US leads China condemnation over barbaric East Turkestan repression

International community pushes for access to China's far western colony
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The UN says at least one million Uighurs have been detained in what China calls "recreational education centres". This one is in Dabancheng and was still under construction at the time the photo was taken on September 4, 2018.

The United States led more than 30 countries on Tuesday in condemning what it called China's "horrific campaign of repression" against Muslims in the western colony of East Turkestan at an event on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly.
In highlighting abuses against ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in China, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan said the United Nations and its member states had "a singular responsibility to speak up when survivor after survivor recounts the horrors of state repression."
Sullivan said it was incumbent on UN-member states to ensure the world body was able to closely monitor human rights abuses by China and added that it must seek "immediate, unhindered, and unmonitored" access to East Turkestan for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Sullivan said Tuesday's event was co-sponsored by Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, and was joined by more than 30 UN states, representatives of the European Union and more than 20 nongovernmental organisations, as well as Uighurs themselves.
"We invite others to join the international effort to demand and compel an immediate end to China’s horrific campaign of repression," he said. 

"History will judge the international community for how we respond to this attack on human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Negotiating access
Paola Pampaloni, deputy managing director for Asia of the European External Action Service, said the EU was "alarmed" by the situation and also urged "meaningful" access to East Turkestan.
"We are concerned about ... information about mistreatment and torture," she said. 

"China is always inviting us to the camps under their conditions, we are in negotiations right now for terms and conditions for free access."
On Monday, Donald Trump had called for an end to religious persecution at another event on the sidelines of the UN gathering. 

He repeated his comments in a speech on Tuesday.
Trump, who has been cautious about upsetting China on human rights issues while making a major trade deal with Beijing a major priority, said religious freedom was under growing threat around the world but fell short of specifically mentioning the situation in East Turkestan.
"Volume is coming up at a pace that we hope that the Beijing government recognises not only US but the global concern about this situation," David Stilwell, US Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs told reporters at a briefing.
"We will see how that plays out and how Beijing reacts and take it from there."

The UN says at least one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained in what China describes as "recreational training centres" to give people new skills.
Sullivan said the US had received "credible reports of deaths, forced labour, torture, and other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment" in the camps.
He said that the Chinese government forced detainees to renounce their ethnic identities as well as their culture and religion.
Though US officials have ramped up criticism of China's measures in East Turkestan, it has refrained from responding with sanctions, amid on-again, off-again talks to resolve a bitter, costly trade war.
At the same time, it has criticised other countries, including some Muslim states, for not doing enough or for backing China's approach in East Turkestan.
Rishat Abbas, the brother of Uighur physician Gulshan Abbas, who was abducted from her home in Urumqi in September 2018, told Tuesday's event that "millions of Uighurs are becoming collateral damage to international trade policies, enabling China to continue to threaten our freedoms around the world, enable it to continue its police state.”
UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has repeatedly pushed China to grant the UN access to investigate reports of disappearances and arbitrary detentions, particularly of Muslims in East Turkestan.
China's envoy in Geneva said in June that he hoped Bachelet would visit China, including East Turkestan. 

Bachelet's office said in June that it was discussing "full access".

Axis of Evil

China, North Korea: 2 repressive systems, 2 prisoners, 2 deaths
By Ken Moritsugu

This combination of file photos shows Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, left, in Beijing on Jan. 6, 2008, and American student Otto Warmbier in Pyongyang on Feb. 29, 2016. North Korea released Warmbier in mid-June in a coma. Imprisoned Chinese democracy activist Liu was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer and transferred to a hospital. Both men have died. The two authoritarian governments made their own internal calculations about how best to deal with the situations, in seeming disregard of international pressure and public opinion.

TOKYO — Two prisoners locked away by two repressive systems, their conditions largely unknown. When the news did come, it was sudden and bad.
North Korea released 22-year-old American student Otto Warmbier in mid-June after 17 months in detention, but in a coma. 

He died a week later at a hospital in Ohio. 

Later the same month, Chinese authorities said 61-year-old democracy activist Liu Xiaobo had been diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer and transferred from prison to a hospital. 

He died Thursday.
Both countries made their own internal calculations about how best to deal with the situations, in seeming disregard of international pressure and public opinion. 

The cases of Liu and Warmbier illustrate the lengths to which the two authoritarian governments go to control information, more so in North Korea but still markedly so in China. 

In both countries, the overriding objective is clear: survival of the ruling party.

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AN AMERICAN IN NORTH KOREA
The world may never learn what happened to Otto Warmbier.
North Korea’s media doesn’t pretend to be objective. 

It is government-controlled, and judging by its content, its main purpose is to boost the ruling Workers’ Party and the Kim family regime that is now in its third generation of leadership.
What’s known is Warmbier was detained at Pyongyang’s airport on Jan. 2, 2016, at the end of a group tour to North Korea. 

Two months later, the University of Virginia student appeared before media in Pyongyang, bowing deeply and tearfully apologizing for what he said was an attempt to steal a North Korean political banner from a hotel. 

Soon after, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor.
More than a year later came the surprise announcement that he was being released, but in a coma. 

His limp body could be seen being carried off a small plane at night at an airport in Cincinnati, Ohio.
It was far from the usual ending to the arrest of an American in North Korea. 

The U.S. government has accused North Korea of using American detainees as political pawns; in the past, they have been released after senior U.S. officials or statesmen came to bail them out.
“One of the de facto ground rules was the hostage gets returned in generally OK health,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. 

“Warmbier’s case broke that mold and has generated more questions than answers.”
His family was told he fell into a coma soon after his March 2016 sentencing. 

Doctors who examined him in the U.S. said he had “severe neurological injury” but couldn’t determine the cause.
As speculation swirled, North Korea remained silent. 

Three days after he died, the state news agency distributed a lengthy statement from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry defending its treatment of him. 

It said he had received medical care on a humanitarian basis and accused the U.S. of a smear campaign. 

No details were provided about what actually happened.
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CHINA’S “WORST NIGHTMARE”
China went to great lengths to shut Liu Xiaobo up. 

He was, after all, one of the most articulate advocates for democracy in his country, a potential threat to Communist Party rule.
His wife was placed under house arrest and security officers blocked media from trying to visit her. Journalists and friends were unable to find him at the hospital where he was being treated. 

Questions asked about him at the daily Foreign Ministry news briefings were scrubbed out of published transcripts.
Bits of information leaked out through friends, including a video call with his wife, sobbing about his dire prognosis before he died.
As word got out, China made at least a cursory stab at transparency, saying that Liu had been diagnosed with cancer on May 23 and sent to a hospital on medical parole. 

China has opened up considerably in the decades since the days of former leader Mao Zedong, and unlike North Korea, it actively tried to manage the message at the end with regular medical updates.
When confronted with demands that Liu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, be released and allowed to travel overseas for treatment, though, the Foreign Ministry responded with a familiar refrain: that outsiders should not “interfere in China’s domestic affairs.”
China released high-profile dissidents on medical grounds in the 1990s, immediately exiling them to the U.S. 

The current government of Xi Jinping has turned considerably tougher, forbidding many of its critics to travel abroad while it pursues a sweeping campaign against dissent.
“This kind of leader is their worst nightmare,” Yang Jianli, a dissident in exile in the U.S., said of Liu. 

“My guess is they will continue further tightening the society ... so that they can prevent another Liu Xiaobo from emerging.”