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Letters | Xinjiang Uygurs and other Muslims are paying the human cost of China’s belt and road plan
- Repression has escalated in Xinjiang after President Xi Jinping came to power and introduced the belt and road strategy
- In China’s efforts to assimilate the Uygurs to ensure the project’s success, the region has been turned into an open-air prison
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As a member of the Uygur community in Norway, I would like to express our disappointment at the opinion piece from Norwegian politician Thore Vestby, titled “Why Europe shouldn’t fall for American hype against China’s belt and road plan” (March 26).
Mr Vestby dismisses China’s abuses as merely part of a geopolitical struggle. For the Uygur people, this is certainly not the case. Behind the politics are real people who are the victims of an often brutal, authoritarian government. Furthermore, abuses perpetrated by one state do not excuse those committed by another.
I urge readers to consider the human costs of China’s policies. At the moment, reliable sources estimate that between one and two million Uygurs and other Turkic Muslims are arbitrarily detained in internment camps in the region.
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Our friends and families have disappeared into these camps and we still do not know if they are dead or alive. Former detainees have said many have been tortured.
One of the primary reasons for this persecution is the “Belt and Road Initiative” that Mr Vestby enthusiastically touts. There has been a dramatic escalation of repression in the past five years, coinciding with the appointment of President Xi Jinping, who first introduced the global project.
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