erase their religious and ethnic identity.

However, China claimed at the time that the detention centers, which the international community describes as concentration camps, are vocational training centers and aim to “purify” the minds of the detainees therein from extremist ideas.

 

Disgraceful Trip

The Islamic scholars’ visit was organized by a suspicious body affiliated with the Emirates called the World Council of Muslim Communities (TWMCC) at an official invitation from China. About 30 scholars affiliated with repressive Arab regimes fighting Islamic movements joined the delegation.

The latter was headed by Emirati Ali Rashid al-Noaimi, who advocated normalization between “Israel” and the Arab world, and justified in a statement China’s allegations that its campaign against the Uyghurs “is part of its anti-terrorism policy in Xinjiang province.”

The delegation visited the cities of Urumqi, Altay, and Kashgar, with great coverage from the Chinese state media.

China’s state-run Global Times newspaper said on January 9 that the Muslim delegation’s visit aims to clear and better understand the region in contrast to the US-led smear campaign against China.

It quoted the head of the Communist Party of Xinjiang as saying that the delegation supports China’s position on issues related to Xinjiang in the face of Western countries that spread rumors, such as the United States, to sow discord between China and Islamic countries.

The delegation included clerics from Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the UAE, and other countries.

Among them was Usama al-Sayyid al-Azhari, the religious advisor to the President of the Egyptian regime, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who caused an uproar by praising China’s efforts to combat extremism and re-melting all nationalities into one dress.

Commenting on his visit to what is known as the Museum of Combating Terrorism and Extremism, al-Azhari told the newspaper that the terrorism exhibition revealed the crimes of terrorists and showed the efforts of the Chinese government and people to combat terrorism.

Arab countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have previously arrested Chinese Muslim students studying at al-Azhar, or who came to perform Hajj and Umrah, and deported them to China, where they were tortured.

 

Grave Violations

The World Council of Muslim Communities was established on May 10, 2018, under the auspices of UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, to support Muslims in countries with a non-Muslim majority and protect them intellectually and spiritually from racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing.

According to its website, it is a house of expertise to rationalize organizations and associations working in Muslim societies, renew their thinking, and improve their performance in order to achieve one goal: the integration of Muslim societies into their countries.

It also claims that its goal is to liberate Muslims in Muslim societies from subordination to currents, intellectual and jurisprudential movements, and political parties that transcend the borders of the national state, which prevent them from integrating into their new societies.

Upon its establishment, Dr. Mutaz al-Khatib, a professor at the College of Islamic Studies in Qatar, confirmed that this council targets the Islamic presence in the West to control the future of Muslims there.

He explained, in a post on Facebook, that “Abu Dhabi is proceeding according to a comprehensive plan, not only to liquidate the Brotherhood’s activity in the Arab and European countries, but also to form very diverse policies, ideas, and blocs for control.”

He stressed that the UAE’s targeting of the Islamic presence in the West came because it was “the field that the Muslim Brotherhood dominated for decades and established Muslim entities, institutions and societies.”

Al-Khatib pointed out that the ambition of the new official Emirati council includes renewing religious discourse, managing religious affairs, and preparing Islamic leaders in the West.

He warned that this council seeks to demand the dissolution of all institutions and associations that it deems to be contrary to the ruling Arab regimes.

Therefore, al-Khatib called for “drawing a map of the personalities who walk in the orbit of this council and its geography, because the next stage will be difficult, and the issue of stifling freedoms and empowering tyranny has become globalized by the power of money, politics, and influence.”

He asserted that “there are always personalities and groups prepared to play the role of the executing instrument.”

 

Widespread Condemnation

In response to this visit, the head of the World Uyghur Congress, Dolkun Isa, confirmed that the participation of the World Council of Muslim Communities in this propaganda visit and adopting the Chinese government’s narrative is “disgraceful.”

In remarks to the Middle East Eye on January 11, he said that China often uses the pretext of combating terrorism to justify criminalizing the normal and legal practices and appearances of Muslims, such as beards or headscarves and possession of the Qur’an.

He added that these scholars had an opportunity during their visit to Xinjiang to ask real questions about the actual suffering of the Uyghurs, publicly condemn the current genocide, and show that as representatives of the global Islamic community, they care about the Uyghur Muslims, but they did not.

Union of East Turkestan Scholars called on the delegation to find out the truth about what is happening in terms of oppression, putting Muslims in detention camps, and brainwashing them to promote Chinese propaganda forcibly.

The Union stressed that the goal of the visit was to “beautify” the face of the communist regime that oppresses Muslims.

The Union stated that those who led and supervised the scholars’ visit were the employees of the Chinese security services and confirmed that their visit was completely monitored, criticizing the participation of these scholars in describing the Chinese Muslim people as “terrorists” because they just called for their legal rights.

The Uyghur American Association also criticized on Twitter the visit of the Chinese scholars’ delegation to promote repression, stressing that the members of the delegation should listen to the Uyghur Muslims talking about the war of genocide and crimes against humanity, but they did not.

Sheikh Hamid al-Ali also criticized the visit and posted on Twitter: “30 members calling themselves Muslim scholars from 14 countries, visited East Turkestan and praised the policies of what China calls ‘combating terrorism’ against the Uyghurs.