Uyghur Tribunal a ‘propaganda show’ against China

Publish: 10:14 PM, June 16, 2021 | Update: 10:14 PM, June 16, 2021

Md Enamul Hassan
The so-called Uyghur Tribunal in the United Kingdom (UK) has recently held hearings on the allegations of human rights violations and genocide in Xinjiang, the northwest region of China. The hearings have drawn international attention as western media have given them wide and uncritical coverage.

However, independent analysts and jurists have branded the tribunal as the blasphemy of the law. It has nothing to do with laws. The tribunal is nothing but a ‘propaganda show’ against China jointly produced and staged by anti-China forces.

Analysts are of the view that the tribunal is part of long-lasting anti-China propaganda aimed to draw global attention. This is designed to keep the propaganda running for long by providing the media with content for publishing fabricated stories against China based on its procedures as in hearings, charge-framing, and delivering verdicts to name a few.

If we look into the formation of the tribunal and the individuals and organizations involved with it, we can realize why the tribunal is a ‘propaganda show’ called to run constant smear campaigns against the Chinese and their government. Because all of them are well-known as die-hard sinophobes.
The tribunal was launched on September 3, 2020, with the assistance of a non-governmental organization, the Coalition for Genocide Response. The tribunal was established in response to the request made by Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress(WUC). The president formally requested Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, a British barrister, to establish and chair the tribunal.

Now we should know about the aforesaid organizations and individuals to find out the reasons for the establishment of the tribunal. The WUC is funded in part by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an international program of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US.
An article published by the US-based news site Grayzone unveiled the WUC is a US-backed right-wing regime-change network seeking the fall of China. It heavily relies on US funding and political guidance. The WUC has become a political tool for the US new Cold War and media campaign against China.

The article mentioned that nearly everything that appears in western media accounts of China’s Uygur Muslims is ‘the product of a carefully conceived media campaign generated by the WUC, which is funded and trained by the US.

The WUC, headquartered in Munich, Germany, has been backed by the NED. Many projects affiliated with WUC and its affiliate organizations also get money from the NED. For example, the main project spun out of the Uyghur American Association (UAA) and the NED is the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP). The UHRP was founded by the UAA in 2004. The NED granted the UHRP a whopping $1,244,698 between 2016 and 2019, according to the Grayzone.

The Grayzone investigation noted that the WUC is providing a constant source of self-styled Uygur dissidents and human rights horror stories to eager western reporters. The WUC and its affiliates – the UAA, UHRP, and Campaign for Uyghurs – are cited in nearly every western media report on Uygur Muslims.

Many leading members of the WUC have also worked in senior positions for Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. These US government-run news agencies were created by the CIA during the Cold War to project propaganda into China and the Soviet Union, and to stir up opposition to communism on these countries’ frontiers, according to the Grayzone.

The Coalition for Genocide Response was founded on November 4, 2019, by a few British parliamentarians and experts. One of its co-founders is Luke de Pulford, an infamous anti-China figure. He also coordinates the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China and advises the WUC, according to media reports.

Sir Geoffrey Nice, well-known for his anti-China activities, has been the lead prosecutor at the trial of Slobodan Miloševi? in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Michael Mandel, a Canadian legal academic, William Blum, an internationally-renowned American journalist and author, and others accused the ICTY of having a pro-NATO bias due to its refusal to prosecute NATO officials and politicians for war crimes.

In 2009, a conviction Nice had presided over was ordered quashed and retried after a Privy Council Appeal found his handling of the case had resulted in an unfair hearing. A report in the Jersey Evening Post claimed the actions could have cost the Jersey taxpayers millions of pounds.
Apart from them, one dozen experts have been invited to the hearings of the so-called Uyghur Tribunal to present evidence, including academics such as anthropologist Darren Byler, Chinese Studies professor Joanne Smith Finley, researcher Nathan Ruser, and researcher Adrian Zenz.

To keep the article short, I have to confine the discussion only to Adrian Zenz, the so-called Xinjiang expert spreading the lies about Muslim oppression in the northwest region of China. Zenz, a German anthropologist, is a senior fellow in China who studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. He is also a lecturer in social research methodology at the Evangelical theological institution Akademie für Weltmission.

Beyond all of his identities, the German anthropologist has risen to prominence for his studies of so-called Muslim oppression in Xinjiang. His research outcomes are the main and favorite sources of false and fictitious reports about Xinjiang run by western media. Though he has never been to Xinjiang, his so-called studies on the region have long been enjoying uncritical coverage from the media.

If we scrutinize his studies, we can realize how authentic and factual they are. For example, in 2019, the German anthropologist published a study mentioning that some 1.5 million Uighurs have been detained in Xinjiang at any time since late 2016. He claimed to have estimated the number based on extrapolations from food allowance subsidies figures of the Chinese government.

But Newsweek Japan divulged the secret of his study by reporting that Zenz’s estimates were sourced by Istiqlal, an Uyghur exile-operated media based in Turkey. The Japanese media report made it crystal clear that Zenz is spreading the statements of Uyghur separatists in the name of ‘independent studies.

The anthropologist published another study concluding that the Chinese government is running a forced birth control surgery program in Xinjiang. Many public health experts found so many flaws in the study. They questioned the correctness of his research methodology and the authenticity of its outcomes. Because, during the study, Zenz interviewed only eight women who too live in the US.

The experts also questioned if it’s rational to jump to conclusions about an entire ethnic group based on the interviews of only eight persons living abroad. But western media never bother to take those questions into account. They are indifferently disseminating the flawed studies of the German anthropologist.

Moreover, the Uyghur Tribunal is operating as a private UK company limited by guarantee, according to its website. Such companies are generally used in the UK for societies, charities, etc. It is a completely voluntary civil organization that has nothing to do with the law and trial.
Therefore, the question has arisen if a private company limited by guarantee can form and run such a tribunal? Many think it only usurps the name of the ‘tribunal’ which is blasphemy against the law. But sinophobes care little about its legality and authenticity as they themselves have established the so-called tribunal to continue propaganda against China in a new format.

Md Enamul Hassan is a news editor and broadcast journalist at China Media Group (CMG) in Beijing, China.