By Rahul Dixit
When faced with the moment of truth on human rights of fellow Muslims suffering from Chinese oppression in the Xinjiang region, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) came up as a lame duck as 12 out of the 17 members voted in favour of China in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). While four of the OIC countries abstained from voting on the draft resolution on “holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China”, Somalia was the only OIC country to vote in favour of the resolution. Pakistan, with a brazen show of remaining a permanent vassal of China, was at the forefront of exposing its double standards as it voted against the resolution.
A recent report by a former UN High Commissioner for human rights has detailed how Chinese authorities are profiling the Uyghur Muslims kept in the camps in Xinjiang province as “extremists” for their personal choices in the practice of Islamic religious beliefs. The Chinese criteria for the religious profiling of Uyghurs include ‘wearing hijabs, keeping abnormal beards and closing restaurants during Ramadan’. Despite knowing the gory details and systematic targetting of Muslims in China, the OIC members’ silence on the issue is conspicuous. By voting in favour of China the organisation, which tom-toms on being the custodians of Muslim rights in the world, has shown an unacceptable duality.
The OIC charter asks its member nations to “safeguard the rights, dignity, religious and cultural identity of Muslim communities and minorities in non-Member States”. It has also remained on the forefront while seeking justice for Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and calling out ‘Islamophobia’ in Western nations. However, when it came to stand up against China over the rights of the Uyghurs, the organisation failed miserably.
In contrast, India showed commendable composure as for the first time it has called for respecting the human rights of people of Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region. While it continued the practice of not voting on country-specific resolutions, New Delhi was forthright in making its views known to Beijing. The contrast in the stand adopted by India and the OIC members clearly shows what ails religion-specific groupings with limited vision.
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